“There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise
August 2, 2023
Where to begin? There are six accompanying photo albums for you to follow while absorbing today’s blog. All make major points about the quality of your son’s summer experience.
Fishing continues to be a major enterprise here at Kingswood. The best explanation I can offer is that we have both experienced staff and plenty of boys who like go angling. Just about all catches are carefully released back to where they came from, camp fishing being more sport than survival-training.
Both Sara’s August 1 album and the one labeled Indian Pond feature many successful catches. Evidently trophies were awarded to boys who fished in our own Mother Tarleton and I’ll be darned if I can tell you why the winners elected to haul the booty around with them to dinner and council fire! (Note: These prizes are merely on loan and are handed out numerous times in any given summer. I find this amusing!)
We have truly succeeded in our request to staff to take phone cameras along with them just about all the time. Yes, they likely check their social networks from time to time, but I don’t think I have had to say “put that phone away” one time all summer long. Like me, I suppose many counselors revel in document activities well run and happily received by the boys.
Accordingly, we have in “Counselor pics weeks 5/6” a plethora of evidence of fun being had at all venues of camp, to include blowing bubbles in the bathroom, playing basketball in a monsoon, gatherings with the girls from WaKlo at Sunapee Lake and with Merriwood in our Main Lodge, foggy days, sunny days, rainbows and sunsets.
But, there is one activity that we elevate above all the rest and promote like the devil – hiking trips, both day trips and overnights. The past couple of days have been quite cool (some, like me, called them “cold,”) and with lower humidity. Perfect for hiking. Osceola and Black Mountain have separate albums submitted by the trip leaders and we have a group out on the Carter Range as well as another bunch preparing right now for an assault on Mt. Jefferson in the heart of the Presidential Range, New Hampshire’s tallest peaks.
As noted above, yesterday was windy and cold, facts largely unnoticed by, or at least non bothering to, many campers. That hot dinner of pasta and clam chowder was gleefully welcomed by all and everyone howled at the birthday bit celebrating Todd’s 50-somthingth return. Long story short, he was caught speeding by Officer Skidd and the truth was finally squeezed out of him.
The wind started slowly abating by dinner time and we decided to chance it by having the council fire outdoors. So glad we did. By 8 PM the lake was flat and a full moon was soon to be coming up over the eastern horizon. Todd celebrated his birthday by telling a good story about the winter he spent at Kingswood and playing his marquee theme song, “Rock and Roll, Let it Fill Your Soul.” Then, we stalled with a few more stories and one extra musical performance – “There’s a Bad Moon on the Rise” until that glowing orb did, indeed, arrive to put a perfect punctuation mark on the evening. I don’t think a single soul was untouched by the event.