This morning I wandered up to the Castle to see Adventure Village playing an unusual game that had been unsuccessfully described to me. I visited for a half hour, watched the game in progress, and came away not much surer of what I'd seen. Apparently it's a game played at Armenian camps. (Is this true?) It's called "Popcorn King." Let's see now. So there are teams. Each team has a campfire going. The teams must do things, or know things, to acquire currency (money). Apparently, as part of this, they must go to the Wise Woman ("Woman of Wise") and be asked difficult questions, which they must answer correctly. When they acquire currency, they go to a store and trade money for popcorn kernels. They run back to their fires and cook up the popcorn - pop it. Then they must run with the buckets of newly popped popcorn and fill those buckets as much as possible. The team filling their bucket to the highest point wins. But while they run to the bucket with the freshly popped popcorn, thieves can sneak up and steal it or somehow disrupt the progress. Thieves are campers wearing bandanas and during my time there I noticed them hiding behind trees, waiting to pounce on the popcorn runners. Well, Advill thought this was terrific and they were certainly into it all morning. Maybe they've started Frost Valley's enduring Popcorn King tradition. Perhaps it's the next Ultimate Sicko Ball. Can you imagine the whole camp doing it? I can.
