Perhaps I have been harping on this theme for too much. However, one cannot deny that the weather so far has been lousy. That’s the bad news; the good news is that we have been quite the active camp nevertheless.  Savvy administrators, experienced counselors and agreeable boys have let to successful outcomes in just about every camp activity so far this session.

 

I cannot recall the last time Sunday all-camp meeting occurred indoors, but come high noon yesterday the rains were still coming down so Rob and Klaus led a nice conversation in the Dining Room about the various strategies associated with making and keeping friendships. Both men are good at what I call “rearticulation,” meaning that they start off with camper commentaries and respond by saying the same thing in words that everyone can both hear and understand.  Thus, we actually preach to the kids without them even knowing it.  Try this at home!

 

Those smart camp leaders, referenced in paragraph one, kept a keen eye on the radar and saw some relief later in the day. By 4:30 we had the campers running and playing, a plan that played out until after 8 PM when the ice cream party put an end to a non-washout day.

 

My phone camera picked up on some of the indoor stuff once I got the word on the staff network  (Slack) that the Main Lodge was teeming with boys.  By the way, to play pool or piano, one has to be certified, a Kingswood term meaning the counselors have verified that a boy “knows what he is doing and respects both game and gear.”  You don’t have to be good at it, understand, to be allowed to hone your game without a counselor standing over you. Those pool photos were among my favorite ones of the day as was Ezra at the ivories playing a bit of Mozart.

 

After dinner, I went up to the football games and thus cannot tell you what “Obstacle Chess” was all about or the ??? next to a CIT meeting.  “It might be something good and it might be something bad” is the standard Kingswood prompt.

 

Each team in the football tournament has a senior and junior squad.  You can see the blue/white colors of one team and the red/white combinations of the other. For two more weeks, these teams will vie for seeding in the elimination rounds of week 4.  Thus, no matter the scores at present, all teams stay alive until the last week of the session.  Good camp.

 

Sara put up an album entitled “Other week 1 photos.” Two sets of photos show local overnights to Pirate Cove and Sunset Cliff.  Lots of shots show boys doing the very popular wake surfing behind the “Ferrari boat.”  U-12 soccer players are pictured at Moose Scoops, while the best photo of them all shows Rory starting the fire at Sunset Cliff by dousing the somewhat damp kindling with suntan lotion, an experiment that did indeed provide the necessary spark.

 

Rain or shine, Camp marches onwards.