Spectating

August 3, 2025

The program guys remain buried under the weight of details pertaining to the smooth running of Bow and Arrow Week. Yesterday, for example, the Lowers had a boat meet that lasted all afternoon long while the Uppers participated in a track meet on the ball fields. Both involve protocol beyond description, and direct oversight too, if you ask this observer. But, watch only is what I did and had a pleasurable day of it.

As you can see from both Sara’s and my album dated August 2, we both covered the same events. I admit to loving the swim races in the lanes. We set the far piers, known as the “fishing dock,” as close to the Olympic distance as possible – 82 or so feet in length – apart from the main dock, though we don’t bother to take times. “The fun is in the doing,” we insist and leave it at that.

Whenever we have canoe races, fouls galore are committed, never intentionally so far as I can tell, but boys simply do not have the strength and teamwork needed to maintain a straight course. No one ever gets disqualified, so it is every boat for itself.

I did observe good thinking by the meet directors who ran some events one boat at a time, employing a stopwatch to get accurate and fair numbers. My favorite event is the “in-and-out” race where the campers have to jump out of the canoe in mid-race and then get back in it. Seldom do matters go as planned.

What is going on with boys playing what looks like baseball but with tennis rackets and a tennis ball? That game is called “Javelinball” and I have no idea how we arrived at that name, although I have insisted for years that it ought to be an Olympic game. Soft tosses by the pitcher result in balls being put in play constantly. I’ve seen more baseball concepts at work in one-half inning of J-ball than in an entire Little League baseball game. Ask me about this.

Chess was another B&A offering that got my attention. Chess is now a Baker Valley League endorsed “sport” and Kingswood has won both tournaments this summer with ease. Not that the other camps do not, but we most assuredly have some bright kids at this place.

I had started my evening spectating by watching Gus and Lizzie going over the rules of B&A fire building and getting quite the chuckle out of Gus’s insistence that the ropes had been soaking in cold water all day long.

I ended my camp day at that same station to find the kids eating s’mores and enjoying the camaraderie so well that it was impossible to determine whose fire burned through the rope first. Good camp all around.