On the Home Front
June 27, 2005
There were signups again after breakfast, but not for trips this time. We do sports, too, you might ascertain. Last evening the U-14 hoopsters (boys who were 14 years old or younger on June 1) engaged their Pemi (Camp Pemigewassett) counterparts. They played hard and cohesively but were overtaken by a Pemi lad, who was 13 going on 21. Nonetheless, the team earned a nice round of applause at the breakfast report.
Today we have several games with our four camp neighbors in the Baker River Valley league. You will see the acronym BVT quite a bit in this and future blogs. That references a round-robin tournament where each team gets three games in the span of the afternoon. Kingswood winners get a trip to Moose Scoops ice cream stand in nearby Warren, NH.
More importantly, the boys simply have to sign up to “make” the team. This requires some clever arranging by the program guys, since we want just the right number of players to give everyone some decent playing time. I think I heard Mike Wiff talk about organizing swimming trips to nearby waterfall swimming holes, a tactic he often employs to siphon a few lads off the teams that are over the limit.
I thought that at times yesterday it was uncomfortably cool and I might have been the only person in the country making that complaint. Accordingly, Sara’s photo album is plastered with sports pix. I always contend she should work for Sports Illustrated; her pictures are so good.
The intramural touch football tournament got underway yesterday and Sara was there to capture some fabulous pix. Boys love wearing those special Kingswood team jerseys, which are reversible to have a dark side and a light side, making team match ups quite easy. They also practice those menacing looks, as the team photos reveal. We all know why that is with boys, correct? All teams stay alive until Week 4, when the elimination rounds occur.
Last evening, we had our first council fire session of the summer. Morgan built a nice fire that was already burning at 8:15 when everyone was summoned down the hill to the brand-new bench assembly down at the water’s edge. Council Fire, while fun, is a solemn camp tradition. I reminded the boys that the early inhabitants of this area used the council (meeting) fire to discuss life and death matters, like finding food and surviving the winter.
It was a nice evening, quiet on the lake, and we even got a rainbow without it having rained, a first for all of us. Rob and I engaged them with more information about the environment we are in. Boys were very cooperative. The evening concluded with some great music by the counselors followed by the camp song and taps. A tired gang it was that wordlessly headed up the hill, dismissed one cabin at a time by Klaus to the accompaniment of soft guitar music.
PS:
Some more trips pix are up. Those Black Mountain trampers are attempting to push “Tipping Rock” into the abyss. It does move back and forth a tad when shoved.
What a trip those Garfield people had. The caretaker of the tent-platform campsite (unfortunately necessary these days) shows the group how they compost all waste. The kids paid close attention.
Looks like we hiked today again. The trail up Mt Piermont starts just beyond the left field fence of the Little League field, so this one seems close to home. Note that the entire Waterfront cabin group joined up. A good sign!
Just found this at 6 pm.