First of all, let me preface this entry by saying that it's 3 in the morning and I'm extremely tired. I don't have work in the morning, thank God, but I should nonetheless be in bed. But this site and Chanco have been foremost in my thoughts for a couple of days, and despite the fact that I have a lot of other writing projects that I should be working on, this blog will not leave me alone and let me sleep peacefully. So, inspired by a comment on Brian Counselor's profile page, I feel the need to tell a couple of stories from my first year at camp, first session, 1986.

Here's the comment in question: "As Program Director, I think my imagination was bigger than my ability to do the job. I hated doing the announcements, but I totally got carried away with the evening program. [...] Earlier I laughed at Dave Davenport’s picture of him scratching his head as he talked to me when I was program Director (1986 Photo Album). I think I had some kind of crazy outdoor game going on every other night that summer. Later my little brother Cooper (now a pilot for US Air) told me it was the only summer he remembers that we almost never went inside."

Boy, did this bring back a strong memory. And it is of an outdoor game that, sure enough, was crazy. I don't really remember all of the details, but I remember enough to tell the story. See, what Brian did was have all of us campers, all 100 or however many of us there were, spread out into a gym-class formation on the lawn, right in front of the old canteen shack. By gym-class formation, I mean that he had us in rows, and we all had to stretch out our arms to our sides to make sure we weren't close enough to each other to accidentally hit each other while doing some sort of calisthenic exercise. Then he informed us that we were going to play a game in which we were all cabin hands on a pirate ship. He had a series of commands, each of which involved us doing some sort of complex action in response. He would shout them out through the megaphone, and we would all attempt to execute the commands correctly. Anyone who didn't manage to do so was out. We'd play this game until one person remained, and that person would be crowned the winner.

Well, maybe this game was easier to play than Brian expected it to be, because I can tell you that I did quite well at it, and I'm not exactly the most brilliant person at any physical activity. After a while, I was one of maybe a dozen kids that remained. I was doing well, but our numbers were just not decreasing fast enough, and I was starting to get kind of tired of the entire exercise. I think Brian also realized that we weren't going out fast enough, so his instructions became more and more maddening. At one point, he started transitioning between two different commands, over and over again: "scrub the deck", which meant that we were to get on our hands and knees and pretend to be washing a deck, and "comin' about", which meant that we were to lie on our stomachs so as to duck under the imaginary sail that was swinging over our heads. After about 10 or 15 transitions between these two commands, during which I was thinking, "Oh my God, this sucks. This is so annoying," I suddenly realized that... wait! I didn't have to keep playing this game if I didn't want to! I could just SCREW UP ON PURPOSE! Yeah, that was the ticket! The next time Brian told us to "scrub the deck", I stayed lying down on my stomach. After all, I was tired anyway. He called me out and I headed off to the sidelines, breathing a sigh of relief. Of course, within another 15 or 20 seconds, he went back to a more varied sequence of commands, and I found myself annoyed that I hadn't put up with it and stayed in. I could have won, I told myself. The grass is always greener, especially when you're 10 years old.

One other quick bit about Brian's tenure as program director: he was also the guy that taught me and the rest of the 1986 first session campers the "Tall Silk Hat" song. Boy, I gotta tell ya, that one was a big hit with all of us 10 year olds. I don't know how widespread that song was over the entire Chanco history, so I'll go ahead and explain the relevant lyrics. It began with a guy getting onto a train with his tall silk hat [accompanied by the appropriate motion--hands held wide apart to indicate a large top hat, then clapped together]. He "laid it down beside me... my tall silk hat. [clap]" The next bit was the part that everyone loved. In a deep, ominous tone, the next line was sung while gesturing with hands wide apart and while waddling in place: "A biiiiig, a-fat-a lady, she sat upon it..." and now the punch line, wait for it... Sung in a high-pitched, teeny tiny mouse voice, holding two fingers of one hand a mere centimeter apart: "my tall silk hat." There was more to the song, I'm sure, and in fact I think I remember something about Christopher Columbus. But that little tiny voice singing "my tall silk hat" just killed us. Half the camp was walking around for the rest of the session going "A biiiiig, a-fat-a lady..." Seems silly to me now, but as a 10 year old, it was high comedy.

OK, now that I've typed all of this out, maybe I can make myself go to sleep. More to come sooner rather than later, I'm sure.