Growing with High Rocks
July 11, 2019 by Don Gentle
I really enjoy watching these boys grow up at camp. The picture above is a great example of what I’m talking about. This was our band this morning for assembly. The coolest part (for me) about this group of musicians is that every single one of them IS or WAS a High Rocks Camper. If I remember correctly, there was a time for each of these boys when they could barely sing along with the camp songs, let alone get up front a lead them. I can remember some of these boys’ first assembly. It usually starts with the guys really enjoying those who lead us every morning. Some time down the road they start with the music program at school. I’ll then have a camper come up to me on closing day and ask if we sell the songbook. All of our songbooks have the chords for the songs, which makes it easy when you need to find one. Anyhow, these boys will take home the songbook and work on some chords through the winter. Next, there they are, right up front playing with the staff. I like to think of it as a classic apprenticing process. The trade is handed down from one Mason to the next until they are the master teaching the apprentice. Just one of those cool skills that can happen at High Rocks.
Today was another busy one with all sorts of excitement. The weather has been steady in the low 80s for most of the week. It’s warm enough to want to swim and not too hot to feel awful when the activity is a little more intense. Today we had a two-day climb head out to a cool area in Virginia. The paddlers were heading out early to the Tuckaseegee River for another fun day of whitewater. The mountain bikers ripped it up once again next door at DuPont State Forest. There is still a group of hikers all the way over in Joyce Kilmer National Forest. They will return tomorrow. Even the swimming group was able to take a fun tubing trip this afternoon.
Tomorrow we get to wake up and do it all over again! It will be the last day for our Mini I boys, who will ride hard until the very end. We will wrap up with a quiet campfire tomorrow night for those guys.
Don