Yesterday, first full day of camp, waterfront period for all villages was taken up by what used to be called “dock tests,” then “swim tests,” now – more invitingly, especially given how cold the water is and thus uninviting to some – “swim checks.”Ah but there’s something new at Lake Cole this summer other than the circumlocutious P.C. name for the job of sorting non-swimmers from swimmers. Yes, the docks are new – all new. The old old (old) ones were fixed into the lake – and, as I’ve written here before, created water-locked areas that filled with muck. The old ones, just now replaced, were floating docks, with wooden boardwalks. In recent years, despite good handling, these things started to warp a little and, worse, produced splinters.
Now we have docks of some kind of plastic. This reviewer, known for his fussiness about Old School matters, walked on this new-fangled material a few days ago in shoes and then barefooted, and while they are not nearly as real-feeling as wood, they are not bad to the touch, not bad for plastic. And they will last and last and last. And there’s a new configuration that allows for more activities and even a bit of lap-swimming for the good swimmers. Basketball court and volleyball courts, in the water. Yahoo!
While I’m talking waterfront, I have to report on one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard spoken at a VC program meeting. (These meetings have been happening weekly here since 1976 – geez, that’s 32 years – pretty much unchanged in format or duration. Earlier I have written about this brilliant programming system which truly decentralizes authority and responsibility for the activity schedules so that the village chiefs are really in charge of them. The downside is that a large long planning meeting must take place at the start of each week.) When it came time for the ’08 (and ’07) Waterfront Director, Brekke Holub, to make her announcements, she did her thing and readers of this blog can well imagine: (a) please be sure your campers wear bathing suits and bring towels, (b) please stay with your kids and counselors should be ready to swim themselves, (c) etc etc. With that, Brekke was done. But then, after a pause, another item occurred to her. “Well, there’s one more thing,” she tentatively began again, “and I don’t know if there’s any other way to put this. Well, boogers.
I’ve been noticing campers with huge boogers dangling off their noses as they get out of the lake. Maybe they can be taught to check for this themselves. Or at least counselors should be on the look-out. I don’t really like myself to have to be the one to say to a camper, ‘Hey, kid, there’s a giant booger dangling from your lip.’” Silence, as the VCs, suddenly looking up from their half-done schedules, stare at her, wondering what practically could be done about this – this, just another of 999 things a VC has to think about, 750 of them rather absurdly. Then some and then all began to laugh, as did Brekke herself. Someone shouted out the suggestion that this “Booger Check” should formally become part of the already well-established and excellent “Buddy Check.” After all, safety and hygiene go hand in hand. There’s a reason under the sun for everything. Every last thing. What haven’t we thought about? (That is why, in all seriousness*, I keep thinking that there cannot be a better intro administrative experience for a young talented smart person that being a VC for a summer.)
* I cannot believe I’ve created an unironic take-away from the Booger Check idea, but a few minutes after having typed it, I stand by it. If you think I’m sane, then you really understand or at least remember the value of what we’re doing.
