Sunday, July 29, 2007

Susky lanyards

I spent about an hour with these Susquehanna (Susky) girls and their counselors on a warm sunny afternoon about a week ago. For their "feelin' good" cabin activity they chose to make lanyards, that time-honored pastime at camp. They were marvelous - concentrating on their lanyard-making yet chatty and relaxed. I recorded part of my conversation with them and here it is. At the end of the recording they perform for me "The Hill," a cheer that is chanted by Susky and Lakota together, they being the two villages that currently reside in cabins 41-45 and 46-50, the two groups of five cabins assembled in rows up the hill above the lake. I've always thought of these two villages (for many years they were Sacky and Tacoma) as not a very nice place to live--cabins too close together, not enough of a woodsy setting. And yet there is remarkable unity among the campers who live here, just as there's always been. In recent years the two village staffs even share one CQ fire, just in front of cabin 48.