Without a doubt, anyone who has ever spent a summer at Nebagamon would tell you that there is nothing like a Sunday at camp. Sundays here have their own special feel to them. Whether it is the late wake up (well, late wake up for anyone outside the Swamper Village… Swampers wake up early no matter what we try!), the special meals, or the special programs, the day takes on a completely unique feel.
We began our day with a delicious breakfast of homemade coffee cake. (I am told by well-placed sources that the coffee cake breakfast is the single worst meal to be KP (kitchen patrol). These poor KPs spend more time carrying food to and from the food window than a parent of a newborn colicky baby spends ascending and descending the stairs with their little bundles of joy in an effort to get them to sleep for just a few minutes… (Yes, my children are well past that stage now, but as you can tell the scars still run deep!)
After breakfast, we all gathered at the Chuck Hirsch Shrine for our Sunday Service. For those of you who are new to the Nebaga-world, a Sunday Service is a non-religious gathering of the entire camp family. A member of our administration or senior staff presents to the camp family a topic of importance to him or her. Yesterday, our presentation was delivered by our nurse for the past 12 summers. While she is known around camp for her commitment to our health, yesterday, we saw an all new side of Amber…the surfer in her. Amber is a passionate surfer, one of those surfers to whom it matters not if it is day or night, convenient or inconvenient… if the surf is right, it is time to drop what you are doing and get out there. She spoke about the life lessons that surfing teaches us… about persistence (several years ago, I spent the day attempting to learn to surf with Amber as my teacher… yesterday she spoke of my resolute persistence that day, which I understood to be my incompetence, but I liked the way she put it better than the story I tell myself!) She also spoke about appreciating your surroundings, staying focused, and connections with people. It was a wonderful Sunday Service with a little of something for everyone. – and capped by our Sunday choir (NebagaSound) singing “Surfin’ USA.”
During the afternoon, we had normal project periods under a beautiful blue sky and 75-degree temperatures. More on normal projects another day…
And then there was dinner….
There are meals in the Rec Hall when all seems to hang on the brink. Last night was one of those nights. You see, as a camp director, I am very aware of the fact that in an institution that is home to 232 boys, control of them is maintained, as Thomas Jefferson said, only through “the consent of the governed.” There is order in our small society only because they agree to have order! All that it would take for complete chaos to break out would be for one of them to yell, “Let’s get ‘em!”… and all would be lost. The tenuous grip of control that we have over the group would be gone, and we would be begging to hold the conch shell just to get a word in from then on!
Then again, those moments in the Rec Hall are also emblematic of camp’s beauty. It is the beauty of laughing so hard with your friends that the milk comes out of your nose. It is the beauty of chanting cheers of gratitude to the kitchen for the PIZZA that you love so much. It is the beauty of dancing the Macarena with every single member of the community joining in and then belting out Disney’s “Let It Go” with not a shred of self-consciousness because everyone is doing it and giving it their all… Letting it go. It is all about volume, energy, and joy… unabashed, unimpeded (despite our best efforts) joy. I love it….
Then last night was our weekly Council Fire. A staff member writes a values-centered skit which, with the help of other staff and campers, is presented to the camp family. Of course, this is all done by the light of a huge campfire built in the center of the Council Fire Ring. Ask any camper, staff member, or alumni about Council Fires, and they will tell you that Council Fires are the most important and best part of each week. That is when we get a full understanding of the magic that is happening here at camp, the power of the connections we make at camp, and the prospects of what can be accomplished at camp. I have always maintained that if I were within five hours of Lake Nebagamon on a Sunday night, I would find a way to make it to the Council Fire ring. I would have to…Council Fires are the heart and soul of camp. (Then again, I have arranged my life in such a way that I never need to worry about missing Council Fires…clever huh?)
The topic of last night’s Council Fire was More than Meets the Eye. We watched a series of vignettes illustrating to all of us that we are better off if we dispense with our preconceived notions about ourselves, others, and situations. We were taught that we are far better off if we look deeper at each other and ourselves in an effort to see the diversity in all of us and the opportunities that an open mind affords all of us. For all of us here at camp this is a wonderful message. It encourages us to be more patient with each other, to see the good in each other, and to challenge ourselves to try new things. Great stuff.
All Council Fires are concluded with a series of, for lack of a better word, rituals that have been done in exactly the same way here for 94 years. We first engage in the Keylog Ceremony. This is a time when campers and staff, if they choose, may take a piece of wood, toss it onto the Council Fire (which by that point in the evening has burned down to a bunch of red coals) and then turn to a crowd of 200 people and dedicate the log to someone that has made a difference to them… a public thank you. We heard from 3rd graders thanking their counselors for helping them with their homesickness, campers just thanking Nebagamon for being another place to call home, and brand-new counselors thanking the people that brought them to this special time and place. The poetic beauty is that, by the end of the Keylog Ceremony, we have a raging fire once again. It is a fire generated completely by the kindness and caring of the members of our family. It is, in my mind, our very best tradition in this place that is filled with many truly great traditions, and can evoke a misty eye from even the most stolid folks… and excessively sentimental camp directors.
After the Keylogs, we bowed our heads in silent prayer for our loved ones everywhere, just as literally thousands of campers and staff have done before us, and then sang the same songs that campers have sung around the Council Fire ring since 1929. Finally, we headed back to our homes for a quiet night together with our families… in our summer homes. Not bad huh?
All is well in the North Woods…
