“The greatest pleasure I know is to do a good action by stealth, and to have it found out by accident.”
It’s a hot one on this, the first day of the second session. Even as I write this at 10.20pm, it’s still in the mid 70s and humid. There are few places to hide at camp when it gets like this. Not for us the air-conditioned luxury of a city apartment complex. It is a fan or two and some British air-conditioning (ie, open the window). We are, however, right next to the lake, so we do get a cool breeze blowing off that and up the hill, so for those cabins lucky enough to have lake-facing windows, there is a little respite.
The buses rolled in around 3.15 this afternoon and we were ready for them. We already had over 50 boys here from visiting weekend, and they were eager to meet their new friends for the next few weeks. Let me take this opportunity to thank all those parents who made the trek north to see us in action at the Friendly Confines. It’s always a pleasure to see you here in person. We also know that you place a lot of trust in us to take care of your boys during the summer. I’d like to think that we are making a good job of that. For those parents who are new to this camp thing, we thank you for choosing this camp over the many others you could have chosen. Our program, our facility and our ethos are the things that make us special. “The boy you want your son to be comes homes from Camp Menominee.” This is as true today as it was in the early 1960s when this neat, little rhyme was first coined. We want your boys to grow and mature while also learning how to waterski and hit a softball and run the bases. If, while doing all of that, they can also learn to appreciate nature a bit more while being truly kind and respectful to one another, then we will have gone some way to doing our job this summer.
We ended the fire at Sand Lake this evening by singing Taps and sitting quietly under a cloudless sky. It is moments like that, where we can appreciate just how lucky we are, that help bring us together in a shared understanding of the world. And it is moments like that where I am then able to say that all is well, so safely rest.
Goodnight everybody.
As ever…WOODY!
