Greetings from Camp!
Yesterday was our annual Bi-Camp Meet. The opportunity to get together with our good friends from Camp Northstar once a year for a great day of competition is one of the more prideful days for me each summer. First, it should be noted that there are not a ton of camps out there with whom it would make sense for us to have an all-day competition. However, our friends at Northstar see the world very similarly to us. Our views on what camp is supposed to do for kids and the role that different levels of competition play in getting those things done for kids, are in line. Therefore, the opportunity to engage with them in a full day of competitions is a great deal of fun.
Over the course of the last week, we have assembled chess, cross country, tennis, archery, riflery, sailing, swimming, and canoeing teams. Now, getting this done at Nebagamon is a fairly tricky task. Certainly there is great interest in representing camp on one of these teams, but then again, there is great interest in wilderness trips and in the normal in-camp program. I mean, being a part of the Bi-Camp canoe team for one day is a lot of fun, but our kids often have to weigh that fun against the opportunity to spend five days in the pristine Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Needless to say, the canoe team often suffers. Nevertheless, we are able to assemble great groups of kids to participate in the competitions. It is always a great day.
But beyond the games, it was just nice to have our friends from Northstar over for the day. Northstar and Nebagamon have always had a special relationship. The current director of Northstar is as close as a friend as I have in this business and the founder of Northstar was originally a Nebagamon camper. Consequently, we share a lot of traditions and a general camping philosophy. This makes for a great annual get together. This was truly on display at lunch yesterday. As it turns out, there are a couple of Northstar staff members that are close friends with a couple of Nebagamon staff members in the off season. In fact, the group has been making music together in the off season for years now. So…yesterday, they asked if they could play during lunch. This resulted in a relatively spontaneous jam session that turned our normally hurried Bi-Camp picnic into a two hour affair with guys from two camps enjoying music, getting to know each other and generally having a wonderful time.
The competitions themselves are also another reason that I feel so good about the day. It reminds me of what a special thing we have going here. Our boys compete in this day for exactly the right reason…….because they have fun doing it. While we undoubtedly have some terrific athletes, chess players, sailors, and target shooters, that has little to do with what happens this day. Our boys just love being on the team. This is true for our swimmers that eked out a victory. It is true for our sailors, who probably ended in a tie….but nobody really knows for sure. It is true for our tennis players who played an amazing series of matches and lost by a nose. True as well, for our chess players who…..um….strategerized their heads off and pulled out the victory. It is true for our cross-country runners who braved the heat, put forth an incredible effort, and were bested by our Northstar friends.. True too for our canoeists, who after patching together a team of boys with, in some cases, very limited experience, paddled their hearts out and wound up winning the match in a tie breaking and totally thrilling canoe tug of war. It was also true for our target shooters and archers who were able to win their competitions as well.
AND NOW THE WEATHER….
If you have been following the weather reports over the past few days (ok….admit it, as much as you pretend to be living your own life there, one of the first things you do in the morning is check the Lake Nebagamon weather report! It’s ok….rest assured that your children are CONSTANTLY asking me about the weather back where you are too!), you will notice that are about to experience a few pretty hot days up here. With daily temperatures approaching the 90’s for the next three days and quite high humidity, we will likely really be feeling it. Well….let me clarify. When I say “we will be feeling it” what I mean is “we ADULTS will really be feeling it feeling it!” You see, the whole complaining about the weather thing….that is a grown up thing. I mean think about it. Can you remember the last time that you were sitting at the dinner table with your 11 year old and he broke out into a riff about how the humidity was really dragging him down? It just doesn’t happen. They seem impervious to it all. Rather, the only evidence we will likely hear of the kids being affected by the weather is when we might one say, “Hey, I’m kinda hot….let’s go swimming!” And, luckily for your kid, he is in a place this month where, when he is kinda hot, he gets to go swimming!
With this in mind, we are going to be hosting an all-camp beach party this evening. There will be all sorts of fun and games down at the waterfront to make it the place to be in camp (well….if you ask me, the waterfront is always the place to be…but I don’t usually say that aloud given that we have 15 projects NOT located on the waterfront!) We will set up a beach volleyball net for some games. We will be blasting some Beach Boys music all night. There will be some picnic tables in the water for playing cards while wading.
But mostly….we will just be spending a ton of time splashing around in a lake in the North Woods.
I love this part of the camp experience. The Camp Nebagamon beach is not a waterpark, not a fancy swimming pool with fancy pool toys, no giant blobs, and not a beach resort with jet-skis and wakeboards….this is a lake…..just a plain old lake (ok…well maybe not a plain old lake….we are talking about, hands down, the best lake in all of Wisconsin!) with the only adornments being a pretty rudimentary waterslide and a diving board attached to a wooden raft. The fun in this lake comes from one primary source…. it comes from the kids themselves. The games played at the lake are largely kid invented games, with kid invented rules, and kid sensibilities dictating them (with staff making sure that kid safety sensibilities do not rule the day!). They are great games that involve running in the water, splashing, and excellent flying knee drops (performed with just about the same levels of reality and true contact as one would expect in the WWF!).
As much as I, as an old guy, truly struggle in the heat and humidity of these days, these days are also what summer camp is supposed to be. You are supposed to spend the day outside and get all sweaty. You are supposed to not mind the fact that all of you don’t quite smell as pretty as you might! You are supposed to spend the day down at the plain old lake splashing around with your friends and making up games to play in the water. Who can do the best underwater handstand? Who can hold their breath the longest? Who can dominate a game of 500 while being splashed? Summer stuff…..lake stuff…..kid stuff….camp stuff.
Personally, I am really good at holding my breath underwater…..I am headed down to the lake right now to show those runts what it takes to be the boss!
All is well in the North Woods…..
