#camp school

I’ll be gone for three straight days (Friday morning to Sunday night). I’m going to National Camping School for the Administration Program, because I’m part of the upper management at my summer camp this year. I’m excited! But that’s also why there won’t be any posts for a while :/ sorry! I’ll find some posts to reblog as soon as I get back though! 

Dearest Hannah,

I feel a deep pain in my body because I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age. If only you were here, you could butter me up a hot piece of toast in the morning----I’d stuff it down my shirt to keep warm on my walk to Camp School (school in which I learn how to go to camp). “Dress smartly,” you’d say, “don’t you want to impress the other young adults at Camp School with your keen sartorial sense?” And I’d say, “That word-a-day calendar is really paying off, Hannah! Now stuff my shirt with buttered bread!” And I’d leave and forget my lunch.

Camp School is going well, by the by. I just took an examination for my “Late Night Bunk Bed Oversharing” class, and I’ll be attending a lecture tomorrow on “Who To Exclude From Your Camp Clique, And Why”. I’m quite good at all this, I guess I have a knack for camp. Although I will admit my hands are sore from my Fire Starting class, but flicking a lighter all day will do that to a person. Also, a nearby neighborhood is now ash.

I’m enjoying all of it but yesterday I needed a break, I had to get away from all the “get away from it all” camp attitude. So I went to the library. It was quiet in there----too quiet. No, actually it was just quiet enough. A little too quiet enough.

I went to my favorite spot, Sharing Corner, and plopped down on a beanbag with some kids and moms. Dick Hushes was reading from his book of short stories. Dick is considered by some to be a recluse, but his true nature comes out when he reads to kids. He’s warm, his voice comforting; his aura is that of a serene lake on warm day, willows dangling gently in the water. He also has occasional angry outbursts.

Dick doesn’t let anyone proofread his work so it’s riddled with spelling and grammatical errors. He was telling a nice story about a young man at a swimming hole (I think he was mostly improvising) and he became cross when a titless shrew corrected his grammar. “Stay outta this, y’old crone!” he yelled at the mom and stormed off through the bean bags flailing his book furiously.

Today I read in the Daily Newspoppins that Dick boarded up his small cottage. Outside hangs a crooked sign with jagged letters painted in red, “NO MOR DICK STOREYS FUR YOU! KIP OWT!” Perhaps, with your encouragement, Hannah, I can take over as the new Dick Hushes and read those young boys and girls tales of my love for you. I do love you deeply Hannah, it definitely feels like we’ve met more than once----which of course we haven’t!

Handily,

A group of strangers

Brought together in Texas

Bonded over this

In exactly a week, dear audience, I will be boarding a plane for Kuwait to begin my new job in a new country! As I've mentioned in a few essays recently, I'm still struggling with organizing my life here in Egypt and somehow moving it over to Kuwait. In other words, I have too much stuff, and I got to throw most of it out before I can move. However, I have discovered some lost treasures amidst all of my clutter, and today was no exception. I was going through a senior-year notebook and discovered a bunch of drawings made by me and my cohorts at a national camp school in southern Texas back in the summer of 2009. I was at a week-long training school in the wilds of a dry county a few hours from Fort Worth to learn the fundamentals of "program directing". My class was composed of two other guys my age, a couple of wizened Scouters, and a few young district executives (professional Boy Scouts). In the heat and humidity of the gator-and-wild-hog-filled wilderness, we set about learning the basics of leadership and creativity required to become cult figures at our respective camps. Anyway, we used to spend our free time at meals and out at the nearby Applebee's restaurant playing a simple game - one person would doodle on a page until his pen left the paper, then another person would take over doodling, and so on and so forth. So for today's essay, I photographed the ten illustrations we made over the course of that week and have presented them here with witty titles for your amusement. Enjoy!

Upside-down Peace

Wombat Mountains

Hippy Banana

Snail Abduction

Applebee's Crayon

The House of Pepe

Boredom of the Hand

Boy Themes

Hail, the Gang's All Here

Softly Falling