A Summer...Second Session

Layover day with Mom, Dad, Meg, and Bonnie was a lot of fun. We got food in town, and hung out at the Spider Lake Lodge, my parents’ Hayward spot since 1993. We also celebrated my dad’s 55^th birthday, albeit a week late. Meg and I split after dinner, taking our tent to one of the campsites along the Mighty Nam to spend the night together. It was really nice, really great…

…and then this morning it was goodbye, and back to camp, back into the swing. Here we go again.

We have 12-year-olds this time around, I-4 now, still in the physical cabin of I-6. Like I said before: those two years between 12 and 14 make a huge difference…but along with the age difference, these two cabins are just different in terms of their maturity levels, regardless of age. These kids are a much more squirmy, impulsive bunch. They are also a less cohesive group. There are eight of them: three are best friends from Deerfield, one is a fourth year kid who came when he was nine and has that returner’s feel, one is a second year kid who is quiet and clumsy, and one is a third year kid who was devastated when his closest friends ended up in the same cabin without him. The other two kids are first year campers, one of whom has the confidence of a Villa kid, the other very nervous about being at camp due to his intense allergies. There are no obvious scape-goats, and apart from the Deerfield trio, no obvious cliques. Just a group of eight 12-year-olds, all of whom are good kids, all of whom have some growing up to do, some more than others. Then again, who doesn’t?

The start to second session is always weird, especially if you have four-weekers. You’ve just been through this whole emotional ride with your cabin, getting through all of the difficult team building and boundary-testing that goes on and reaching a point of comfort, and, if you’re lucky, friendship. Gibbs and I were lucky. Our cabin first session was incredible, among the most thoughtful, mature, fun-loving, and camp-loving kids I’ve ever had. Our final night together was very emotional as we did our candlelight ceremony. There were a few different tight circles at the start of the summer, but by that final night it was clear that every camper in the cabin felt connected to every other one. Maybe not best friends—that’s fine—but certainly there was a feeling that every one of the ten campers was essential to that cabin. That’s really what you hope for as a counselor…

…so to have that end and realize suddenly that in less than 48 hours, having just reached an emotional peak with one cabin, you now have to build everything again…well, it’s daunting. The new kids arrive, and we are excited, but when we put them to bed there’s a slight feeling of confusion mixed with betrayal, as we look at the new campers and think to ourselves, “Hey, what are you doing? That’s not your bed. That’s Horwich’s bed. Get out of there.”

Remember watching the ’99 Bulls take the court in January after the lockout? Just six months earlier Michael was busy hitting his last shot, and he and Scottie and Dennis and everyone else were celebrating at Grant Park, holding up six championship trophies as everyone cheered and hoped that it would not actually be, as Phil called it, “The Last Dance.” Then came the summer, and the lockout, and Phil left, and Michael retired again, and Dennis went AWOL, and Scottie, Kerr, and Luc were traded, and now the Bulls are taking the floor against Utah to open the ’99 season, and they’re wearing uniforms that say BULLS across the front, but who are these guys? That’s what it feels like to put your new campers to bed on the first night of second session. Really disorienting, even though you know you have a job to do, and even though you know that all things being equal, in about a week you’ll like these kids just as much as the last ones.

Another beautiful day on Lou’s—(how great is my job? I mean, seriously, I can’t believe I get paid to do this)— and since they are mostly returners who have been on the softball project in past summers, and since they are super-excited kids who are ready to play, we shorten up the drill time and get a real rocking game going. To my delight, Leb comes out to join us, and I hand the pitching duties over to him and take up a spot in the outfield. Leb always brings enthusiasm to the field, and it’s always nice for me to get to do something other than pitch. It’s not just that I love playing the outfield; even pitching underhand to kids, I am still slightly terrified of getting spiked in the forehead by a comebacker…shades of my Little League career, plunk upon plunk…

We’re getting closer to the Big Ten, and thus far everything has maintained. Most of the requested visitors have R.S.V.P.’d positively, and have upheld our code of secrecy. So that’s good. We’ve also obtained the pictures from the Rutkoffs and Heldmans, and while Kim works on Jeff’s collage, Shlensky, Jacob, and Weiss have gotten to work on Robby’s and Heldman’s. I’ll be getting started on Swiryn’s pretty soon, and so our only snag as of now is determining how we will keep staff in camp. We thought we hit a problem when we found out that Robby’s parents had planned before the summer to visit Robby during the weekend of the 30^th, but that was no biggie once we came up with a way to incorporate them. In fact, everything appeared to be going fine until…

I’m leaving softball, heading to the Lodge for lunch, when I see Dan. He’s approaching, fast. Uh oh.

“Apparently Mrs. Heldman sent Sue an e-mail with a story that she wanted us to tell about Alex, and at the end of the e-mail she wrote ‘Have fun on July 30^th,’ and Sue printed it out, but while it was printing she went to the bathroom, and in that exact second that she left, Hamer walked in to see her, and spotted the date at the bottom of the e-mail as it was printing. So then of course he came up to me laughing…”

I say this mostly to comfort and to calm Dan, and out of respect for Hamer, who knows the difference between important secrets and less-important secrets. Still, you couldn’t write this more comedically, because when it comes to uncovering this secret, no one at camp would freak Dan out more than Hamer, who is the very definition of a yenta, without the proper anatomy, of course. Realistically, I’m not worried, because Hamer’s cool. Still, in the name of keeping Dan sane, this is an unsettling development.

Still no news on either Tyson or Eddy, both of whom are free agents. I really don’t know what’s going to happen. I want them both back, but Tyson’s definitely higher on the priority list what with Eddy’s lack of defense and rebounding and the situation concerning his heart. I really do hope that everything works out for him, and that he finds out what is going on inside of his body…

…but not much time for Bulls talk right now, because Gibbs and I are busting our asses to keep this cabin sane. They’re a good bunch of kids—I really like all of them—but they’re 12-year-olds with insecurities, and there are some personalities that are not, at this point, compatible. One camper in particular has been extraordinarily difficult. He’s a good kid with a good heart, but he’s crazy impulsive and just does not understand social cues in the least. That’s a problem for anyone, but it’s a huge problem for a 12-year-old living with seven other kids his age for a month. Still, I always say that camp is the perfect place to work out any of these problems, and that’s what we aim to do. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the whole situation is that the kid likes Chris and I and really wants to be good. Some kids are just spoiled jerks who don’t care about anything that their counselors do or say. This isn’t the case. This kid is trying really hard, but he’s got a lot of stuff to overcome. He’s got a big mouth—he loves to brag about any accomplishment—and that makes him an easy target for bullying and teasing. But he’s not malicious, and he shows genuine regret when he upsets someone. Just a tough situation, but that’s what this job is all about. Camp is a place where kids can actually get the kind of positive attention that they most need while also being disciplined. It’s not about me vs. you like it often is in school. It’s about the two of us figuring out this problem together. It’s one of the thing I love most about this place.

We’re less than a week away, and I’m walking out of Wanegan after cleaning up all of the empty candy boxes when I see Dan. He looks mad.

Here we go again. There’s just no keeping secrets in this place, is there? Of course not. We finally come up with a solution for the “how to keep the staff in camp” problem, and our solution produces a new problem. Ain’t that just how it goes?

After much deliberation, our solution was to have Beth suggest to Leb and Sue during an admin meeting that the staff should be kept in for a “parent letter inservice” on the night of the 30^th. We write parent letters every summer, and every so often someone comes up with the brilliantly-useless idea that we should all stay in for an entire night just to “practice.” Of course, this never actually happens, partially because it’s the kind of ridiculous idea that Swiryn and I rally against…so I’m not quite sure why I thought that this would be an acceptable cover for our purposes. Perhaps I assumed that since Swiryn and I are the two counselors most likely to publically oppose an idea of this sort, that we would be fine, since Swiryn was sure to bite now that he was actually a member of the admin…and maybe I would have been right had it not been discovered that Robby would be given permission to miss due to his parents’ visit. Of course, that was only because it played into our Big Ten plan: I’d squared it with Mom and Pop Rutkoff, who were beyond excited to take part. The plan is to have them take Robby “out of camp,” only to circle back and bring him to Leb and Sue’s, where he will join the visitors in the surprise-visitor’s van, leaping out at the end to yell “IT IS!” at Heldman, Swiryn, and Jeff, essentially announcing his own Big Ten. This was all well and good, but of course Robby did not know that he was being allowed to miss the parent letter inservice simply as a way of facilitating his own Big Ten, and so when he mentioned it to Weiss, he stormed into Leb’s office and demanded that he too be allowed to miss, and though Leb tried to subtly dissuade him, Weiss was not to be dissuaded, and so Leb told him exactly why he did not want to leave camp Saturday night.

Well, it finally happened, and I can say happily that all things considered, everything went down perfectly. Robby, Swiryn, Heldman, and Jeff celebrated their Big Ten today, and I am very pleased to say that we gave them a wonderful day that will make them smile for the rest of their days. Let’s make a memory, fellas. And that’s what we did.

Looking back, though, I’m not even sure how we kept it all together. How did this all work? How did we manage to keep four guys in camp despite time off? How did we manage to keep everything a secret? Well, the answer to those last two questions is simple: we didn’t. We barely held it together. It was something of a miracle.

After Hamer and Weiss, I figured we’d be all good until the day. Why did I think that? What could have possibly left me quite so optimistic? Perhaps it was the Cubs fan inside me. Eric Scott was the next to find out, hearing from his dad in a case of miscommunication. Eric had called home to talk to his parents, and I guess Mr. Scott thought that he was talking to Byron, and since he knew that Byron knows when the Big Ten was, he spilled unknowingly to Eric. It happens. The Scotts are great. Everybody loves them. They are the reason that Byron and Eric are such great kids. Still…

The next great escape came last night at the LCO Casino in Hayward. Some guys were there on a night-off last night, and among them was Heldman. It’s a popular hang out for us…a little too popular, it seems, because shortly after Heldman and everybody else came in, the visitors—most of whom had collectively rented a cabin in town—rolled in absentmindedly. Fortunately Alex was in the bathroom when this happened, and so Dan was able to quickly herd them out before any damage was done, but you’d better believe I heard all about that this morning. In the obscure words of Jerry Seinfeld from the episode “The Café” in Season 3: “It was a maaaaaad house!”

But that was just last night. What a day today was! Gibbs turned 21 today, and so my cabin took it upon themselves to head into the Arm & Hammer and wood-burn him a birthday card. Very cool. Despite their immaturities and personal differences, these guys really are a great bunch of kids, and as the summer goes on they have grown closer and more compatible. We also had Pow Wow Day captains announced today, with my four-year returner being named a Ridge captain, his first captainship ever. That was very cool; this kid has come a long way in his four years at camp. Pine Manor camper Adam Katz—he played Marmalard—and his two co-captains asked me to be their advisor, which I accepted, but I didn’t have much time to think about that because today was also the Green-White Egg Marathon. And of course unbeknownst to everyone other than myself, Dan, Shlensky, Jacob, Leb, Sue (she found out today when she walked through our cabin during her cabin inspections and found me finishing Swiryn’s collage), Beth, Hamer, Weiss, and Eric Scott, today was also the Big Ten. So along with everything else that was happening, we were also running around like mad man, albeit totally in secret, as we prepared for the Big Ten and dealt with the fact that Robby was “leaving camp” while everyone else was tied down and angry…and with the good reason, because it was pretty much unprecedented to force all staff to stay in just to write parent letters.

OK. Green-White. Along with UN Day and Pow Wow Day, we have an all-summer long competition called Green-White, with every camper being on either the green team or the white team. Again, captains are chosen, two per village, but unlike UN and PW in which each team has one advisor, each GW captain selects his own advisor, a counselor from his village. Robby is the junior village green advisor, I am the Ridge green advisor, and Hamer is the Villa green advisor. The crown jewel of Green-White are the marathons, one per session, with every camper assigned to a different event, beginning with the running relays and ending with Boil Water Boil in which two members of each team race to boil over a pot of water by building a fire. The marathon is intensified and goofy-fied second session with the inclusion of an egg. The events for the Egg Marathon are pretty much the same, except for the fact that an egg must be held by the team, like a baton of sorts. One fast camper is the egg runner, and when the egg breaks, the egg runner must then scoop up the bits of broken egg and run them to the Lodge, where Kim is waiting with a new egg. The egg runner then runs the new egg back to the spot of the break where it is checked by the egg checker so that the marathon can resume. This ensures for a maximum amount of silliness, which we are all for.

As the advisors, Robby, Hamer and I frantically help our team, running or biking from event to event or helping one particular camper with something he may need help with. Ordinarily my focus would be entirely on the marathon, but while all this egginess was happening, I was also making sure that everything was on schedule for the Big Ten. I was flying solo in camp on the Big Ten planning-front, since Dan was overseeing the wood-collecting for Boil Water Boil while Shlensky and Jacob were out of camp on a day off…hopefully organizing the visitors, which was their charge, but I had no idea. Basically I spent those two hours helping the green team by biking the marathon while leading impromptu cheers and maintaining my general sense of exuberant enthusiasm…and all the while I was also making quick darting bike trips down to Leb and Sue’s house to check on the guest status.

Finally they arrived, Spiegel and Byron and Blumberg and a bunch of people you don’t know, and then it was back to the marathon so that nobody became Suspicious, and just as I was returning I saw that Boil Water Boil had begun, leaving everyone breathless and crazy as they attempted to stoke their team’s fire through timed mass air blowing: “One, two, three! (and everybody blows on the fire from about six feet away).

The white team gets their water to boil over, and Leb pretends not to hear half of the campers at camp screaming to alert him of their victory, and then he turns and inspects the boiling water—he always lays it on thick like this—and finally he awards victory to the white team.

After the marathon is over, everyone gets a half hour to clean up before dinner, and it was at about this time that I saw the Rutkoffs walking down Villa Road and into camp. I had been on the phone with them over the past week, and we’d finally gotten our plan settled. They were going to come in to camp, wait for Robby to shower and clean up, and then they would “take him out to dinner”…only once the Rutkoffs passed Leb and Sue’s, all of the visitors would take a van down to the end of Boys Camp at the Murphy Blvd. intersection, where they would await the Rutkoffs. Robby would then find out about his Big Ten, and then he would wait at Leb and Sue’s during dinner and then return to camp with them during evening announcements. He would then be in on the surprise for Heldman, Mike, and Jeff.

“Wait,” I said to Mrs. Rutkoff. There was a problem. “There’s a problem. If you guys take Robby and then bring him back into camp, then when will you eat dinner?”

Apparently, this was not at all a problem, so much so that I was crazy for asking. “Pish, we don’t need to eat.” And that was that.

“What is it with dads this year?” And then, as I thought, “Wait. How did Glick’s dad know?”

“Whatever. Dan, it’s all good. We’re like T minus 20 minutes or something. Don’t worry.” I patted him on the back as he left mumbling to himself.

Now the pressure was on. It was time to deliver. We had to finish strong and close it out. If I were a basketball coach, this would be the point at which I would call timeout and deliver the sideline speech about how “We’ve come this far and now we just have to finish.” Sadly, I am not a basketball coach, and so all I could do was just keep riding around on that damn bike, making sure everyone was ready.

Everyone went outside for announcements after dinner, at which point we sent B.G. down to Leb and Sue’s to alert the vans to begin creeping up.

Announcements began, and Leb called Heldman, Swiryn, and Jeff down to the front under the “How many years have you been at camp?” premise, as Dan and I each grabbed two chairs and set them out for the four of them to sit on. The three of them left. After all, Robby was on his night off. He had been spotted exiting camp property with his parents shortly before dinner. They had seen him leave. Ha! Those fools! Little did they know…

Swiryn, Heldman, and McCormack sat down, and then immediately it was pointed out that Robby was on a night off. Never-the-less, Hamer and Dan rode in on the four-wheeler while blowing their whistles—without silly clothes, I’m afraid—and the cheering began and the butcher paper came out. As this was happening, a van began creeping down Villa Road, and rather than going straight it curved left between the health center and the hill, driving around the back of the Lodge through the K-Village and coming out at the Junior Village. IT MIGHT BE…IT COULD BE… and then I waved to the van, and it pulled up behind the three seated Big Ten men, and Robby leapt out screaming “IT IS!” and all of the visitors came spilling out as Heldman, Swiryn, and Jeff ducked in shock and amazement. Our final defensive stop successful, we dribbled out the remainder of the clock and escaped with a narrow victory. Who needs a drink…

“Two! Four! Six! Eight! Who do we appreciate? The other team! The other team! Yeah, the other team!”

The period ends, and we clean up the gear, and since it is second period I walk to the Lodge to see what’s happening in the office. One of the campers on the project comes with me. His name is Daniel Coltun, better known as D.C., and he is a crazed White Sox fan. He even models his swing after Carl Everett—without the switch-hitting, though—wagging back and forth in anticipation of the pitch. As it happens, today is the trade deadline for Major League Baseball, and D.C. has been on me all week to let him know if the White Sox make any moves.

“Well, it doesn’t say anything here, so they must not have done anything big. They’re only showing big moves on here for some reason. Everything else requires Insider.”

He tells me his ESPN Insider name, and then begins to walk around the counter again to type in the password.

He thinks, weighing his options. “Fine. It’s…” and he tells me his password.

Now the ESPN Insider news is open, and I take a look at the White Sox portion. D.C. is busting.

“Hold on man. Lemme look.” Scanning…scanning...and then… “Yeah. They got Geoff Blum.”

D.C. is shocked. I may as well have just told him that they traded for his sister. “Who??!!! Geoff Blum?”

D.C. is clearly not impressed. “You gotta be kidding me. They didn’t get Griffey?”

He looks at me and starts shaking his head. “Geoff Blum? Geoff Blum?” And that’s all he says as he leaves the office.

Bad news today. Rafael Palmeiro was suspended ten days (a joke) by MLB for testing positive for steroids. This is the man who in March denied steroid use outright by telling the House Committee that “I have never used steroids, period.” Now? Well, that statement is just a wee bit different: “I have never intentionally used steroids.” Whoops. He went on to say that “although I never intentionally put a banned substance into my body, the independent arbitrator ruled that I had to be suspended under the terms of the program.”

Palmeiro produced his 3000^th career hit on July 15^th, making him the fourth player in MLB history to have 500 home runs and 3000 hits.[1] Now he’s the biggest player in MLB to be suspended under the new steroid policy. Terrrrrr-rific.

Naturally, the arguments about Palmeiro will soon ensue: how does this suspension affect Palmeiro’s legacy?...Should this keep him out of the Hall of Fame?...etc. What we’re really talking about now, though, is trust. Who can you trust? Steroids are ruining sport. Not just baseball, but sport. They are destructive for many reasons. For people in general, they are dangerous. For athletes, they are fraudulent. Steroids change the focus of athletic competition, shifting importance and value from the act to the result. It’s the equivalent of a person in a Monopoly game using real money to buy property. “I’ll give you two railroads and 500 dollars for Boardwalk.” “I’ll give you five bucks for it.” Real money ruins the integrity of Monopoly, and that’s exactly what steroids do to baseball.

As for the fans, steroids are destructive because they force us to question everything we see on the fields of play. What if you were a Blue Jays fan, and found out that Joe Carter was juicing during the ’93 World Series? There’s no evidence or suggestion that he did, mind you. I’m simply using him as an example. But there it is. What if?

Who can we trust? At their purest, sports are proof of the physical body, displays of what the physical body can achieve. When we watch a clean player hit a home run, we are watching the natural results of the body. When we watch a steroid-aided player hit one, we are watching the steroids. Lifting weights, exercising, and eating well are part of the physical training. They require physical work. Steroids are artificial, and while steroid-use alone cannot produce 66, 70, or 73 home runs in a season, it certainly helps.

This is why fans go so crazy for guys who are pure and good all the way through: we’ve been burned so many times by cheaters and jerks. Who can you trust? We really don’t know anymore.

In a wonderful day for Cubs fans, Ryne Sandberg was inducted into the Hall of Fame today after failing to be voted in for the past three years. With baseball feeling the heat from the steroid investigation—particularly with Rafael Palmeiro serving a ten-game suspension for testing positive—it was great to have Sandberg and fellow inductee Wade Boggs prove that old school hustle and work ethic still count for something. Sandberg was particularly aware of this in his induction speech:

“A lot of people say this honor validates my career, but I didn’t work hard for validation…If this validates anything, it’s that learning how to bunt and hit and run and turn two are more important than knowing where to find the little red light at the dugout camera.”

This wasn’t the only thinly-veiled shot at Sosa, his former teammate. Ryno also dropped this gem: “When did it become OK for someone to hit home runs and forget how to play the rest of the game? These guys up here did not pave the way for the rest of us so that players could swing for the fences every time up and forget how to move a runner over to third base.”

Very cool to see a guy speaking up for the integrity of the game. Very cool to see Ryno in the Hall. Now if we could only get Santo in…

“This is probably it. The Big Ten was awesome, and I really want to get into law school, or maybe something political.”

“Maybe. Or maybe being a political writer. Or a comic. That would be a lot of fun.”

What’s better: UN Day or Pow Wow Day? Tough call. Let’s break it down, Dr. Jack style:

On UN Day, the bell wakes everyone up as per usual. On Pow Wow Day, the four advisors go cabin to cabin waking everyone up, doing so in as crazed a manner as possible, which includes jumping on fellow counselors and, of course, whistles.

On UN Day, the teams stand around the flag pole and do opening cheers. We then turn our attention to the athletic fields and the path to the Council Ring where the twelve captains are standing, evenly spaced out. At the Council Ring, Dan lights a torch and then hands it to the first junior captain. The two of them jog to the second junior captain, who takes the torch and jogs to the third, and then we go through the intermediates and finally to the seniors, with the final senior captain running the torch up the hill towards the flag pole to light our ceremonial Olympic standing torch. Dan then reads the original United Nations Day scroll, and has the twelve captains sign a sheet of paper attached to the scroll.

On Pow Wow Day, the four tribes line up on Villa Road. The order within the tribes are the three captains youngest to oldest, then the advisor, then all of the campers shortest to tallest followed by all staff shortest to tallest. We then walk, in silence, past the health center and the hill to Lou’s diamond, and then march around the bases, eventually ending up with each team lined up between two of the bases. Meanwhile, Leb rides a horse while decked out in full Indian gear. He and the horse then go to the pitcher’s mound, where the captains step forward to join him for a ceremonial puff on a “peace pipe.” Everyone is silent throughout, and after saying a few words, Leb gives the signal to Dan, who rings the bell to start the day, and the silence and stillness breaks into a mad sea of cheering and running as everyone gets to their places for leg wrestling.

SLIGHT EDGE: Pow Wow Day (Comedic bonus points for the two years in which the horse did not arrive, and Leb had to ride around on a way-to-small bike which he referred to as “my steed Aluminum.”)

Pow Wow Day has one-pitch softball, which means that a strike (swinging or looking) or a foul is an out, while a ball is a walk. Very hectic, and impossible to get a rhythm.

Pow Wow Day cheers are usually based on the name of the tribe, rather than the tribe’s characteristics. For example:

Dogrib, late-1990's: Bow wow wow, yippee-yo, yippe-yeah! Dogrib, Dogrib, all the way!

Lots of fun, but on UN Day you can actually do stuff with the country, like when Ari and Shmerling built a Parthenon for Shmerling’s team of Greece in 2003, or when the advisor for Iraq in 2001 dressed up as Saddam.

Pow Wow Day has a silent lunch. After listening to kids yammering away for six weeks, the silent lunch is absolutely one of the highlights of the summer.

No way around this one. We can talk all we want about promoting respect for the Earth (which we do well in word and in deed) and about honoring “our Native American ancestors,” but a bunch of white people—even if we are mostly Jews—taking the names of Indian tribes and then getting painted in war paint while hooping with our hands bouncing over our mouths…well, let’s just say it’s not my proudest moment as a member of North Star. Even though I abstain from wearing feathers and doing the BA!-ba-ba-ba clap and keep my paint job strictly word related, it’s still not good.

(Quick story: at the end of the summer, each staff member has the option of taking two “half nights” that begin after evening program—one after Pow Wow Day and the other on Tuesday—or one full night at the regular time on Monday. And so it was last summer when our dear friend Mike Swiryn bounced out of camp after PW Day with some friends and headed for the LCO, the casino at the Indian reservation in Hayward. This would have been fine…except for the fact that Mike accidentally showed up while still wearing war paint under his eyes. Whoops! This caused an interesting staredown between him and one of the LCO employees, causing Mike to hustle into the bathroom and examine himself in the mirror, quickly washing out the paint. A classic story. And so…)

After a fun morning, it’s time for the silent lunch, hands down one of my favorite times of the summer. While everyone else sits at their regular tables, the four advisors sit on a blanket in the middle of the Lodge, with their senior captain serving them lunch. Like I said, Katz is a great kid, and just as I did during my other two runs as a Pow Wow Day advisor, I have instructed Adam to bring me white bread along with little packets of peanut butter and grape jelly, which I assure him he can get from the kitchen if he asks nicely and tells them it’s for me. I also request skim milk. Katz comes through on all counts.

After lunch comes one-pitch, which is a nice lead-in to the Over-Under game that will be played in a few days. Other than simply enjoying playing softball with my peers after a summer of pitching to campers, there are two particular joys I have in playing these counselor games. The first is watching the foreigners play the outfield, because they all insist on not using a glove which they all think is for “pansies,” and then they go out there and have their hands smacked around by fly balls, though they maintain throughout that everything is fine. Always good for a laugh. The second is watching our joyful tennis pro Mike Storms bat, because he holds the bat one handed like a racket and stands as if he is awaiting a serve, an open stance while bobbing his knees…but of course his aim and swing are so good that he is always good for a base hit to left. Classic.

We lose our first game 6-3, and then battlie it out in the 3-4 game with Glick’s team, and then we win—“We eat third! We eat third!”—and it’s high-fives and good-games and a big two-four-six-eight all around, and then, as I’m walking to the athletic fields for the tug and the running relays, Keith comes bouncing up to find me.

“So,” and he leans in, “what do you say? Was that your last game of one-pitch softball?”

The last week of camp is like a roller coaster. Everything creeps upwards with the preparation for Pow Wow Day, and then as soon as the day is over it’s a steep drop, with five days remaining, all of which have something special to offer. There’s the art show, the Carney, Camper-Counselor Day, packing day, the final key log, request night, and the end of the year ceremony in Mike Hall and on the tennis courts. It’s weird; on the one hand, you’re sad to be leaving, but on the other hand each day is filled with anticipation and excitement, like a great movie that keeps building and building and building and doesn’t stop until the final line, at which point the screen goes black and the credits roll and you’re left in the theater breathless, trying to make sense in your mind what your emotions already understand.

The best day of them all, hands down, is Camper Counselor Day, the second to last full day of the summer. A few days before, usually the evening of Pow Wow Day, the Villa has a draft beginning with PM and working down to the youngest Villa cabin. The campers then gives that counselor his “signature” clothing items, and vice versa, and come Camper Counselor Day we get to be campers. It’s beyond sweet. Plus, this year, for the first time ever, I am one of my former campers, a kid named Ben Stout who was my camper in 2003 during his first summer at camp. He Villa guys keep their picks a secret until the last moment, and then when they approach you, you can kind of tell because it’s in their eyes, so when I saw Stout walking up to me with a secretive smile on his face, I got very excited.

Because we are campers, we are not allowed to use the staff lounge or the pop machine for the day, small fees for getting to eat our meals at a table entirely with our friends. It starts in the morning, as the counselors congregate in the Villa and make the walk down Villa road to the Lodge, all of us strolling in late as we satirize our senior-counterparts. The walk also gives us a chance to see each other, because we tend to keep it secret from even our friends. It’s always fun to see everyone dressed up, and as usual, the best of the lot is Cousins, who has shaved his legs in an effort to be fully in character.

The day also provides lots of freedom for activities that would otherwise be impossible. The crown jewel is the Over-Under game, in which the 21 and older staff play the 20 and under staff in softball. This year I ran my record to 4-0, winning in ’02 with the Unders and then taking three straight with the Overs.

Along with the traditional Over-Under game, new traditions have begun: a staff golf outing in the morning, an American-foreigner soccer game, and my favorite of the three, the fantasy football draft.

Ah, fantasy football. You sweet-singing siren. If fantasy football and real football were women, fantasy would be Angelina Jolie, real would be Jennifer Aniston, and men across America would be Brad Pitt. Fortunately for us, Brad gets both of them this time.

The camaraderie offered by fantasy football is wonderful, particularly for us, because it is a way to maintain contact with staff members over the winter, particularly first year guys in other cities. That said, the best aspect of fantasy without a doubt is the draft. If I could, I’d have a new draft every week…or, if that got old, every two weeks. Plenty of time to bang out the details.

We bring two long tables into Mike Hall and set them up on the stage. We have 12 teams, and each team has at least two members, with some of the younger staff teaming up in threes or fours. I am with Ari, and though he knows nothing about football, his presence helps me because for some reason I decide that I am not going to take him down with me in my usual showing of beyond bold drafting decisions. This year, it’s going to be focus, intelligence, and common sense.

Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have the first overall pick, which we got in the draw, and it also doesn’t hurt to have LaDainian Tomlinson around, who was the no-brainer first pick. “With the first pick, in the 2005 North Star staff fantasy football draft, the Prank Monkeys select LaDainian Tomlinson, ass-kicking tailback of the San Diego Chargers.”

Any fantasy football draft features a large amount of trash-talking, but it’s not so much the trash-talking that cracks me up as it is the bold-faced bluffing. Everybody wants to make everybody else believe that their pick is justified and that everybody else’s sucks, and they do so to such extremes that we end up with debacles such as Hamer taking Kevan Barlow in the first round in 2004 and defending that pick all season as Barlow scampered along to 822 yards rushing for a 3.4 ypc and 7 TD.

The Barlow selection is definitely one of the defining moments of the NSCFFL…in fact, the only other moment that leaps out as being as significant was my crafty (though some would say unethically deceptive) move in 2002 involving Shlensky and Charlie Garner. I maintain to this day that while it probably wasn’t a nice thing to do, it was not entirely unreasonable. Glick is our commish, and he draws up and makes copies of draft sheets. Each team gets a copy, twelve rows by fifteen columns of boxes, and we do the draw and write in the names, and then we do the draft and write in the picks. The idea is that everyone then has all of the drafted players/units right there in front of them…which is good thinking, and thus the reason why I feel that I wasn’t totally in the wrong. We were somewhere in the later stages of the draft—I’d say Round 11—and as we were coming back on the snake, Shlensky was drafting one spot ahead of me. I had already decided that I was going to take Charlie Garner, and he was still on the board when the draft hit Shlensky.

This bothered me. He had, after all, been recording every draft pick on the handy box chart that Glick had provided. It was sitting in front of him. So by asking he was not only saying that he hadn’t been following the draft very closely, but even worse, he wasn’t even making an attempt to simply look at the page in front of him for C. GARNER, OAK. Very lazy, and in my feeling, a violation of two of the most basic rules of fantasy football: pay attention, and use your resources.

As an act of defiance, motivated both by principal and personal gain, I said nothing. This guy basically leapt into the deep end of the pool after being warned not to, so if someone else wanted to throw him an innertube, that was their call. I just wasn’t going to be the one to do it. But remarkably, no one said anything, and it wasn’t because they were also staging protest. They just sort of half-heartedly looked at their sheets, and then put them down and looked up in a daze as if to say “I don’t know, I’m just as guilty as you are, and I don’t even really want to read this thing in the first place.” It was incredible. A total breakdown of the basic guiding principals of the draft. And so after waiting a full six seconds, I spoke up.

“Oh.” (Blindly accepting the word of the man drafting next.) “I’ll take Herman Moore then.”

At first everyone accepted it and wrote it down, and we began to move on, but then the entire situation seeped out of their memories and into their brains, and Shlensky let out a sudden “Wait a second!” and I was then accused of “stealing Charlie Garner.” There was a quick vote, with each team counting once, and my team “The Marcus Robinsons” was stripped of Charlie Garner. I then got stuck with some clown…not Herman Moore though, thankfully, as he ended up not playing a down in ’02 with 2001 being his final season. From there I became cursed, and in the words of Andy Dufresne, “Whatever mistakes I’ve made in the past, I’ve paid for them and then some.” Last season felt like the end of it, and I feel now as, rightly or wrongly, I’ve paid my debt, and I am now ready to make a push for the championship.

The draft is great fun, though much to my surprise it turns out that you have to enjoy football to enjoy the draft, and though Ari is happy doing the faux-trash talk schtick for a little while, he soon grows tired of it all, leading to this fabulous exchange at the tail end of Round Seven:

In the end, like everyone else, I am outwardly excited about our team. However, unlike most everyone else, our team is actually really good. The rundown:

And so it begins, and in five months we will have our winners, and their names will be woodburned into the plaque that hangs in the Moose Room, forever remembered by those who walk into the Moose Room.

The night ends with the end of the year staff show. Unlike the staff shows at the start of each session, the end of the year staff show holds a few sacred camp traditions. It was at this staff show where, every summer, Jack read “Sam McGee,” his favorite poem.

Was that night on the marge at Lake LaBarge/when I cremated my friend, Sam McGee

After Jack passed, Dan and Hitch took over reading in his honor, and now that Hitch is gone, Shlensky—a member of Jack’s final C.I.T. group—has joined Dan. And the campers sit quietly and listen, watching, just as we did when we were there. We have also started our own tradition, jumping aboard something I pulled from my memory as a camper. Four or five campers went up on stage at Mike Hall, pulled out pops, and began reminiscing about the summer in the “how ‘bout?” fashion, as in “How ‘bout Swiryn walking into the LCO while wearing war paint?” I had always enjoyed that skit, and so last summer I pulled Dan, Hamer, Swiryn, Jacob, and Musch into it, and we wrote out every memory from the summer that we could think of, and then we walked onto the stage at Mike Hall, pulled out our pops, and talked about the summer. The ending:

Jack walks outside, leaving Mike Hall and the staff show and walking out onto the tennis courts. The sun is nearly down, and there is a pristine cleanliness to the North Woods sky. He walks to the back of the tennis courts and sits down on the pavement, watching Mike Hall as the staff show continues. From inside, all you can hear is laughter, the voices of counselors and campers, the grated shuffling of gym shoes on the sandy floor. But out here, the sound is distant, even though the building is just up ahead.

Milling around outside as he waits to go on, Josh Frost notices his friend sitting by himself. Josh is 19, already feeling the pull of “real life” that snares so many North Star men. At 23, Jack is feeling it too.

“I’ve always liked this,” Jack says, eyes on his sneakers. “This right here, ya know?”

“Yeah, but this right here. I mean, this only comes once a year, ya know? The end of the year staff show…I mean, I remember being a camper and just loving this night. Watching all of my counselors up there, and then Leb and Sue’s song, and singing “Carry On.” I always dug it. And I still dig it. And here it is. The only one we get all year.”

“And then you come out here, and there’s so much else going on. But look at everybody in there, laughing and singing and doing skits. It may as well be everything. But out here…I don’t know. I’ve just always liked it. The whole thing. In and out.” He laughs, lifting his head. “I just like it.”

Josh says nothing. They sit for a bit longer, and then rejoin the rest of the staff. Later, they will stand on the stage arm in arm and sing the hymnful “Carry On.”

After the staff show is over and we’re done singing and everything, Leb speaks, announcing that “And now, Camper-Counselor Day continues. The Camper-Counselors will be putting you to bed, because we will be having our staff party up in the Lodge.” And with that, we cheer heartily. Gotta love Camper-Counselor Day. Isn’t it great?

And so while our campers are put to bed by other campers, we have our staff party. Always great. Every summer on the final night of camp we watch the end of the year slideshow, and since that show is geared towards the campers, Spiegel, Glick, and Matt Bernstein took it upon themselves two years ago to start a staff slideshow, which we watch during the staff party. This is great because along with the emphasis being placed solely on the staff, we can also put in the pictures that are, as Leb would say, “inappropriate for a children’s summer camp.” These include (past and present):

1. All of the shots from the pre-camp photo scavenger hunt this summer…namely the ones that featured staff members miming certain sexual acts on the produce at Marketplace.

2. Blumberg talking to the police officer in Duluth on layover day 2003, in which he was kicked out of the entire city of Duluth for directing traffic with a whistle. (Hilarious.)

3. J.R. standing nude with the captain of the ferry that takes cars from Bayfield, WI to Madeline Island.

4. A tight shot of a horrified Ari—who was buried up to his neck in sand at the beach on Madeline island—as he tries in vein to avoid contact with Hamer’s enormous ass, which is engulfing the remainder of the frame.

7. J.R. hanging nude from a tree at the cliff-jumping spot on Madeline as he attempts to recover his clothes…while three unknown people approaching the cliffs stare in horror.

9. Me standing next to Leb the morning of Pow Wow Day this summer, wearing nothing more than gym shoes, high socks, my Minnesota North Stars hat, and, most notably, a red pair of “GIRL POWER” thong-underwear that I bought at Wal-Mart the night before Pow Wow Day. (Leb looks terrified in this picture.)

After the slideshow we proceeded to another time-honored end of the summer tradition: counselor trades, in which we gather together all of the clothing or other gear that we’d be willing to trade, and then lay it all out on the tables in the outer lodge to see what is available. A history of my biggest trade-deadline deals:

I gave Boda my Kerry Wood jersey that Moil, Jonny, and Jake me for my 18^th birthday (it never fit properly, and since it wasn’t a game jersey, but rather one of those warmup deals, it was bumped by the SANTO jersey) in exchange for two t-shirts from Boda, the first being a white t-shirt from his middle school that reads “PINGRY M.S. SOFTBALL 1993” on the front and lists all of the names of the players on the back, (the catch being that Boda wasn’t even on that team, and got the shirt out of the lost and found at his school), and the second being a yellow t-shirt with a picture of an ice cream cone below the words “MCKAY’S CORNER STORE.” Boda also threw in a Coke to be named later, which has not, as of yet, been collected.

This was a monumental deal, the very rare four-way deal, in which Jacob gave Eric Daniel his white Mickey Mouse t-shirt, E.D. gave Musch his navy NICOLET hoodie, Musch gave me his red DENVER HOCKEY hoodie, and I gave Jacob the MCKAY’S t-shirt that I got the year before from Boda. (Personally, I’ve always felt that I got the best of this deal, as I moved from a t-shirt to a hoodie.)

This was a one for one, in which I parted ways with arguably my most sought-after shirt ever: my burning-hot yellow LUMBERJACK SECURITY SHIRT that I got in 2003 from an actual security guard at the Lumberjack Festival in Hayward. People have been asking me for two years when I would put it on the block, but I needed some time with it. It was, in fact, the very shirt that I gave to Ben Stout for Camper-Counselor Day today, so I had to get it from him before I could trade it to Frost. In exchange I got his orange SYRACUSE IS ORANGES t-shirt, a mock-up of Cornell’s more famous green ITHICA IS GORGEOUS t-shirt. This will probably bother my brother, since he’s had it in for Syracuse ever since they beat Kansas in 2003…and it will also probably bother my good friend Avi Brown, as she went to Cornell and owns the GORGEOUS t-shirt. Ah well. You can’t please everybody.

I also had my eye on one of Swiryn’s best pieces, a truly great item. Mike owns two polo-style collared shirts that were Lou’s, one a green North Star one and the other a red Chippewa Ranch Camp one. I know that he won’t part with the NSC shirt, but the Chippewa shirt was on the block, layed out on the table “just in case someone gives me a great offer.”

Meanwhile, I’d been feeling kind of anxious over the past few weeks, because while I love the North Stars hat that Dan gave me last summer at this time, I just feel like it’s time to return to my roots and get a new Bears hat. It felt weird driving around the country and not repping Bears wherever I went…and so I was thinking about giving Mike the hat, which would be cool because Dan had it for a year, and now I’ve had it for a year, and perhaps, just perhaps, the hat would be the offer that Mike couldn’t refuse. It’s not a trade, though. This one is a gift, and if he returns that gesture with the Chippewa shirt, well, that’d be sweet. But Dan gave me the North Stars hat for a gift, and so I feel kind of bad giving it away.

“Well, I’ve loved wearing your North Stars hat, but I really just feel like I need a Bears hat. I mean, I just need it, and I love this one, but I think I need a Bears hat.”

“Oh.” He’s always so nice. “Well, what I was thinking about doing was offering it to Swiryn, which I think would be cool, because you had it for a year, and now I’ve had it for a year, and then he’ll have it. Is that cool?”

And so I go to Swiryn, and offer him the hat, and in turn he offers me the shirt, and now I am in possession of a shirt that I got from my brother in camping, a shirt that once belonged to Lou Rosenblum. And the North Stars hat now rests atop Mike’s head, after a year on Dan’s and a year on mine.

We head to the Council Ring at around four for the final key log ceremony. Each one seems to get longer and longer, as our generation gets closer and closer to our last days at North Star. The campers line up first, waiting for their chance, and we wait and listen, knowing that the final key log will last somewhere in the range of an hour. Finally, counselors start to head up, and one by one we pour our hearts out to each other. These guys have become my closest friends, and even if I’d never seen them once out of camp, even if these 32 weeks were all I ever had with them, that would be enough to make me smile upon my death bed. I can hardly even get the words out as I stand up there in front of the fire. I love these guys with everything I have.

I sit down for the remainder, and Ari sits next to me, the two of us arm in arm, me leaning my head down on his shoulder. It’s been a long key log, and at the end of the line is a first-year counselor who continuously tells person after person to go ahead of him. He steps forward, eventually giving a nice talk about what camp has meant to him, but just as he’s about to begin, Cousins walks up behind him. We look at Cousins, and smile in preparation for something funny, and as Cousins begins speaking, his words get caught, and he just starts laughing, first a little bit, trying to contain himself, and then more, and then even more, and now he’s giggling like a child, getting himself together long enough to say something to the effect of “Here’s to camp.” Ari and I laugh, a peaceful, relaxing, comforting laugh. A perfect capper. Cousins is awesome.

We walk down the hill and line up around the flag pole one final time, and then cabin Junior One turns to head into the Lodge as the counselors sing “When the Saints Go Marching On.” It’s one of my favorite moments of the summer; everyone’s eyes are red from crying, and then we get this happy, goofy moment, and we smile, and go inside for our final dinner together. And as he does for the first and final grace of each session, Leb delivers “A Creed” by Edwin Markham.[5] And we join him:

After dinner it’s up to Mike Hall for Request Night, a program in which one can request anyone else to go up and do an imitation or a dance or a song or anything else that can be performed, with Leb reminding us, of course, that it must be “appropriate for a children’s summer camp.” It’s guaranteed madcap silliness and goofiness, which, of course, we’re all about. Though we could go on all night, we don’t, and the evening becomes serious as one Pine Manor camper gives the camper farewell, followed by one counselor giving the counselor farewell. This year it is Heldman, and with a smile, my friend who does not often let his emotions out shows us all just what this place has meant to him over the past ten years. And he looked at the campers, small, quiet faces, and he tells them that if tomorrow night as they lay in their big cozy beds in their big cozy rooms with their indoor heating and carpeted floors, if they happen to find it difficult to sleep, well, don’t worry. It’s happening to all of us.

After Heldman finishes, the lights go out, and the end of the year slide show begins, and as we watch the pictures from the summer, Glickman leads a group of counselors in the back of Mike Hall as they sing some of our favorite camp songs: “You’ve Got a Friend,” “All My Life’s A Circle,” and my favorite, “North Star Farewell.”

We walk silently out to the tennis courts, and as we stand out there looking at the stars and the darkened athletic fields, Leb speaks, thanking us for a wonderful summer. And we find our friends, our faces wet from tears, and in the dark of the great North Woods we say goodbye.

[1] Palmeiro: 3018 hits and 569 home runs (23^rd and ninth all-time, respectively)…Aaron: 3771 and 755 (third and first)…Mays: 3283 and 660 (11^th and third)…Murray: 3255 and 504 (12^th and 20^th)

[2] At first I thought that this might be too early for a defense, but then I figured that we were far enough along that if I didn’t take them and somebody else did, I’d be really upset.

[3] In the words of Doc Brown “I figured, what the hell.”

[4] For kicks, we go back around and pick a home stadium. I always take 1985 Soldier Field.

[5] The exact wording of this poem has always been in question as far as I’ve known. This is just the way that we say it.