Deep Clean Sunday

July 2, 2023

 

Weekends, hectic worldwide, are relatively tame days here at camp.  We try to get the cabin counselors some R&R, away from boys and unscheduled.  We’ve worked out the kinks in this approach to the point where the only ones who feel even a pinch of dislocation are the administration leaders who are on call to run what we call “arena events,” large group activities that can be supervised with fewer counselors.

 

A perfect example of the arena approach were the Saturday morning “stations,” whereupon each cabin group moved as a whole through three blocks of activities.  Every boy had a time on the waterfront and so many of them got to innertube, waterski or wake surf that we gave the boats the afternoon off just like we did for 1/3 of the counselors.  The Gaga pitch was open to large contingents of boys, too, as was Pickleball, Team Handball and a host of Kingswood original games, all of which were organized to accommodate a lower level of supervision.

 

Even so, we used our large number of CIT’s, 17 or 18 rising high school juniors, to add another level of oversight. More on these boys in a future report, but I think most of them enjoyed the power of being in charge of something!

 

All the while as arena events were going on, we managed to get a group of veteran hikers off to the rugged rock slides of Mt. Tripyramid, one of our staple offerings. I’ve seen photos of this event and they will be posted as soon as the Internet gets fixed. The technician here on a soggy Sunday morning thinks the problem can be traced to the effort by his mates to lay fiber optic cable along the power and phone lines nearby.  I believe this is what irony is all about!

 

In the afternoon, a group of campers hiked the very muddy path to White Sands, a shallow area at the far southern end of the lake, where balls and frisbees were tossed back and forth.  There was not enough time for S’mores, as had been promised, so a fire was kindled in the council fire area after dinner and the treats were consumed with some fanfare.

 

The intramural Touch Football Tournament kicked off yesterday afternoon and there were as many scouts on hand as there were players as only two of the teams had coaches available for play.  Lastly, a group of counselors and boys headed off to a remote spot just north of Lake Tarleton to a place we call Sunset Cliffs.  This is a gorgeous spot and they must have enjoyed a nice sunset as well as endured some rain that fell overnight.

 

So, that brings us to this very minute:  It is raining lightly and we think that showers might be with us all day. Not so bad when this happens on a Sunday, always a low-key time at camp. Boys are in their cabins with the chore of conducting a “Deep Clean” of the premises.  Your and their definition of such a process likely varies significantly, but at least we try to get them to cooperate in things like changing linens and reorganizing their trunks.

 

A cabin meeting follows the cleanup period. I don’t know the topics for today but might comment on that come tomorrow.  Sara says she has hundreds of photos to offer once she can find time to do some editing.  Have a nice day.