OBE

July 24, 2025

OBE – Overtaken by Events—is a military phrase that applies to me at the moment. So much is happening at camp that I do not know where to start.

Of course it is yet another blue-skies morning, albeit a bit warmer and a tad humid, at least for these parts. I let off a sigh of relief when Mike informed me that we were headed into a relatively normal day, just moments before describing several activities on the agenda for this day. Last night after dinner, I overheard one camper remarking, “I have no idea what I am going to do,” uttered in such a way as to reveal a certain delight with his dilemma.

At the moment,  we have 73 staff tending to the needs of 161 campers. We are “deliberately overstaffed” in the sense that we can offer loads of choices to the boys, have all of them well supervised, and even execute many of those precious “one-on-ones” between counselors and campers.

For example, it took Mike much longer than normal to describe all the A-Block (3-4:30 pm) choices for the boys at lunch. And, when I accused him of being a bit over-zealous, his response was, “Well, we have the staff to do it all.”

Originally, I was going to title today’s blog “A Sense of Urgency” to describe the full-throated coaching and instruction I witnessed all day long. “Urgency” is probably not the right word as no one went anywhere near panic mode. But commands were brisk, to the point, and carefully selected by the counselors running everything from lacrosse clinics to woodworking.

All of Sara’s photos from yesterday were on the water, from the morning Lake Swim to the afternoon trip down to White Sands at the southern end of the lake, to ball tossing/catching off the tower as dusk rolled in. She wants you to know that she is event-driven, meaning she covers special events, or very popular ones.

Neither of us keeps a scorecard of whom we photograph and that does not mean your son is missing in action when he does not appear. Also, she tends to home in on the visages while I often capture wider images to include the setting as well as give you the chance to imagine seeing your son in there somewhere. As I always say, “Yup, that’s him.”

Several photo albums now posted relieve me of some of my OBE angst, and, happily, most do not require an explanation. One exception is the after-dinner gang that assembled at the end of the docks at the tower. One at a time, they timed jumps so to catch a tennis ball tossed by Andy L. in the game that bears his name. The goal: Catch and toss the ball mid-air through the small ring buoy at the other end. The buoy has been “struck” four times in five camp seasons but no one has ever put one through the hole. “That’s why they come,” chuckled Andy.