Closing campfires, no matter how beautiful they turn out, are hastily put together. After all, for the director this is a day when luggage tags must be made available, bus lists checked twice, next session's cabin lists prepared, parental phone calls to be returned, holdover arrangements to be made... and then suddenly one is expected to put on a meaningful last event around a campfire. Here are notes showing how a closing campfire during the summer of 1973 was put together. Jim Ewen was the camp director. We began to three loud shouts of the word "How!" to make an echo along Wildcat Mountain. The late Mark Selig told a serious story. George Zimmerman's endless tennis awards were scratched in favor of Al Siou's ping pong awards (ping pong was huge that summer; Al, a Lenape counselor from Singapore, could defeat anyone in camp any time, rarely allowing the opponent a single point). Jim as director had the honor of giving out the Wawayanda "W" patches, which everyone cherished. And we all sang "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" to close, peaceniks in those years to the end.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
where have all the campfire agendas gone?
Closing campfires, no matter how beautiful they turn out, are hastily put together. After all, for the director this is a day when luggage tags must be made available, bus lists checked twice, next session's cabin lists prepared, parental phone calls to be returned, holdover arrangements to be made... and then suddenly one is expected to put on a meaningful last event around a campfire. Here are notes showing how a closing campfire during the summer of 1973 was put together. Jim Ewen was the camp director. We began to three loud shouts of the word "How!" to make an echo along Wildcat Mountain. The late Mark Selig told a serious story. George Zimmerman's endless tennis awards were scratched in favor of Al Siou's ping pong awards (ping pong was huge that summer; Al, a Lenape counselor from Singapore, could defeat anyone in camp any time, rarely allowing the opponent a single point). Jim as director had the honor of giving out the Wawayanda "W" patches, which everyone cherished. And we all sang "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" to close, peaceniks in those years to the end.
