Life and Death

Hello everyone!


Well, after a week of grunt work, a week of training, and two weeks of official camp, I am back in Bemidji for a week-long holiday. There's at family camp at CYC right now, but it's really low-key and since everyone is going to get the end of the week off anyway (since a rental camp cancelled on us), I was able to get the entire week off. I came back Saturday night and have been keeping pretty low-key.

So, I figure that since I've been at camp for the past four weeks, I can regale everyone with some stories and whatnot. The campgrounds are really amazing. I haven't been to too many summer camps, but I definitely think CYC is well-built and all that. My mom already put some pictures up on my facebook account, but I'll try to put some more up once I get back to camp. There's five or six boys cabins and about the same for girls cabins, and for the worried parents out there (I wonder if any worried parents read my blog...), the boys and girls cabins are separated by the archery field and Sweeney Lodge. Sweeney is our dining hall, main bathroom/shower facilities, and lockers. Each cabin of kids gets three lockers to share, but each counselor gets their own locker for non-cabin stuff (basically everything that's not immediately at the bedside). There's a rec hall which is mainly storage for campers' luggage and sports equipment. There's an art barn, a wood shop (for camping equipment and some tools), a boating bay (with paddle boats, canoes and 10 new kayaks), a swimming beach, like four campfires, Tec (the building for dance and drama), Indian Point (the main office/meeting building as well as the chapel and camp store), Maurer Lodge (with the much needed nurse's station), the Stonehouse (with the supposed "staff lounge"... still in construction, and laundry facilities), and the director's cabin (where we can watch movies on the weekends and our night off). There's also a place called Sunset Beach that's, appropriately enough, the best place on the campground to watch the sunset.

*pause* I'm sure none of you were dying to read all that, so I'll move on. There is one road coming into the landmass where camp is located, so for our purposes, we call it the island. Along this note, when I'm on the island, I feel like I'm in my own world. Yes, the camp does have some computers, and other modern/electronic things (a lot of the other counselors have their laptops and iPods with them at camp), but being on the island makes me feel the closest to nature that I've ever felt... more than when I'm in Bemidji, more than when I'm camping at parks, and it's a completely different feeling than being at school in downtown Minneapolis. Case in point, the very first grunt job of mine... was to clear a tree that had fallen and completely fallen across the road. When two other counselors and I discovered the tree (which blocked our progress to the maintenence shed), we weren't panicked because we wouldn't be able to drive off the island or because this would make us late for some schedule... we just walked to the maintenence shed and tried to find the chainsaw. *pause* We couldn't find it for the life of us. It ends up that my first job while at camp is hacksawing branches off the tree while the other two guys saw through the trunk with a classic two-person lumberjack saw... Maybe that's why I feel so "in nature" when I'm on the island. A good deal of the grunt work we did was by hand and as a team.

Okay, rather than recite stories from every day, I'll kind of skim over the weeks (since I know this is going to be a long entry anyway). During my first week (which I refer to as "grunt work week"), it was the five program staff (the people who specalize in different areas of the camp, and are higher up the ladder than counselors, but we all answer to the camp director) and a few counselors, which grew in numbers as the week went on. A lot of jobs during grunt work week was cleaning up the camp so we didn't have to do that stuff during training week: weeding, clearing out the rec hall, getting things back in the water (buoys, pontoons, a new dock), and organizing all the camp equipment... that was an endeavor. There was one day where one of my assignments (along with two other guys) where to literally rip down the old archery shed. The shed looked like it would fall down by itself... but we couldn't let that happen. :-P I'm in the wood shop gathering some tools... hammer, pry bar (very important tool as I learned as a child; thanks, Dad), hatchets... two hatchets, a couple hacksaws... and a big ol' axe. An eerie grin crept on my face as I approached the target. It only seemed like moments before pieces were being flung from the shed. Zak got the pleasure of using the axe to destory the padlock on the door, like in the movies, and we all got to just take the axe and bust holes through the wall.

(If you couldn't tell right now, I'm in an odd mood where I want to recap a lot of stuff, but at the same time, go in-depth with various stories. This is me, and I wouldn't have it any other way. :-))

By the end of the week, all the counselors (originally 16 of us but two of us, who were married, had to leave because of medical reasons... but now another girl is coming to fill the spot, so I think we're keeping it at 15 for the rest of the summer) came to camp and got ready for training week. The first thing we did together was make sock puppets. Some people went really elaborate, and I kept mine simple in comparison... later we find out that these are our campers to tend over during the week. It reminded me of Home Ec/FACS class when students had to cart around babies, bags of flour, or eggs around... and if anyone's camper ended up missing, we had to do a full-out missing camp search across camp. During training week, we sampled all the activities around camp, as well as got to know each other (and I ended up knowing like 5 other people through YA and UMN friends), and get familiar with the facilities.

Halfway through training week... I had a first. It was my first trip to the emergency room for wide-spread poison ivy. It turns out that the path we weeded during grunt work week was once heavily populated with poison ivy and I happened to be sitting/squating in it for several different days. So yeah, basically everything that wasn't covered with a t-shirt and shorts was covered in poison ivy (except for my head, face, and neck, fortuantely enough... that would've been bad). I end up going to the Aitkin ER and get some pills, cream, and the instructions to also continue applying calamine lotion. I'm thankful that all of this happened before any kids were on the grounds, and it did fortunately clear up before the first week of campers. Training week wrapped up with a talent show among other things, and I made a name for myself by portraying the camp director in a drama skit and apparently nailing it perfectly after only knowing the guy for a few days (since I never met the guy until the beginning of training week). I also sang "If Ever I Would Leave You" from Camelot, as well as did a line dance with all the other counselors.

The first week of kids was interesting. 75% of the campers were from the same inner-city church group, and 75% of those people were all related. There were many times when one kid would play fight with another (in other words, not maliciously) and they'd be brothers or something. I had a cabin of eight kids from the middle age group (late elementary school and early middle school), and it was a mix between inner-city and non inner-city, and returning campers and first-timers. One of the campers really reminded me of one of my best friends from elementary school, which got to think the entire week about how children don't see color/race (since my camper and my friend are both African-American and that was something I didn't think of/notice/care about as a kid). My cabin was a slow bunch, but it was a good group of kids (especially to start out the summer). There were some female campers that had made a name for themselves last year by making counselors break down, activities screech to a halt, and cabin talk fall into pieces. I worked with some of these individuals, and I'm glad I was able to tower over them and have an authoritative voice... I feel bad for one of the counselors who had a bunch of these girls in her cabin and... yeah, I won't go into it, but it was bad. Over the week, I assisted with one archery group and two drama groups. I can tell that my own archery skills have greatly improved since I was younger, and the drama groups were pretty good (one of the groups had some of the divas, if you will). All in all, the week was a challenge at times, but I'm glad I had a co-counselor to work with, and in the end, I'd say it was a week of growth for everyone.

This past week was Superhero Week (I forgot to mention that the first week's theme was the Olympics) and I was in charge of cabin of ten boys from the youngest age group. This week had its pros and cons when compared to the first week... one big plus was that during this week, I had to keep kids from running ahead of the group, rather than getting kids to stop dragging their feet. Almost all my kids were at camp for the first time, so enforcing some of the procedures proved challenging. One boy had to leave camp early due to homesickness, and two more boys left on Thursday (they were there as a "Sampler", who only goes to camp for half the week)... it definitely felt more manageable when it was seven guys... well... a little more manageable. I lead a drama group, and assisted with a music group and dance group. The music group performed twice and the dance group performed their number at the talent show. That's right, for the talent show (and for the closing ceremony with the parents present), I was shaking my hips and showing what I got to the techno remix of "It's a Small World". The second week was also a good week.

Working with kids definitely has proven to have difficulties, and we've dealt with a good list of nasty situations over the past four weeks. Power outages, running out of propane, running out of water, kids fighting, broken arm, jammed finger, kids ending up where they shouldn't be, and enough poison ivy, splinters, cuts, and sour attitude to keep any nurse occupied. At the same time, there have been awesome experiences and it's been amazing working with kids. Last week, two of my guys caught a 17" Northern Pike while fishing as a cabin. There was a guy who, during the Friday night festival, hula hooped for 1hr 11min 36sec. One of my boys was bold enough to go up in front of everyone at the talent show and impersonated a zebra. God has given me a really good sense of humor and the kids have definitley been keeping me entertained. I only wish I could spend more time with each kid, especially the quieter ones who don't need to be told what to do all the time.

The reason I entitled this blog entry "Life and Death" was because over the past four weeks, I've met and interacted with so many amazing people. The counselors are all awesome and the kids just have happiness pouring out their ears some days. There was a day the youngest kids ran around the rec hall area in a little swarm trying to tackle counselors and even when I was 50 feet away I could hear their yells and laughter.

To change the subject, some of my dear friends from Bemidji and I have had to experience death of a friend. On Tuesday, Amber Lundy, a fellow 05 graduate of BHS, collapsed on her way to her car and later died at North County Regional Hospital. From what Jessie told me, she had a blood clot which got to her lungs. She was 21. No parent should have to bury their child when she's only 21. She was engaged to another good friend of mine, who also went to BHS. I'll admit, I wasn't her best friend, but I worked with her in drama and music, and it's hard to believe that she's not there any more. After hearing about Amber's death, some of my friends rushed to Bart's (her fiance) side and really heeded the call of charity and friendship. I only learned of all this on Saturday and I'm lucky that I was able to come home and be in Bemidji for the week. The funeral service was today. I was glad to see friends from high school, but I wish it could've been under happier circumstances. There were also people from my church community, and high school teachers, and even the high school principal. I'm glad I could attend the service because I could pay respects to Amber but also my respects to Bart, Jessie, and all of the people close to her. It sounds like a bunch of my friends have done so much for Bart, and I don't want them to burn out. Amber's brother was also at the service and looked like he was middle school age... there were many times today I just didn't know what to say to Bart or Amber's brother.

Well, I should start to wrap this blog entry up. Like I said before, I'm in Bemidji for a week because of the holiday and such. Okay, I'm visiting family from tomorrow afternoon until Wednesday, but other than that, I'll be in the area. For the most part, I'm keeping my plans laid back and my schedule open. I want to try to get some reading in, some letters written, and plan out some stuff for leading camp activities (especially since it looks like I'll be helping out with drama for a good chunk of the summer). If anyone wants to get together, I'm assuming you know how to contact me. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far. I hope everyone enjoyed this long entry and I will talk to you all later. Take care and God bless.

~Matt dB