Camp Reminiscing [Part 3]

See Part 1 and Part 2 for some history on this series.

I learned a lot from Dyan, who was the Program Director for “Holiday Camps” (for children ages 7-12) when I was a camp counselor in the mid-to-late 90s. Dyan was what you could consider a “camp person extraordinaire”!

She loved having fun and being adventurous. She liked to make camp exciting and fun and busy for the campers. She was a great program director because she was a kid herself – I think she maybe even loved some of the outdoor games more than the kids themselves! She really prepared her counselors well, covering all kinds of safety issues, ideas for managing behavior and so on. I also learned to tire the kids out having so much fun that they can't help but flop into bed in exhaustion each night, and a plethora of other things. For example, if you PLAN a ‘late night sneak out’ during the first night or two of camp, you’ll win the campers over, PLUS they will be so tired during the week that they aren’t likely to try sneaking out themselves later!

I found a picture I took of a paved landing outside a boys' cabin during one of our 'planned sneak-outs.' On the landing we wrote in chalk, "Cabin 1 Rules, Cabin 2 Drools! We were here at 11:33pm... where were you snoozers?"

In this picture, we had taken some teenage campers up north to go camping. You can find Dyan near the bottom left, looking like she’s punching someone. I’m on the top right lookin’ mighty hot-to-trot.

This camping trip up north definitely had some memorable moments for me. One of the biggest was the night Leanne and I spent quite a long time boiling chicken - it takes a WHILE to boil chicken and our campers were starving but right as the chicken was done, Dyan showed up with PIZZA!!!! We were SO MAD - We had slaved over the chicken and the campers abandoned it for pizza. On the left here is a pic we took to capture that moment. Although the memory is not forgotten, Dyan, it IS forgiven!

Finally, that same trip, Leanne and I got left on the island as the campers and other counsellors were boated away. Luckily my good friend (another counsellor) Karen realized I was missing! Sorry no one noticed your absense Leanne - I'm sure someone would have noticed eventually though! We all learned a lesson that day -- to make sure you have everyone, count all the campers AND all the COUNSELLORS!