Gravy Days

July 13, 2005

Disclosure: I have used this title before, probably many times over the years. However, the “Gravy Days” refer to the session days numbered 21 and beyond. If some youngster remains in the “struggling to adapt to life at camp,” category, it has escaped me, anyway. I would imagine that words like acclimation, adjustment or even transformation are ones you would enjoy selecting to make an evaluation of your son’s experience at summer camp. Hope so, because Kingswood wins if you look at it that way.

Check the three photo albums associated with today’s date and you will discover that easy contentment in boys’ faces. Even the “Bedheads” who had just awoken seem happy. Maybe it was the waffles and bacon for breakfast that had them smiling, but most were most amused by my effort to identify the shaggiest customer on the day.

All the games save one with Camp Moosilauke yesterday morning were close. Both camps wanted it that way and when we fell short by one run, 8-7, in U12 baseball, celebrated instead of a victory was the Kingswood rally from several runs behind in our final at bat.

That scoreboard display showing our intermediate soccer players up by 7 goals is accurate. This lone mismatch became evident right away, so, in the second half, we loaned Moose a few of our players to even things up. That was very good camp, gravy, if you will.

It actually cooled off quite a bit after we all dashed indoors late yesterday afternoon in an abundance of caution when the weather radar showed some thunder showers to our south and east. Boys have had tons of chances to do things by this point in time, so no one griped when the horn ended things until dinnertime.

I really like “closure” gatherings at the Pines Field stage, named “The Theater in the Pines,” where we all assembled shortly after 8 PM for a 20-minute concert put on by both campers and counselors. The songs were good, as always, but the calming effect on the audience was quite obvious to the adults on hand and boys responded nicely to Klaus’ dismissal procedure.

Only the Guides, those 15 year old types, were a bit perplexed when Klaus announced something like “Guides whose first names start with a vowel may leave,” followed by a “No, not you Henry,” thus drawing a few guffaws from the remaining crowd. Gravy.