We Love Sunday

I love Sunday mornings at High Rocks! This morning was a particularly wonderful morning. A cool breeze, sun, and I get to sleep in a little bit later than 6:30 am.  Although I still woke up early, it felt a little more restful since I did not have to rush off to my morning meeting and the wake-up bell comes thirty minutes later on Sundays.

After a brief peace on the back porch with my coffee, my dogs, and then some productivity time, I made my way to the dining hall.  Sundays are also laundry days.  While we do not do the laundry here, we do have to get it all up to the dining hall at breakfast so our laundry service can get it back by dinner.  Yes, the whole camp by dinner!!!  Seems simple enough, just bring up your laundry.  Have you ever tried to get 8-year-olds to gather laundry and put it in a bag???  That is far too many steps to keep the focus needed for that effort.  Knowing some folks needed some help, I headed down to Conesttee I cabin.  Remember the focus part???  There are two sorts of laundry kids at camp. One is the guy that tries to wear the same thing every day.  The second type is the guy who wears something new every five minutes!  The problem is even the little guy who tries to change very little still thinks all of his stuff is dirty. Imagine that times 164.  That is a lot of laundry!  Even though the Conesstee boys had a good start going, it took me a solid 30 minutes just to get the laundry in the bags. However, I did get the joy of watching them work together to haul these three giant bags of laundry to the van up at the dining hall. Just one moment of my thankful life at High Rocks.

After breakfast and some assembly, we typically have a little moment down by the lake.  I spoke about one of our cardinal points on the High Rocks Compass, adventure. Adventure allows us to challenge ourselves, and learn what we are capable of doing, it also makes us stronger.  Adventure can even inspire others.  It was a great moment… I hope they got some of it…

The rest of the morning was presented with all sorts of choice period activities and events.  Camp looked alive all over the campus with guys playing disc golf, swimming, canoeing, some games of gaga and four square happening, tennis, and even some archery by invitation.  I also enjoyed the guys just relaxing in the chair down by the lake with a book.

After rest hour, the boys were super-excited to play an all-camp game inspired by a few counselors called “Gold Rush.”  Staff had opportunities to dress up as prospectors, bankers, snake oil salesmen, general store merchants, barbers, saloon owners, and even bandits.  The campers had several different opportunities where they could “find” gold.  They could then cash it in for coins to use at different locations.  We basically created our own little economy as the boys had a blast.  You will notice that we had to have mustaches. Seemed like the sort of thing gold rushers would have, right??? Just sayin’.

Our typical Sunday dinner cookout on the lawn was also perfect. I watched the boys eat pounds of all-beef hot dogs and 1/3 lb Angus burgers. Our grill master, Woody did a great job of serving it up right.

We wrapped up the day with campfire, songs, and I told a story sticking with my adventure theme about a few previous adventures I had up on Mount Washington during a few winter misery trips I used to do before children. Campfire is a weekly event we do to reflect on the past week’s events and think about what’s ahead.  It’s a time to be thankful while we pause for just a moment and appreciate all that surrounds us.

Each week we wrap up campfire with a thought from a counselor. Dallas Scoggins received the thought at the end of last season. While he did not return for his 4th summer, he made a point of making sure to send us a thought to share and then pass it on to a counselor he knew. After the thought, we all sang taps. Afterward, Woody dismissed the boys one cabin at a time to quietly head down the hill. Dom Curry will have the thought next week.

Speaking of thankful.  I am reminded of what High Rocks looked like just three years ago today.  Life at camp was a completely different place.  The first time in our 65-year history that we didn’t have summer camp.  One year (way back in the 70s) we even had to repair our dam and didn’t have a lake, but summer camp went on. In 2020, June was soo quiet here.  We even had to lock the gate because so many people were flocking to nature that alumni felt like they could just come up to camp.  I am so thankful for all of our families and all the chaos and craziness High Rocks has to offer.  I am so looking forward to the week ahead.  Thanks for being here. We couldn’t do it without you and your campers.

Don

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