Glory Day
July 25th, 2006My kids go to sleep-away camp for 8 weeks in the summer. Luckily my wife
works at the camp, and it's only about an hour from my home, so being a
“staff parent,” I get to see them for a bit on weekends. This summer,
they seem to be having an even better time there than in the past, and
their smiling faces remind me of some of the best times I ever had. As
a matter of fact, I can say definitively that one of the best days of
my life was one spent at camp.
Oh, it'd be easy to say the best day of my life was the birth of my
son, or my daughter. Or my wedding day. Too easy. And
too…predictable.
Sure, those 3 days were among the best of my life, but then where would the story be? The drama? The pathos?
Alright, yes there's lots of drama in childbirth, and there are
probably a few good posts regarding both my kids' births. My wedding
was wonderful, with lots of dancing, but really not a lot of drama. My
bachelor party- well that's a post you'll never read.
No, this post goes back much further, to a summer day when I was 16.
Being in the oldest division, it was my last year in camp. I'd spent 5
summers at this camp and it was a real part of who I was.
But my first
year, however, at 11, gave me a taste of independence that I'd never dreamed of,
and it allowed me to begin forming my self as a singular person,
without the self-identification as my parents' child.
In my first year in 1971, during the next to last week, during a dinner one
evening, about 2 dozen campers from the older divisions came
rampaging into the massive dining hall, screaming, banging drums,
carrying huge blue and white flags. They began chanting excitedly
about war! But not real war.
Color War!
Color War was the only activity that was camp-wide and involved just
about every person (probably about 800) on the grounds. The entire camp
was split into two teams - Blue and White- and for the next 2 days,
competitions in every sport and game imaginable would determine which
team would be declared the winners.
I sat there at my bunk's table, anticipating the fun to come over the
next days, and in the midst of all this, a 16 year old camper named
David Gold came over to our table. He pointed at me, and yelled, “You!
Blitzy! Come with me! You're my White Team Division Captain! We have
work to do!” I looked at my counselor, incredulously, and he
grinned and nodded for me to go with David.
David took me to White Team Headquarters, which was on the “big” side
of camp where the older kids were. I'd really never spent much time
here as a camper in the youngest division. So already I was thinking how
cool this whole thing was gonna be. We spent the whole evening putting
together songs and cheers, figuring out who in my division was going to
compete in which events. It was so fun being able to sit there and
strategize which kids were good at basketball and who was better at
softball or swimming. Or which events the “smart” (read
athletically-challenged) would do us the most good in, like Jeopardy or
Chess or even Jacks. Yes, Jacks was a highly competitive event in our
camp for both boys and girls. Baby powder spread on the multi-colored
slate field stones in front of every bunk in our division was
commonplace.
In any case, I got to stay up late- past my division's lights-out time,
and when I finally came in, my whole bunk was in bed, but awake with
excitement and anticipation with what was to come tomorrow. I was
barraged with questions, just as I'm sure was my Blue Team counterpart
in another bunk. Our bunk was split into Blue and White members, and
the counselors had told them who was on which team while I was at the
Captains' meeting. I huddled in the dark with my 7 or 8 White Team
bunk mates and told them of my strategies and which one of them would be
playing in which events tomorrow. It wasn't long before excitement
turned to fatigue, and we all conked out for the night.
Color War was 2 more days of screaming and cheering and competitions.
As captain of my division, I only played in one event (I was the best
softball 3rd baseman in the division). and I spent the rest of the days
rallying my troops and getting reports from other Captains and
Lieutenants around the camp. At the end of the second day, the score
was close, and that evening, at the beginning of dinner, they announced
that the Blue Team had won by a mere ten points, with a score of
something like 5575 to 5565. I was crestfallen, and I remember sagging
into David Gold's shoulder and crying. He bucked me up and told me not
to cry. I was a leader and I had to show everyone how to be a good
sportsman, and that we should all go shake hands with our Blue team
counterparts. We then led cheers to honor the winners. It was hard,
but it was a lesson I still carry about how to lose, but also of how to
win.
So five years go by. I'm in my last year at camp, in the oldest
division. It's week 7, and my division head Bob, and the camp's Head of
Athletics, the same-but-now-21-year-old David Gold, call me and one of
my bunk mates over to their table after breakfast one day. They wait
until the dining room is almost emptied out, and they furtively inform us that we
have both been chosen to be Camp Captains for Color War this year. As
the oldest campers, we are not just division captains, but captains of
the whole camp. We'll be the ones to organize the other division
captains, and keep our teams running smoothly. I'm extremely surprised
at being named captain, as no one at camp had ever been named captain twice. I look at David and ask him about this, and he
says there's no rule against it, and if anyone has a problem with it,
they can come to him. I then ask him, “Okay, but what color team am I
Captian of?” He smiles knowingly, and says “White of course!” I smile
back, and I shake my Blue Captain's hand, and wish him good luck.
We both leave to start planning how we are going to “break” Color War
the next day. We split up our bunk (the only one in our division) and
gather our teams together. This is the one event that is mutually
planned. We decide to stage a a fake fight among about 16 of us,
beginning at our table and winding up in the front of the dining hall
that turns into in a scrum, from which we pulled a huge banner to
announce Color War.
We break Color War the next night, and over the next few days, once
again, we are consumed with the competition. As Camp Captain, I'm
privy to all the scores being reported, and by late in the second day,
my white team has a comfortable lead. We pretty much have it in the bag.
So it's now dinnertime, where the winners are announced. I've hung
back
a bit, and the whole camp is in the dining hall. I am walking out of my
bunk, and I can hear the cheers going back and forth between the teams.
The din rising and falling as the 800 or so people in the place begin
their meals. I walk over to an open pagoda about 25 yards from the
hall, and sit down on the gray canvas laundry bags that are piled up
there, waiting to be distributed back to their bunks that evening. I
listen to the silverware clanking and the people murmuring. I take in
the still warm early evening air and I smile to myself, knowing that
I'm about to enter that great hall when they announce the score to a
thundering cheer, and I'll be the one to hold up the Color War Trophy.
I will tell David Gold that I'm dedicating this win to his White Team
of 1971.
In the throng, I'll be back-slapped and hugged and maybe even receive a
bug-juice
shower, and I knew, even then, before it happened, that it was going to
be one of the Best Days Of My Life.
And it was.
