June 30, 2024

Deep Clean Sunday

Before you read this blog, go to the photo albums and treat yourself to my Sunday breakfast staple known as RIGHT NOW.  Those photos all were taken withing the last hour and come the closest to allowing you to be a fly on the wall.  Very little editing goes into this exercise and if your son is not smiling, too bad for you. I can tell you with assurance that after one week, we have mostly happy boys here at Kingswood.

Yes, a few of them are not happy, yet. It takes 21 days to assimilate all of our charges for the session. A scientist I am not, but my experience tells me that we have to be patient with boys.  Remember yesterday, when my blog was interrupted?  I was summoned to the Main Lodge to “tell stories” to a bunch of boys who had requested some tales from the very olden days!

I told some beauties which were overheard by Raven, who described me as having covered gore, brutality and wanton mischief. That’s the way camps worked in the 1950’s and while it makes for some entertainment to hear these vignettes, camp is a much better and happier place today than it was back then.

I concluded by telling the story of a boy named Alfonso, from Venezuela, who was at camp in the early 1990’s.  He arrived at camp knowing nobody and not speaking a word of English.  He was chronically miserable, regardless of the loads of TLC we heaped on him.  Finally, I called his mother and told her that finally we had encountered a case we could not crack. She absolutely insisted that he stay on and tough it out.

That call came on day 20 or thereabouts and soon thereafter, Alfonso surrendered to the fun of camp.  Six years later, he came forward to receive his special Kingswood gift that goes to those veterans of camp. “What about his English,” the boys asked me yesterday.  “Perfect.”

I won’t lie to you; I thought yesterday was wretched. Sara’s photos, however, reveal some outdoor action but mostly the boys preferred to remain indoors. When Mike announced extended rest hour followed by Cabin Carnival, the cheers went up from the crowd. More cheers came at dinner when the campers were promised a movie in the Dining Room or a televised soccer match in the Great Room – with candy treats!

Like many of the boys, I came to breakfast in long pants, as yesterday was so thoroughly cold.  Bad call, as much warmer and humid weather has overtaken us.  As they say, if you don’t like the weather in New England, wait a minute.

Sunday mornings are very low key.  Extended time is scheduled for things like changing bed sheets and doing extra chores about both the cabin and the grounds. Cabin meetings are conducted by the counselors and are very local in scope and agenda.  We meet as a full camp at high noon to start planning for the upcoming week.

P.S.  There are definitely some gremlins in the Internet works and one of my blogs actually disappeared.  Rob and I played with the program a bit and sort of see the problem.  I think everything now is “up” but perhaps not in the right order.  You can take it from there.