On the night that the boys arrived, as I always do, I added the following sentence:
SO:
LET THIS SERVE AS YOUR OFFICIAL NOTIFICATION THAT ALL OF THE BOYS WHO WERE EXPECTED TO ARRIVE TODAY HAVE DONE SO AND ARE SAFELY AT CAMP.
I word it like this because every year there are a few boys who, due to extenuating circumstances, have to arrive a bit late.
I am always a bit nervous about these late arrivers because we carefully and deliberately plan arrival day and the first few days after. I worry that entering while we have already settled in will be difficult for the tardy folks and that they will struggle. It is with this in mind that I don’t allow brand new guys to arrive late. But, if it is unavoidable and makes sense, we do allow for the occasional returning camper to arrive after the session has begun.
Yesterday, three of these tardy boys finally made it to camp to start their summer adventure. Two of them were brothers from Denver, a 4th grader and and 7th grader who sacrificed their first few days of camp due to illness. The other, a 10th grader from Waukegan, Illinois, is involved in a school program that prepares kids for college.
The first to arrive was the 10th grade boy. Here for his sixth summer, he clearly was excited to arrive. If I am being 100% honest, I had always wondered about the level on which he connected with the other kids. He always seemed to do fine, but still I wondered about the depth of those connections. The timing of his arrival was not great. He got here literally seconds after I had pressed the siren button so that we could, as a camp, practice heading to the storm shelters. I ran to the Big House, where he had arrived, greeted his parents, who had never been here before, and escorted him down to the entrance to the storm shelter, hoping to catch his cabin group before they entered. As things sometimes go, his cabin group was the ONLY group to have already entered the shelter! Meanwhile, new arriver stood outside.
What was left was a parade of the rest of the Lumberjack village heading into the shelter. We ask them to engage in this drill silently… they didn’t follow directions this time! I turned to the late-arriving boy to tell him I was sorry that we missed them, but he was busy… because EVERY camper that had been here before greeted him by name, and he greeted each of them by name. There were high fives, hugs, and hipster welcoming terminology that I absolutely didn’t understand a word of. But the message was clear. I was dead wrong about this boy and his connections here at camp. Some 60 boys, all of them NOT in his cabin, expressed in a genuine and amazing way that they were thrilled that he was here and excited to see him…. and he them.
But the bummer was that his cabin hadn’t seen him yet. While the boys finished filing into the shelter and received their instructions about how things go in there, I asked that his cabin be sent up to meet us at the Big House after the drill. The beaming boy and I walked back up to his parents who had been waiting on the Big House porch. A few moments later, his cabin arrived and the boy went through the line of them, delivering and receiving huge and genuine hugs. All thrilled to connect. The parents watched in amazement, and I watched a very proud mother and father tear up as they soaked in the moment. FTW!
Later in the evening, the Denver boys arrived. Again, not great timing as the rest of camp was involved in their evening activity. I was disappointed again that the boys wouldn’t get a great greeting. And indeed, while we connected the 4th grader with his village director and one of his counselors, it was going to be a while until the rest of his cabin arrived. Bummer. But a few minutes later two boys came sprinting up to me saying “IS HE HERE?! IS HE HERE?!” I nodded, and the two boys blew through the door of the cabin (the caretakers won’t be thrilled about this extra work!) and the sounds and shrieks of euphoric 4th graders took over the air. He got his greeting….and then some!
When I turned to escort the 7th grade older brother down to the Axeman village… he was gone. And seconds later, those same sounds I had heard from the 4th grade cabin rang out from the Axeman village… just slightly more pubescent in their octaves!
I know I only focused on the experience of just a few boys today, and I am sorry for that, but their arrival experience was just so emblematic of what goes on at Nebagamon. Friendships matter, warmth matters, being welcoming matters, and using hipster words to keep the camp director in the dark matters. Broadly speaking, things here are going really well. After just five full days, Camp feels like it is in full swing, and the boys have made the place feel like home…..
Along those lines, I will share one more moment from the arrival of the 10th grade boy. After all of the greetings, I walked with him and his family out to their car to grab his bags and transport them down to the cabin. When we got to the car, I told them it was time to say goodbye. I tried to avert my attention from them, but still saw enough to see a full family in tears as they said goodbye. It was very touching… clearly a close group. As the boy and I drove off towards his cabin in our truck, I noticed he was still quite teary. I said, “Hard to leave home isn’t it?” He looked me straight in the eye and said “I am home.”
All is well in the North Woods…
