A Summer...First Session

Robby’s driving myself and a few others on a last-ditch tubing run, when Swiryn comes in over the walkie-talkie.

…not that I don’t love campers. I was just hoping to get a run in. Ah well. Time to be a counselor.

The campers arrive at approximately 4:22 PM every summer, and today is no different. As we speak, Leb is on a Grayhound with a bunch of crazed, insanely-excited campers, driving north from Chicago and Milwaukee. A.J. and Ari are on the other Grayhound, and Dan, Shlensky, B.G., J.R., and the other trippers are driving the vans that will pick up the campers flying in to the Minneapolis airport. Meanwhile, the rest of us await the arrival of the Chicago U-Haul that is carrying all of the Chicago luggage. That will arrive at around three, and when it does the bell will ring and we’ll all hustle down to just outside the Lodge in order to begin separating the luggage, getting the Juniors’ gear separated from the Ridge gear, and getting the Villa bags on Tom’s truck to be pulled up to the Villa. Until that time, we are free to do whatever we please…except for the fact that a small number of campers are dropped off by their parents, arriving in the early afternoon, and when one of your kids arrives, you’re on. I head down to the Lodge and greet my first camper of the summer, a kid I know by name and face but not much beyond that, and we walk up to the cabin and begin getting him situated. It’s no biggie; I’m always excited for my cabin, and I’m particularly excited for this group since they are 14-year-olds, and we immediately start rapping about the ride up and the summer ahead, and I ask him if he would like to hustle down to Ski Point and do some tubing, and he grabs a swim suit and a towel and we’re on our way.

The bell rings at three, and we bring the boat in, dry and change, and head down to the Lodge to begin the baggage sorting. Shortly thereafter, we get a call from Leb telling us that the buses are now passing through town and will be arriving in about twenty minutes. One person then takes one of the walkie-talkies and runs back down to the totum pole arches and waits for the buses to arrive. I took over that gig two years ago. Why? I have no idea. I probably thought it was fun. And it is.

I am waiting by the arches when I hear a deep rumbling coming from down Boys Camp Road. Wait for it. Wait for it… The first bus comes around the curve, and I blast onto the walkie, screaming “They’re here! Ring that bell! Ring that bell! The buses are here!”

The bell rings, non stop, and as the staff report to the hill I wait for the first bus to reach the arches. I see Leb inside, and he tells the driver to stop, and the doors swing open and I charge up the stairs and let out a crazed “Are you guys ready for camp??!!!” and every kid on the bus screams as if Sosa[1] or somebody has just gone deep. And then I quickly shift out of Counselor-Mode and talk quickly and quietly to Leb.

Leb tells the driver to begin honking, and he does, and the counselors in the buses behind us apparently tell the other drivers to do the same, and they do, and the buses pull down Villa Road and past Tennis Mike’s court and Mike Hall and then park in front of the hill, and the counselors run over, wait for the buses to be completely still, and then begin pounding them with the palms of their hands. I run out of the first bus and join my fellow counselors as we form two lines on either side of the doors—six lines total for three buses—and proceed to greet each camper who gets off the bus with cheers and applause and hellos to the ones we know. After all of the kids are off the buses and all of the luggage is unpacked—and then still after all of the Minneapolis vans have arrived, unloaded, and unpacked—the staff gathers all of the campers around the flag pole as Leb prepares to announce the cabins.

But all of that unloading and unpacking takes a while, and so there is a time granted for everyone to say hello to each other, often for the first time since the buses rolled away the summer before.

The whole thing is a trip. While returning campers are generally totally cool with the process, it is entirely terrifying for young/new campers and staff alike. As a new camper, it’s simply bizarre. You spend nine hours on a coach bus, pretty confined, and though there is fun and excitement on the bus, it’s all stuff you’re used to. Then you pull into camp, and a bell starts ringing, and the driver starts honking, and the counselors start banging like mad men on the side of the bus, and then you step off into this overcharged mess of screaming people who appear to be adults but are behaving like sugar-mad middle schoolers, and then you realize that these are the very people who will be responsible for taking care of you for the next four to eight weeks, and your head blows up. I wasn’t scared in 1993; I was simply confounded. What is this place? What in the hell is going on?

All in all, it’s basically Shawshank all over again, albeit a tad nicer. Instead of a siren we have a bell, instead of screaming “Fresh fish!” and shaking the fence we smack the hell out of the bus and cheer the campers’ arrivals…and I suppose there’s nothing comparable to marching all of the campers into the Lodge in connecting chains, stripping them nude, hitting them with the delousing powder and issuing them a pair of basketball shorts, a t-shirt, and some gym shoes...but it’s fun to think about. (In fact, I’ve always secretly hoped that just once a new camper would interrupt Leb during the “The bathroom’s are over there!” bit by asking “When do we eat?”, only to have Leb give Swiryn or somebody the eye so that he could walk over to the camper and say “You eat when we say you eat! You shit when we say you shit! And for godsakes, you shower every night! I mean, it’s time for you to take an active interest in your own personal hygiene, if for no other reason than that you’re going to be sharing a cabin with nine other people. You got that you maggot-dick motherfucker?” And of course, this would be followed by Leb’s opening night grace: “Put your faith in the Lord. Your ass belongs to me. Be seated! Junior K.P.’s!” It won’t happen, but a fella can dream, can’t he?)

As for me, I remember being 11 and stepping off the bus, and all of these adults were yelling and jumping around, and one of the Australian counselors all of a sudden busted out the ol’ “Aussie! Aussie! Aussie!” with everybody else providing the requisite “Oy! Oy! Oy!” and I just turned to a fellow new camper who I knew from home and said “Do you have any idea what’s going on right now?” and then we were circled up and parceled off and off we went. It was madness.

So that’s the new-camper experience, and I can say from experience that it’s rather startling. For the staff though, things aren’t that bizarre, but it’s still overwhelming. For us, it’s simply the terror of being flooded by all of these kids. If you’re a new counselor, you are all of a sudden surrounded by children, all of whom appear to know each other as well as most of the counselors. All in all, that’s not so bad. In its way, it’s much worse as a returner, because there’s always a good number of campers you don’t quite remember, and also a bunch of kids who have gotten taller or zittier or grown their hair out or something, and no counselor wants to call a camper by the wrong name, especially on the first day of camp. So we end up being super excited with the kids we know, super friendly and inviting to the campers we obviously don’t know, and rather timid around the kids who look kind of familiar. There’s nothing worse than giving a kid the old, “Hey buddy. How do you like camp so far?” and having them respond with the always heart-piercing “Abu, it’s my second year.” Ouch.

“Before we get started, there’s a few things you need to know. First of all, if you need to go to the bathroom, the wash house is over there!”…and as he says “there” he swings his arm around his body to point towards the wash house, and anyone who knows what is happening joins Leb in the arm-swing-point, cheering after the word “there.”

“Also, we are going to eat dinner at six o’clock, and we eat right over there!” And another point, and another cheer. “And in case any of you were wondering, the lake is right over there!” He introduces Sue (“SUUUUUUEEEEEE…”), and then Shlensky, and then proceeds with the cabin announcements. “In cabin Junior One…”

Counselor teams often work out some kind of funny intro to do when they are announced, and since Gibbs is going out first—Gibbs before Silverstein—we decide that he will run out and jump around crazily followed by me running out and jumping into his arms, but I lead with my shoulder and accidentally nail him right in the jaw. No blood, everything’s cool. Our kids are announced, and since they are 14 and mostly returners they know the drill. “And you…are…outta here!” And off they scamper off to claim their bunks.

When Leb hired me in the spring of 2002, he asked me what I had been up to for the previous four summers.

“Well, I was a counselor at Tamarak Day Camp for two summers, and then in 2000 I was an assistant coach on a Little League All-Star team in Evanston…”

As it turns out, that conversation was tremendous. It is beyond fun playing softball every day. That’s my job. I play softball. Am I particularly good at softball? Of course not. But who cares? I’m good at teaching it.

The wakeup bell rings at 8, and a half hour later the bell rings for breakfast. Everyone is expected to be at breakfast at the bell. I shower every morning between 8 and 8:20, which, if you know me, sounds like an impossibility, but it’s not really. Actually, it’s pretty easy. I am in bed every night by around 1:15 latest, and since I have to get up by 8:28 the latest, getting up at 8 in order to shower (which I must do every day lest I feel dirty and not awake) is an easy tradeoff.

The day goes from there, and it is swift yet relaxed; the precision of the schedule keeps everyone active while the change of the schedule keeps everyone interested.[2] In turn, a day on the softball project is packed full and measured. Since I’ve been on softball about twice a day for three summers, I’ve been able to bring a good sense of continuity to the project, which works out well. The period begins with myself or the other counselor grabbing the bats and the balls out of the ball shed. “Grab a ball, grab a buddy, and start warming up.” After a bit of a warm-up, and once all of the kids have arrived, all of the campers sit on the bench. We then invite one camper to stand with us and lead us in “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” which, naturally, must begin with “A one…a two…a three.” (And it should be noted that I am an equal-opportunity singer selector, even if it means taking a Sox or a Cardinals fan.)

After the singing comes a few drills. We usually do a short-to-first drill for the first few days, trying to get it flawless, and once everybody seems to have it, we move to a double play drill. The key is to keep it moving and keep it excited. This is particularly important when it comes to the water break, which can be a big problem if you don’t do it right. Again, the key is to keep it moving by having one counselor jog everyone over to one of the water fountains with the other counselor jogging behind the group, screaming things like “Don’t let me beat you there. Nobody behind me.” Then it’s a count down at the drinking fountain followed by a jog back. You literally have to jog them over and back and press the button yourself and do the count down. Otherwise they drag ass there and back, and by the time the water break is over you’ve got 16 kids who just want to sit. No good. There’s also the fruit problem that we have to contend with, which is that the kitchen now leaves a bowl of fruit out in an effort to encourage random fruit-eating…which is great except for the fact that all of these kids who won’t touch a piece of fruit otherwise suddenly want nothing more than to spend the next twelve minutes peeling and eating an orange, which of course leaves orange peels all over camp.

So the water break can be a strain, but if the best defense really is a good offense, then the best way to combat the water break malaise is simply by creating an exciting and engaging period. Ultimately, it’s all about the games. Get a good one going, and campers don’t even think about water. Counselors pitch, just to keep things moving, and I’m happy to say that we’ve gotten rid of the old “no strikeouts at North Star” deal, which I always thought was silly. Instead, we do strikeouts on three swinging strikes. You really don’t learn anything if you get to swat at pitch upon pitch.

After the game ends, as we do at the end of all athletic competitions at camp, we give it the old 2-4-6-8, as in “Two! Four! Six! Eight! Who do we appreciate? The other team. The other team. Yeah, the other team.” And of course if the other team has a name, then the name is used. Hand shakes and high fives all around, and we put the gear away and move on to wherever we might be going next.

Ah, Wanegan. You beautiful whore. King Ari has just introduced his Wanegan Staff for the campers, doing a King Arthur skit with the staff all being different knights. I was Sir Snickers of Nuget, a wonderfully delectable choice. From there we hustled over to Wanegan with the verve and gusto of Frank the Tank “streaking through the quad to the gymnasium,” and quickly divided into two groups: inside and outside.

The king stands on the platform outside of the sliding window with about half of the staff, and while the campers stand in their line and sing the Wanegan song, we on the outside begin the Slide ‘Em’s. The king usually starts, banging on the closed sliding window three times, prompting the inside staff to yell “WHAT??!!!” in an emphatic and rather annoyed manner. The person on the outside then yells “Slide ‘em--” and then the name of a former North Star person, generally a blast from the past one-and-done type deal. If this were the Bears’ tradition, then it would be Brian Urlacher beating on the window and yelling things like “Slide ‘em Rico McDonald!” or “Slide ‘em Carlos Huerta!” at which point all of the inside Bears—or in this case, the inside staff—would yell back “No! No! Never! Never! Uh! Uh! Uh!”

…only we use names of old camp guys, names you’ve never heard of, ones that I will not list here out of respect for the listed.

And with that, the guys on the inside slide open the doors, and Wanegan begins. The campers walk up the steps of the platform, and as they make their selection from about five or six boxes of candy, we chant their names in a repetitive move-along manner, such as: “DERREK, LEE…ARAMIS, RAMIREZ…WAVIN’, WENDALL…” We also use nicknames, eschewing the names at times in order to have more fun, as we did with the camper whose last name was “Gore” by chanting “FOUR MORE YEARS!” over and over as he grinned, laughed, and selected his candy. But most kids go by their real names, and so we keep things moving with name upon name. This can create some problems, however, as there are always kids whose names we are not entirely sure on, especially at the beginning of the summer, but hopefully between the eight or so guys on staff, we can come up with every name. Of course, even if we’re not sure with one kid, there’s always the “tag method,” wherein we simply pause the kid and grab a peak at the tag on his t-shirt…and since all of the moms label their kids’ clothes, it’s a pretty good bet that you’ll be saved by the tag…unless, of course, a kid is wearing someone else’s shirt, which is always possible.

But that’s all pretty standard. There are many other games that go on at Wanegan. Some of my favorites:

There is also the now-defunct Key Log Wanegan, in which one camper known to be fleet of foot had to run to the Council Ring and return with a Key Log. This was banned last summer after it was deemed too time-consuming and borderline abusive. And of course new Wanegan gags are created each summer to cater to specific campers, like when we realized that we had a pair of brothers who were math geniuses, and so we would pit them against each other for quick multiplication challenges, or when we have campers in the musical perform quick snippets of their songs from the show.

It’s all fun and games, and all done with campers known to be confident in themselves. We also have a bit called the “Magic Number” in which one camper who is having a tough go of it—be it homesicknesses or simply trouble fitting in—is given extra candy in a maddening craze of screams and waving hands and a flurry of chocolate and rich gooey nuget. Of course the campers don’t know that; they really just think that there is actually a magic number, and that the “nth” camper to walk through wins. There’s usually a quick discussion beforehand as we assemble in order to determine which camper is most in need of a pick-me-up, and when he walks through we halt the line by screaming “WAIT! WAIT! IT MIGHT BE! IT COULD BE!” and then the guys on the inside “look at the wall” as we ask them if “this is it,” and of course it is, and so we scream out “IT IS!” and proceed to pick the camper up and stuff his pockets with candy. We then have one counselor escort him off of the platform and away from the hoards of kids trying to grab the excess candy away from him, and since most of the kids at North Star are nice kids, the sad camper excitedly shares his candy with his cabinmates. It’s a good time.

The campers march through, and once they have their candy they leave the platform and eat their candy. Naturally some kids attempt to sneak through twice, but we always catch them as it is easy to remember who has been through based on the fact that we’ve just chanted their names. And of course there are reprocussions for attempting to sneak in a second time, namely a week in the hole for first offense, along with the camper being pulled from their one-room Hilton and being cast down with the Sodomites. Yeah, that’s right. You heard me correctly. Or am I being obtuse?

The sports news comes slow. We get the big stuff and the scores, but that’s it. I remember hearing that Harry Caray’s famous home run call of “It might be…it could be…it is!” was born out of necessity from his days as a radio man, in which he would announce games based upon the small summaries coming in over the ticker-tape machine. That’s all he had. And with no way to watch or listen to games on a regular basis along with no SportsCenter and being generally cut off, that’s all we have as well. Just a little ticker-tape in the form of random pieces of information. You learn to forget about the day-to-day stuff and just focus in on the trends. Someone goes online one day and finds out that Derrek Lee went 3-4 with three runs scored and three driven in (64 on the season) off of two home runs (22 on the season), raising his average to a league best .395…and oh by the way, the Cubs lost 8-7 to Milwaukee, and are eight and a half back of St. Louis. Oh, and St. Louis is four games behind the White Sox for best record in the bigs, with the Sox cruising at 49-22, nine and a half up on Minnesota. So you are happy that Derrek Lee has become a triple crown threat, and you are happy that the Cubs are not out of it in late June, and maybe you are even happy to know that the White Sox are still putting a mondo-hurting on everybody…and then that’s it, and you return to whatever is happening at camp. It’s not like being home, where that stuff consumes you, where you begin picking apart each one of Derrek Lee’s at-bats or making graphs on Microsoft Excel in order to track the number of games in which the Sox get seven or more innings from their starting pitcher. You get the news, you store it away, and you move on. Two, four, six, eight.

My cabin is awesome. They are a fun, chill group that loves camp and enjoys each other. Sure they’ve had their disagreements—it’s bound to happen when you have ten teenagers living together for a month in relatively small quarters—but nothing of note. Today we returned from our five-day hiking trip in the U.P., and it was one of the best trips I’ve ever gone on. There are five trippers at camp, with B.G. acting as trip director and J.R. acting as a tripper/counselor, leading his own Canadian. The other three trippers are new this summer, and each one has been a delight. For our trip, we went out with the lone female of the group, Darcy Caryl Evans, better known as “Deace.” (As in her initials pronounced as a word.) Deace is an absolutely amazing person, which I learned during the seven hour van ride from camp to the start of the trail in Michigan. She is a deeply religious Christian, yet keeps the specifics of her religion entirely to herself. Instead, her religiousness reveals itself in the form of kindness, thoughtfulness, smiles, and general positivity.

As a camper, I dreaded trips. The food was always a problem for me, and I was small and not strong[3] and thus found canoeing to be rather difficult. Now? Forget about it. I absolutely adore trips as a counselor. The food is all good, because I am friends and co-workers with the trippers, and so I go to them beforehand to make sure that the menu is good, and the canoeing is easy since I’m bigger now and I only have to paddle once for every three or four camper paddles. Because of this, and because of the general feeling of peace out on the river, I now find canoeing to be an absolute joy. Of course, that’s all moot on a hiking trip, but the same general principles still apply.

The trail was incredible. When I did the hiking trip as a camper in 1996, we took the Superior trail in Wisconsin. It was beautiful, but nowhere in the realm of Pictured Rocks. And along with the great sights on the trail, the campers have been primo. 14-year-olds are so different from 12-year-olds, it’s crazy. Two different beasts…and to make things even better, our 14-year-olds are particularly mature, as they proved on the trip’s second day.

As is the case for all trips, we woke up at around seven every morning,[4] but on the first morning it took us a shade under forever to eat breakfast and pack up the site. Not good. Deace, Gibbs and I had to constantly remind the campers of their responsibilities, all of which were very basic, tasks they’d done a bajillion times on their trips over the years. After about three hours of slow moving and intense nagging, we finally finished, but before we left we sat the campers down and let them know that this would not work. As retribution of sorts, we told them that they were now in charge of the map, and with that they snapped out of it and ended up leading the entire trip on their own. A day later, we didn’t have to tell them anything. They just got to camp and immediately began setting up their tents and stacking up their bags. How good is that?

When we got back into town after the trip was done, we went out for lunch, and though I wanted Subway—it was right across the street—I decided to join my cabin for their food of choice: McDonald’s. Big goo. I got a number two plain with a Coke, which, if you don’t know, is the two cheeseburger meal. These regular McDonald’s cheeseburgers are just a step up in size from a White Castle slider, and even though they’re just about nothing they made me feel like crap. It’s almost inconceivable to think that just two years ago I was slamming Double Quarter Pounders with such ease that I actually referred to them in casual speech as 2QPWC’s. Amazing.

I grabbed a copy of the Detroit Free Press and found much to my delight that the Cubs beat the Brewers two-zip yesterday after taking two of three from the Sox at Comiskey. Sadly—ha ha—Derrek Lee’s average has dipped down to .387. I also got caught up to date with the NBA Draft, which also went down yesterday.[5] As expected, Andrew Bogut went number one to Milwaukee. Also as expected, a bunch of GM’s overthought themselves and screwed everything up for their respective teams and their fans by getting sucked in by the devilish creature known as “upside,” with Billy King of Atlanta taking the top prize for “Nonsensical Drafting Based Possible Future Production.” Here’s a team that is loaded at forward with Al Harrington and the Joshes (Smith and Childress) and is said to be chasing a classic shooting/scoring guard in Joe Johnson. This is a group that could really click with a good point guard, and sitting right there were three really good ones in Deron Williams, Chris Paul, and Raymond Felton, all of whom have big-time skill and big-time experience. And so, naturally, Atlanta went for Marvin Williams, yet another forward, a guy who played one year of college ball as the cherry on a stacked UNC team. Is he a good player? Sure, why not. Will he push the Hawks into the playoffs? Not this year, and not from the point guard position. Totally illogical. Deron ended up going number three to the Jazz with Luther Head going 24^th overall to the Houston Rockets, and since Dee was knocked out of the draft when he broke his foot during a pre-draft workout, it looks as if he and Augustine will be holding it down for the 2005-06 Illini. As for the Bulls, they had no picks, which was fine with me since we got Ben and Luol in the first round last year, and also added Du and Noce.

So good news for Deron and Luther, and bad news for Dee…but the man I’m really feeling for is my main man Q, who was traded with rookie Nate Robinson to the Knicks for Kurt Thomas and some schlubby rook. Just imagine: you play four seasons with the L.A. Clippers, a team that seemed to be on the rise in 2002 with a 39-win season behind a bunch of young guys including Brand (first season in L.A.), Odom (third), Maggette (second), and our homeboys Darius Miles and Q-Tip, each in their second seasons in the league. Then they flop for two years, Q’s main man D-Mi gets sent to Cleveland for Andre Miller, (who slinks and slops his way through his lone season with the Clips), and after all that you bounce and sign with the Suns, who also sign Steve Nash away from the Mavericks. And what happens? You, Quentin Richardson, you become one-fifth of the league’s most formidable starting five with Nash, Joe Johnson, Shawn Marion, and Amare Stoudemire. 14.9 points per game in 35.9 minutes, a victory in the 3-Point Contest during All-Star weekend…and of course all this while helping Phoenix to a league best 62 wins, a season that ended with a disappointing yet promising five-game loss to the eventual champion Spurs in the West Finals…and just as you’re getting ready to begin Year Two of your contract with a team favored to reach the NBA Finals, you are shipped to the Knicks, a franchise that missed the playoffs for the third time in four seasons and is an absolute mess under the inept GMing of Isiah Thomas. And you wonder why players are more loyal to themselves, their families, and their wallets than to their teams. How’s that for loyalty?

Still, it was cool to get a look at the sports page after five days in the wilderness. This was my longest trip since I went to Canada in 1997, and just like that trip I returned to civilization the day after the NBA Draft. That was the draft in which Scottie was nearly shipped to Boston in an effort to grab Tracy McGrady, and so once we came back and found Pip to still be a Bull, we were all very excited. The other big news from that draft, as far as Marc Siegel was concerned, was Tulane’s Jerald Honeycutt—the best player on Marc’s father’s alma mater, the school where Marc would later play four years of ball—going in the second round to the Bucks—Marc’s second favorite NBA team after the Bulls.

But the biggest news upon our return from Canada was finding out that the Tyson-Holyfield rematch the day before had ended freakishly with Iron Mike chomping a chunk out of Holyfield’s right ear, and then biting down on the left one less than a minute later.

That was certainly bizarre for anyone watching, but it was particularly freakish for us since it was our first item of news upon returning from a ten-day canoe trip in Canada. Anytime you separate yourself from your normal surroundings for an extended period of time, there is a small, unspoken fear that you’ll return to find everything you know twistedly different; anyone who saw Back to the Future Part II knows what that’s about. So to return to cars and houses and phones after ten days in the Canadian wilderness only to find out that the biggest fight since Buster Douglas upset Tyson ended with Tyson severing Holyfield’s ears with his teeth…well, it was all a tad unnerving. What else would we find?

Nothing like that this time around, which was nice, and so we sat in McDonald’s and (kind of) enjoyed our food while reflecting on our wonderful trip. We’re an extra big group, as we did the trip simultaneously with Frost’s 14-year-olds of S-1, each cabin starting on opposite ends of the trail and crossing in the middle. I ducked out of the restaurant quickly to check my messages; I brought my phone with me specifically for this reason, and I was thrilled to have a few messages waiting for me from Meg. It was great to hear her voice. Meanwhile, back inside, one of the campers from Frost’s cabin was reading my paper, checking over the news from the draft. This kid has a sports mind just like mine, but since he’s ten years younger than me he’s much sharper with everything than I am, since he has more time to study up. I was a champ when I was his age; kids in my homeroom at WJHS in eighth grade would play “Stump Jack” by reading the sports page and quizzing me on arcane stats like John Stockton’s rebounds from the night before. This kid’s just like that, and while my focus on sports has become more intelligent and pointed, this kid has me beat big time in the nitty-gritty, and while I’m talking about Atlanta’s failure to draft one of the three point guards, this kid is going on and on about Andrew Bynum and Gerald Green and Johan Petro, three guys I’ve never heard of. I guess that’s how it goes. My time has passed. Ah well.

After Mickey D’s it was back to camp, back to our beds and our showers and our cabins and our friends. The excitement grew as we began recognizing the landmarks, heading down 77 the other way, and then a right on Murhpy and a right on Boys Camp, and then the honking as we ducked in under the totem poles, getting into camp just before dinner, and out of the vans we went as counselors and campers came to greet us at the hill, big smiling faces and high fives and “how was the trip?”s all-around. Bags quickly to the cabin, and then into the Lodge for dinner, and we smiled as we ate, settling back into camp. It’s always nice to be home.

The summer moves on. It is the Fourth of July, which means that UN Day is approaching, and so captains were announced today. Counselors from each village nominate and then vote on campers for captainship, an honor granted upon campers who are exemplary in the areas of sportsmanship and leadership. On the morning that the captains are to be announced, Leb ends breakfast by telling everyone to “please gather around the flagpole for a special announcement,” which always leads to everyone singing the United Nations song. “United Nations on the march, with flags unfurled…”

The junior captains are announced first, and then the Ridge, and then the Villa, and then Dan takes the 12 kids inside and gives them their team pairings (one junior, one intermediate, one senior) and has them select a nation and a counselor to be their advisor. I pulled my name out of the running because I wanted to focus in on the play, which was good thinking, because being an advisor is rather time-consuming. After lunch everybody got time to wash up to get ready for the annual Fourth of July social with Birch Trail, our sister camp. That’s always a fun scene; seeing a bunch of 9 to 13-year-olds getting all prettied up, and of course there’s always a few kids who don’t give a damn at all about chicks, and are supremely annoyed that they are being asked to put on a clean shirt and take a shower. Always a classic.

We went to BT last year, and they are coming this year, and though it’s a day of celebration and generally goofiness, it’s also a day of loneliness for me. It never fails; the Fourth is always the one day that I’d rather be at home than at camp. At home we get the Central Street parade and lots of barbeques and dinner at Northmoor with Nana and fireworks in Evanston along the beach. And of course, Meghan. It’s really weird knowing that for the second straight summer, we will be dating and yet not kissing underneath the fireworks on the Fourth. I’ve kissed girls under the fireworks whose last names I never knew, and now I’m without the only girl I want to be with ever. It sucks.

The date is set. July 30^th. After much discussion and orchestrating, Dan, Shlensky, Jacob and I settled on the 30^th, a Saturday during second session, the day of the Egg Marathon. Saturday’s are good because it ensures that the most number of visitors will be able to attend, and since the Big Ten is our version of “This Is Your Life,” visitors are key. Mike, Robby, Heldman, and Jeff gave us their guest request sheets, and now it’s up to us to contact them. Dan has remained adament that complete secrecy is of utmost secrecy, and so when I emailed all of the prospective-visitors I stressed intensely that under no circumstances were they allowed to reveal the date to anyone at camp, as many of the guests were at camp somewhere during the past five years and thus know many people here. After the warning, I dropped about fifteen spaces and then listed the date, and then dropped another fifteen spaces and finished the email. This will hopefully all go very smooth, but I’m not so much worried about the guys on the outside as I am about the guys on the inside. After all, now that we’ve nailed down the date, the challenge is going to be keeping the four Big Ten guys in camp. And of course we’re also going to have to keep the staff in as well, because nobody’s going to want to miss the Big Ten, but we can’t just tell them out and out why they won’t be allowed out of camp on the night of the 30^th, so we’ll have some work to do.

But that’s for another day. For now it’s all about contacting the visitors so that they have enough time to coordinate and make their hotel reservations, since, obviously, they need to get in the night before and they can’t stay at camp. The other part of it is getting loads and loads of pictures from the families for the purposes of the Big Ten collage. I contacted Swiryn’s parents before the summer and, unbeknownst to Mike, came to camp with a slew of pictures of him, including one of an eight-month-old Swiryn wearing a North Star t-shirt while sitting in his baby seat. Lots of pictures of Mike at camp as a wee pup, and some really nice shots of him and his grandparents. Kim is coordinating all of Jeff’s pictures, so really we’re down to getting in touch with the Rutkoffs and the Heldmans.

Along with the Big Ten and my work with softball and my cabin, much of my time has been spent working on the play. It’s all rather hectic, but we’re used to it now. But two years ago…wow. Here’s the thing: when I was a camper, the musical was during the fifth week, which was parent visiting weekend. Camp was much different then, because until 1991 there was no four-week option. Camps were always just eight weeks. Slowly though, things changed, and while Leb held out as long as possible—North Star was among the last camps in the area to offer a four-week session—eventually he had to give in. Still, the majority of camp was eight weeks, and so it was still all good with the play. Then somewhere during the four summers that I missed, that changed, and the play became a four week deal, with the performance coming on the second to last full day of first session. Of course, during that same time, the Pine Manor involvment thinned out, so the fact that the 15-year-olds missed days 4 through 14 of camp was no biggie. But then in 2003 we roped them all back in, and shortly-there-after I realized that nearly all of the leads were going to be in Canada for the first two weeks, and with the Fourth of July, U.N. Day, and Cruiser Days, we ended up having a total of eight days of possible rehearsal with the whole cast. Yikes. I literally did not know if we’d be able to pull it off, as I took on Geoffrey Rush’s great theater motto from Shakespeare in Love of “I don’t know. It’s a mystery.” My nervousness was quelled when the kid playing Jake returned from Canada and hopped off the van singing “Soul Man.”[6] So that was good. Ever since then, I really haven’t worried much. Camp starts on a Monday, we hold no-cut “audtions” on Tuesday, we cast the show on Wednesday, and Wednesday night we print out the scripts and leave them in the Lodge for the PM kids, who leave for Canada early Thursday morning. Then we have two weeks to get everything squared away with the rest of the cast, doing character work and some theater games with them, and then PM returns and we’re off and running. There’s not a lot of wiggle room, but we don’t really need much…

…especially not this summer, in which things have gone beyond smoothly due to the hard work and skill of everyone involved. Frost, Heldman, and I have become an unstoppable trio; in ’03 I didn’t take any days off first session, staying in camp to work on the play…and now I’ll go on a day and return to find new scenes rehearded and polished. Unlike me, Frost is a legit-theater guy, and he organizes and runs most of our rehearsals, handling the theater-specific details such as approaches towards acting. Heldman and I then become the creative-energy guys, pulling kids aside to work with them on their performances from an artistic standpoint while Frost helps them from a technical standpoint, and while I provide the overall vision and keep the entire scope of the project in view, Heldman is more focused on injecting each scene with his own flair and sense of humor. And in a surprise revelation, Heldman has also turned out to be an incredibly creative choreographer. It’s a true team effort; the three of us really do work like three parts of a whole rather than three individuals working together.

But we’re only a part of the process. Glick has taken charge of the counselor pit band, and in another wonderful surprise, a Pine Manor camper has taken over the stage crew—prop construction, set design, and crew stage directions—to such an efficient degree that the three of us haven’t had to think a lick about it. Meanwhile, the actors have all been great. The Pine Manor guys returned from Canada knowing their lines, and from the leads down to the smallest supporting actors, everybody in the cast has taken a personal responsibility to prepare for their parts. It’s been great to see, and a wonderful project to be a part of.

July 8^th, Dad’s 55^th birthday. Ordinarily my out-of-camp thoughts would be focused solely on celebrating with him in spirit, but my attention has been pulled to the horrible news that came out of London yesterday. At 8:50 AM London time, three suicide bombers set off bombs within a minute of each other on the London underground trains. Almost an hour later, a fourth bomber did the same in a bus in Tavistock Square. Early reports have stated that Al-Qaeda is responsible for the attacks, bombings that have killed at least 37 and injured more than 700.

This would be awful news anywhere, but with five Brits on staff this summer and many others in past years, it has hit us pretty closely. As soon as I heard yesterday, I grabbed one of the computers in the office and quickly emailed Alan Brooks, my co from last summer who is most definitely in London right now. I heard back from him today; he was downtown at the time, nearby the site of the first three bombings. He is alright though, as is his family. The British counselors have all been in contact with their friends and family from home, and thus far nobody they know has been affected directly. Thank God. But as soon as that was settled, our thoughts flashed to our own families in Chicago, as the big metropolises in America have all gone on guard for similar attacks.

I don’t even know what to say. I always feel like we’re doing good work here at camp, molding kids into responsible citizens who care strongly about their communities and the well-being of others. We always talk about the ripple effect, the way that our good deeds affect others in ways that we will never fully know, and that when we leave camp and return home that we are taking North Star with us and sharing camp with everyone we meet, and then four bombs go off in London and any differences we have made feel like nothing. It feels like nothing we do here can possibly matter enough, not when four men can simply decide to blow themselves and anyone around them into bits. What can we really do? What’s going on in this world? Why do people do this? Why?

Why? Why? That’s all I’ve been able to say. Logically and intellectually, I know the answer to that queston. I understand why people decide to do these things. But man…logic, intellect, and reason just don’t make it easier to deal with the thought of 700 wounded. They just don’t. So you do what you can do, and when I am finished crying, all I will be able to do is carry on. Nothing more. Trying to improve the world around us. That’s the goal, all we can do, and regardless of what we’re facing, we must remember that the goal never changes. No matter if we are attempting to create good out of nothing or good out of bad, the goal of creating good remains the same. I have to remember that…it’s the only way that I will ever be able to combat these kinds of horrors.

I really miss Meghan. I didn’t think it would be this bad, but it is. The days are fine—the packed schedule pretty much assures that—but then it’s time to go to bed and she’s not there. Even on days when we rarely saw each other, I always knew that at the end of the night, at least I would be able to cuddle up with her. That’s what I’m used to, and she’s just not there. Fortunately my cell phone has been working right by the lake, so we’ve been able to talk late night quite a bit. But it’s not the same, and it’s not every night. It really sucks.

Today was UN Day. Always fun. I was on Madagascar, and Jacob was our advisor. The other three advisors were Byron (Turkey), Frost (Barbados), and Glick (Liechtenstein, of all places). Both UN Day and Pow Wow Day are divided into four series of events with two after breakfast and two after lunch. Each counselor works two series of events; I did senior softball and then senior basketball, and then had the afternoon off. Everything went smoothly, and though my energy was way up as it always is at camp—and particularly on a special day like UN Day—inside I was feeling like crap. The more I thought about how much I missed Meg, the more I wondered if it would be possible for me to return in 2006, and I kept wondering and kept wondering until all of a sudden I was participating in my final UN Day, and there was nothing I could do about it.

We go through our opening ceremonies, and then first series, and then second series, and then it’s up to the Lodge for lunch while the advisors and the other long time staff quickly hammer out an after-lunch cheer. Leb reads off the scores from fourth place to first, and as it turned out Madagascar was leading. We did afternoon cheers, and we had rest period…but not for the staff, because during rest period of UN Day the four staff teams play counselor Speedball to determine eating order for dinner.

Ah Speedball. Quite a game. The best I can describe it is as being heavily soccer-influenced with football and basketball (and, in a way, rugby) thrown into the mix. The game is played on the athletic fields with a soccer ball, and while normal soccer rules apply on the ground, there is also an air game. This involves passing from teammate to teammate as well as “air-dribbling,” in which the person with the ball throws it above his or her head while running. You are allowed three air-dribbles, at which point you must either pass to a teammate or re-establish the ground game. The transition from ground to air is where most new guys get tripped up, because you can only use your hands if the ball has come off of a body part. This means that you cannot pick the ball up off the ground, but must kick it up to yourself or catch it off of somebody else’s body. It’s kind of like dribbling in basketball; once you are used to Speedball, you instinctively play the ball off of the body, just as dribbling becomes a natural componant of basketball. As for the scoring, points can be scored by kicking the ball past the end line (1 point), throwing the ball to a teammate in the endzone (2 points), drop kicking the ball over the goal posts (2 points), and kicking a soccer-style goal (3 points).

Most importantly, Speedball is crazy fun…arguably the best 45 minutes of the summer. It’s great. After three weeks of athletic competition in which we are the all-time pitcher, quarterback, and referee, after three weeks of having to pull back and take it easy and focus entirely on the enjoyment of ohers…well, after all that, we then get to go balls-out in a crazy game against our friends, with the winning team winning the rights to eat first at dinner. How great is that?

…but then, as soon as it ended, I had this sinking feeling that I’d just had my final game of counselor Speedball. And I was bummed.

The afternoon went well, except for Frost, who suffered some kind of weird panic attack/heat stroke combo that freaked him and everybody else out. He ended up handing afternoon advisor duties over to Rutkoff, which basically meant that Robby had to take Frost’s place in the innertube relay. Frost was feeling better by that point, though he was still shaken up, and the two of us sat together on the docks away from the crowd of campers and counselors gathered at Swim Point. It was a nice time, a relief for us both, though for different reasons.

We came in third in Speedball, giving us some time before dinner. I helped Jacob with our night cheer, which we did to the tune of the Super Bowl Shuffle. Always a winner. We figured that we either came in first or second, but the cheer did not reflect either, choosing instead to just go with something that talked about the campers on our team. That’s more fun.

After dinner, everybody goes up to the Council Ring for the final scores. It’s very exciting, and always fun, as the kids are desperate to know what happened, and Leb does his stalling schtick, with Dan handing him “the official score sheet” which ends up being the current National League standings or something. (That’s one of my favorites.) Liechtenstein ended up finishing last, and Barbados finished third, and then there were two teams remaining: Madagascar and Turkey. Leb milked it, as he does every year.

“Gotchya. Now, I’m about to read off second place, but of course by reading off second place I’m also reading off first place, based on the process of elimination. It’s really something. Alright, here we go. With 184 points, it’s…the nation of…now before we get to that, how many points did second place have at lunch?”

And he went on like that for some time, and all of the young kids went loco each time Leb said the words “the nation of” without actually following it up with a nation, and all of the older kids laughed at the younger kids, feeling superior for having seen this gag enough times to no longer fall for it. And then, finally…

“And so, with 184 points…in second place…it’s the nation of…Madagascar!”

And with that, our team ran down in celebration to do our cheer, while Byron’s team of Turkey exploded in celebration on the benches. I have to admit: while everybody has fun, winning is always nice. We did our Super Bowl Shuffle cheer, and then Byron led his team down to do their cheer, and that was that: the day was over. Or was it?

As it turned out, it wasn’t, because while all of this was going on, Dan, Shlensky, and I were preparing the first Big Ten fake of the summer. UN Day and Pow Wow Day are prime spots for the Big Ten, because everybody is guaranteed to be in camp. It’s all nicely set up. Robby, Mike, Alex, and Jeff know this…and of course, we know that they know this, and so we decided to have a fake tonight. We grabbed A.J., Weiss, Ari, Glick, Hamer, and Shmerling earlier in the day and began planning the fake. However…oh, I just couldn’t help myself…if there’s one thing that is better than a fake, it’s faking out some of the fakers, and so just for kicks, we told Hamer and Shmerling that tonight was the actual Big Ten. I’m a bastard, aren’t I? Here’s how it worked: when everyone headed up to the Council Ring, A.J., Weiss, Ari, Glick, Hamer, and Shmerling gathered up the silly hats, whistles, and four wooden chairs from the Lodge. They also brought up the large butcher paper sign…

…and this is where things first got tricky. Rather than ending the sign with the normal “NO! NO! NEVER! NEVER! UH! UH! UH!”, we slapped a very misleading “IT IS!” on the end of it. This was my idea, because I figured that the purpose of the fake was to actually fake these guys out, and so we would go beyond the normal fake point by putting on the “IT IS!” and bringing down the four chairs.

While everybody else was in the Council Ring, A.J. drove the four-wheeler up the path and tucked it away with all of the gear up near the tee-pee, which if you’re walking up to the Council Ring is to the left about thirty yards before the dip at the top of the hill. After the final score was announced, Leb did his wrap-up bit, and as he did, A.J., Glick, Hamer, and Shmerling drove in on the four-wheeler, blowing their whistles. Everyone immediately began chanting “IT’S THE BIG TEN!” over and over again, and Shlensky and I brought the four chairs down and set them up. I stood down at the bottom, facing the crowd. I looked over at McCormack.

He smiled sheepishly, knowing full well that he had to go along and put up with the fake. “Ten.”

“Ten years, huh? Well come on down here and have a seat.” I scanned the crowd, finding Heldman. “Alex, how long have you been at camp?”

“Ten years as well? Wow! Well you come down here as well.” And the same went for Robby and Swiryn, and then we had them all down there. Down came Hamer, Shmerling, A.J., and Glick with the butcher paper, and they began unrolling it, blowing their whistles as everyone read along. “IT MIGHT BE…………IT COULD BE……………………IT IS!!!” And with that everyone cheered and the four guys in the chairs began looking at each other with a “Oh man! This is really about to happen” look. Meanwhile, Dan was up at the top of the Council Ring on his walkie-talkie, talking to Weiss who was driving a van slowly up the path, a van that was adorned with names of the possible visitors.

We told Hamer and Shmerling that tonight was actually the Big Ten, and that all of the visitors were hiding out in Leb and Sue’s house, waiting until everyone was up at the Council Ring. The van creeped up, stopping at the top of the path just before the dip. I looked at Dan, seeing that everything was in place, and then I went ahead with the type of intro speech that I would give for the actual Big Ten.

“Raise your hand if you are ten years old or younger?” I said, and many of the juniors raised their hands. “Well, amazing as it might be, these four guys right here have each been at camp for your entire lives. Ten summers for each of them. It’s pretty special. And while they have lots of friends here at camp…” and at this, Heldman—who’d been dead set on not biting on any fakes—began grabbing Robby’s shoulders in a very excited manner, “there are also a lot of people who are no longer at camp, but who very much wanted to celebrate this great day with these four great guys.” At this, Weiss pulled the van over the dip and began driving slowly down towards the fire pit. The kids watched the van in awe, and I continued. “Yes, there were some people who just had to come up to camp and say hello, and a few who want to tell some stories, and so…”

And with that, Weiss stopped the van, and as the four guys in front eagerly eyed it, Weiss hopped out and walked around to the door. He opened it, and instead of a bunch of visitors pouring out, Ari alone jumped out of the van, yelling out in gleeful joy: “NO! NO! NEVER! NEVER! UH! UH! UH!” And with that all those involved jumped into the van and Weiss drove off. Inside the van we laughed hysterically as Hamer began punching me in the arm.

And up and out we went, laughing the whole way. UN Day was over. Everyone was happy…

Well, almost everybody. This whole Meghan thing is really weighing on me, and while it did not ruin the day, it definitely put a strong damper on it. After the kids are asleep, I go to the Lodge and then walk down to Jack’s chair, the memorial we created after Jack passed away. It’s a double wooden chair connected by a small table in the middle, and it’s a nice place to think, or to watch—it sits in the sun facing the athletic fields, just the way that Jack always sat—and I cuddle up in my sweats and begin to cry.

Just then, Keith Donan walks by. He asks if he can sit down and join me, and I say yes, and though Keith and I have not had any deep conversations, long intros and histories are not necessary. He’s a North Star guy, and I am too, and so I tell him about Meghan and about my fear that I won’t be able to return in ’06, and I am spitting out words through tears and sharing my soul with someone who, in most respects, I barely know. But we’ve already made ourselves vulnerable and been accepted by the people around us, and based on that trust I feel like I can tell him just about anything. He sits and listens, saying nothing. And then:

“Listen Abu, I don’t know you that well, but from what I know I can say that you’re a great guy who loves this place. I feel lucky to be here, and I’ve been here less than a month. I’m sure you feel the same way, and you know what? You’ll know when it’s your time. I don’t know why. I just know that you’ll know. You’ll be at peace with it, brother, and if you’re not at peace now then it’s not your time.”

I smile, big and bright and unaffected for the first time all day. The fear is gone.

Ari loves Pine Manor. Naturally, he’s doing a great job, and giving his campers a great summer, but that was a given. Perhaps because we’ve gotten to a point in which all of us excel at our jobs, I have gotten to a point in which I can look past the first bench mark: making camp great for the kids. That’s done. I know we do a good job at that…and so the next item is are we making camp good for the staff, because any work environment is fully improved by the existence and the creation of happy employees. To that end, I take great joy in talking to Ari about his PM experience. Glick, Jacob, and J.R. as well. These guys are loving it, and why not? One of the best gigs in town.

When Ari got back from Canada, we traded trip stories, and I showed him a poem I’d written while on the trip called ‘ONE MORE SUMMER.’ He started reading it, and then had to put it down because it was making him sad. That’s how it goes. But then we started talking Cubs, and it was all smiles. If there are any pros to “following” a baseball season while at North Star against being in Chicago, it may be that in just following the trends, you actually begin to enjoy and better appreciate the simplicities of following a team. Now, just the very act of being connected to them again feels special. You walk into Famous Dave’s or Anglers on a night-off, and the TV has WGN on and it’s Cubs-Brewers in the eighth. What’s better? My dad used to say that when he was out of state, the way he felt most connected with home was when he would see the brick wall behind home plate at Wrigley on TV. Knowing that he was among a small number of people in the particular bar in Boston or NYC who would instantly recognize that wall eased him in a way that a million phone calls or letters from home couldn’t.

And the latest news from in front of that brick wall? Derrek Lee ended his first half leading the NL in all three triple crown categories. He has 27 home runs (tied with Andruw Jones), 72 RBI (three ahead of Pujols), and is batting .387, fifty points ahead of the second-place Pujols. He is five HR away from tying his career high, and 26 RBI away from tying that career high. His career best BA is .282 with the Marlins.

This guy is going crazy, and maybe the best part of the whole thing is that unless they invented steroids that allows a guy to remain thin, this has been a clean performance. I wish I could feel the buzz at Wrigley every time he comes to the plate. It must be incredible. For his efforts, D-Lee was voted to his first All-Star game, starting at first base for the National League and going 1-for-3. I didn’t get to see the game, and I don’t care that the NL lost. I just wish I could’ve seen Derrek Lee introduced as a starter. That would’ve been sweet.

Aramis was the other Cub selected, and he went 1-for-2 with a walk. The Sox fared much better; although Konerko was hitless in his only at-bat,[7] Buehrle and Garland were awesome. Buehrle got the nod to start for the AL, and he did not disappoint, throwing two scoreless innings, allowing three hits, no walks, and striking out three batters to earn the win for the American League. Garland pitched the sixth, allowing two walks and no runs. Impressive stuff from the White Sox staff, a group that continues to be the strength of their team.

The All-Star break over, it’s back to the games that matter. After winning four in a row to push their record to 40-36 on June 29^th, the Cubs dropped eight straight. Doo-fair. They then swept the Marlins—about freakin’ time—and went into the All-Star break 43-44. A look at the Cubs and Sox standings at the break:

American League Central standings, All-Star Break 2005: White Sox 57-29, lost 3 straight, 5-5 last ten, 9 games up on Minnesota.

National League Central standings, All-Star Break 2005: Cubs 43-44, won 3 straight, 3-7 last ten, 12 and a half back of St. Louis.

So Houston has stormed back, which seems to always be the case. What lousy punks those Astros are. I really don’t like them…but that’s not really true. I love Biggio and Bagwell, and I have no great qualms with anyone on their team. Not even Clemens, who I have never had any emotional ties to, meaning that I can simply appreciate his greatness without being bogged down by the bitterness that sucked the Clemens-love out of the fans in Boston, Toronto, and maybe even New York. Not that I blame them; it just doesn’t affect me. It’s not that I condone blatant fan abuse, or any fan abuse for that matter. Fan abuse, in my opinion, is not good. (Sorry. Couldn’t help it.)

Meanwhile, over in the American League, the White Sox are still humming along, nine games up on the Twins. Boston leads Baltimore by two games and the Yankees by two and a half, and the Angels are up five games on Texas. Minnesota is the current wild-card leader in the American League, a game and a half ahead of the Orioles.

In the National League, it’s San Diego by five and a half against the suddenly competent Diamondbacks for the NL West…but as I peruse the standings, the one that pops out ahead of all others is in the NL East, where the Washington Nationals—a year removed from being a lame duck franchise in Montreal—are leading the Braves by two and a half games. That’s the kind of thing that happens when you go away for nine weeks: you open the paper or go online one day and all of a sudden Washington is bidding to become the first team edge Atlanta for a division crown since 1990. Do I really think that the Nationals—(and I am told that they have already gotten their ADD moniker: the Nats)—will hold out and win the division? No. Way too much history, not to mention talent, on Atlanta’s side. I’ve seen clubs put together great first halves and then fade down the stretch; look no further than the 2001 Cubs. But still, it’s cool to see a different team up there, yet another reminder that when you don’t follow sports day-to-day you’re bound to be surprised.

But should you be surprised? Especially in today’s sports world, with the magic P-word firmly in control since around 1999. Parity is running rampant, which is good, I guess. It’s not bad. Who’s to say? All I know is that if a guy went into a coma in the beginning of 2000 and came out today, he’d find that the Patriots had won three Super Bowls, that high schoolers are routinely drafted in the Top 3 in the NBA draft, and that the Red Sox won their first World Series in 86 years while the Marlins won their second in seven. He’d find out that MJ finished his career with the Wizards, that Emmitt finished his with the Cardinals, that Hakeem finished his with the Raptors, and that Sammy finished his with the Orioles. (Just kidding.) (Kind of.)

When that person fell into his coma, Barry Bonds would have had 445 home runs over fourteen major league seasons, good for 22^nd on the all-time list. After five more seasons, our coma victim would awake to discover that Bonds had hit 258 in the next five full seasons, leaving him as only the third man in MLB history with 700 career home runs. They’d find out that in January of 2002, the Rose Bowl featured a Big East team (Miami) against a Big 12 team (Nebraska), and they’d find out that nobody believes anything that happened in baseball from 1995-2004, and that some guy nobody had ever heard of in 2000 named Albert Pujols was now on his way to becoming one of the greatest hitters in the history. I guess that’s the way it goes. You just have to accept the fact that anything can happen. If you do, nothing will ever surprise you.

After all of our work, after all of the rehearsals and re-writes and our pointed efforts to get every camper at least one moment in the show in which he is The Star...yes, after all that, show day has arrived.

GODDAMN-is-this-exciting! I’m running around like a man man…totally through the roof all day long. There’s a real buzz right now; the staff is very excited about another Herbert Michael Warren production,[8] and since we keep the rehearsals closed, all they’ve gotten are enticing snippets. They know the cast, and they know that Frost, Heldman, and I are in charge, and that’s pretty much it. Plus the cast has been money, taking it upon themselves to start chants of “TOGA! TOGA!” during senior cheers after lunch or dinner, and generally being very positive and excited about the show, with the Pine Manor guys making the entire cast feel like a team. It’s been great. Jack Becker has been working all day on our programs, and we’ve spent the day tuning up a few scenes and a few songs…

…which is what I am doing now, about twenty minutes before dinner. My parents have come up for the show the past two years, and this year Meghan and Bonnie will be coming up as well. Frost, Heldman, Glick and I are in Mike Hall doing some final tweakings with a few campers who are nervous about their songs, and I am entirely focused on these kids despite also being entirely focused on Meghan, if that makes sense. Heldman has given these kids their choreography, and since they are his campers he has taken a particular interest in their scene. Glick is playing guitar for the number, and Frost is drumming, using his beats as more of a “sing-now” cue for one of the two kids in this song. The kid is beyond nervous despite having clearly the best voice of anyone in the cast. He’s a first-year camper, a super-nice and thoughtful kid who is very talented, and Frost and Glick are playing and the kids are singing and Heldman and I are watching, and when we get to a break in the music, Heldman laughs.

And then I turn and look, and there she is, peaking her head around the doorway and smiling. I’m so happy I go leaping over to her, nearly shouldering her in the jaw with a mondo-hug. No kissing though. Campers are around.

When I was a kid and I was in a play at school, I didn’t really get nervous, but I did lose my appetite. The same goes for these shows, and so while my parents, Meg, and Bonnie eat dinner in the Lodge at the staff table with Leb and Sue, and while my cabin eats with Gibbs, I spend my time organizing the programs that Jack Becker has made, and then I head down to Mike Hall and begin getting the cast ready and into costume. The three of us are “in costume” as well; Heldman is bus boy at some chic restaurant in Cincinnati, and is wearing his white bussing uniform…I am wearing my orange “DOOFER” shirt that I got last summer with Heldman (who got a black one), and Glick (who got a grey one)…and Frost is wearing a brilliant red shirt that has a picture of a film camera with the words “TRUST ME. I’M A DIRECTOR” written above it.

The audience files in. Mike Hall used to be filled with parents who were in town for Parent Visiting Weekend during the fifth week, but since the change to the fourth week the parental attendance has been in decline. Again, we’ve changed all that, and along with campers and counselors, there is a very significant contingent of parents. Mike Hall is rocking with the traditional “HEY! LET’S GO! WE WANNA SEE THE SHOW!” chant—very similar to the “WE WANT THE SHOW!” chant that the patrons at the Palace Hotel Ballroom up at Lake Wazapamana chanted as they awaited the Blues Brothers Band—and as we hear the cheers, Frost, Heldman, and I gather the cast and crew together for a final shake-out and some positive words, culminating in a full-on “TOGA! TOGA! TOGA!” as the sun goes down.

The show goes off wonderfully. A few of my favorite bits, in order of appearance:

1. The insertion of the character of “Tom,” the ass-kissing assistant to Professor Lambeau in Good Will Hunting, to follow around Dean Wormer. This is Professor Lambeau…And this is Professor Hayes…Tom, please. Heldman and I are huge into Good Will Hunting—he always makes me do the “Chuck, I had a double burger…” scene—and though we really dig the movie, we’ve realized after numerous viewings that the character of Tom is one of the lamest most ass-kissingest characters in the history of film…but you don’t really notice him right away because you’re so busy just watching the movie. Cracks me up.

3. Five freshmen girls sitting around talking about the big dance that’s coming up, played by four tiny junior campers and one tall intermediate with a deep voice, basically playing the Farley role. Lay off me! I’m starving! This was Heldman’s bit all the way…he loves doing mock-ups of North Shore JAPs, and so he wrote this small scene in which five girls all named “Ally” talk about the upcoming “freshman mixer,” a scene based on the dance in which Tony and Maria first meet. And then, in that scene…

4. …the Deltas and the Omegas breaking out into the angry showdown snapping that happens in West Side Story, but having it never materialize into anything more than snapping.

5. Watching three guys in drag—Mandy, Babs, and Katy—singing I’m So Pretty.

6. After Dean Wormer gives the Double Secret Probation speech, having him yell “Come Patsy!” as he and Tom gallop away while beating two coconuts together…and yes, somebody on our crew actually secured two coconuts from the kitchen, which came as quite a surprise to me.

7. D-Day and Bluto splitting a large tub of peanut butter to open the Toga Party scene, with the kid playing D-Day suddenly putting his spoon down and just scooping out a large chunk of peanut butter with his hands, causing Bluto to laugh uncontrollably on stage.

8. Camper Cameron Davis—a trained choir singer—bringing Mike Hall down as Otis Day while singing Shout, a song he began by stating that “I know you heard this one last year, (a reference to Wayne’s World), but a good tune is a good tune. So hit-it!”

9. Katy arriving at the frat party too late to find Otter dead at the hands of Marmalard and Neidermeyer, and then screaming out “A plague on both your frat houses!” Otter then did the “I’m not really dead…I’m getting better” bit, and the party continued.

10. Covering Mike Hall with toilet paper, silly string, and confetti poppers during the climactic parade scene, in which the Deltas entered to the sounds of “Ride of the Valkyries” a la Apocalypse Now.

11. And finally, left until last just because it’s hilarious, watching Joe Sussman as Chip Diller “assume the position” right in front of Leb and Sue while Neidermeyer hammers him with a paddle. You gotta love camp.

Last night of first session. Sitting up at the Council Ring. Parents of eight-weekers are in attendance, which I think is kind of weird because this is the last key log ceremony for the four-week PM kids, and I feel like it’s a distraction to have parents around. Most people disagree with me, though, with Rutkoff feeling strongly that “This is who we are, and there’s no reason that parents shouldn’t see that.” Reasonable enough. For the most part, the parents are very respectful, though there are certainly ones who cannot stop talking to their kids, and once you see the parents you start to put it together and realize why their kids behave the way they do.

Still, I’m not thinking about that. Byron is leaving tomorrow, because he wants to spend time with his girlfriend—he’s at Northwestern and she’s at USC, so the summer is a big opportunity to be together—and we’re also saying goodbye to half of our Pine Manor kids, a group that has led camp in the way that the oldest campers should. They were always involved in everything going on, both on the projects and on special events, and they always set a good example for the younger campers. A few of my favorite kids are leaving, guys I had during my first year in ’02, and it’s been very cool to see them grow up during these past four years. It’s difficult to leave camp knowing you’ll never be a camper again, even more so knowing that your friends have four more weeks and you don’t.

But it’s a happy time, more than anything, and the parents bring a nice dimension to our service as there are many fathers in attendance who were North Star campers themselves. Very cool to get to watch your kids go through this, some 30 years after you did. Very cool. The counselor chorus comes down to sing the Cat Stevens song Father and Son, and we invite the alumni fathers down to sing with us. It’s a bit of a downer song, when you think about it, but it was still a very cool thing, and I could tell that the dads appreciated it.

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[1] I know he’s gone, but he still feels like the proper example. Kind of weird.

[2] This is particularly important with the high volume of ADD and ADHD campers that we have.

[3] …and, let’s face it, averse to physical labor, which, at the time, was how I perceived canoeing…

[4] Another great perk of camping trips: the kids are not allowed to carry watches, and so they operate based on the sun, which means we’re up a bit earlier and asleep a lot earlier. Plus there are fewer responsibilities; at camp Gibbs and I are directly responsible for our cabin and all of the kids on our projects, and indirectly responsible for every other kid at camp. On a trip, it’s the ten campers and that’s it.

[5] Incidentally, the Spurs beat the Pistons in 7 ugly games. Yuck.

[6] Wanting a song in the first real scene, I wrote in “Soul Man” for Jake and Elwood to sing to the Penguin.

[7] Pods did not get to bat, though he did play some center field.

[8] Joshua Herbert Frost, Jack Michael Silverstein, Alexander Warren Heldman.