All things considered, it is kind of hard to follow my last post.  Needless to say, it has been quite along week.  We have a saying at camp: “The days are very long but the weeks go by too fast!”  It is so true.  Sometimes I wonder if shows like 24 could really happen in the span of a single day, but when I look back at all the things that happened some of the days this week, it seems a little more plausible.  We seem to really be able to pack a day full of things to do, especially when you wake up at 7AM and go to bed at 1AM.  Which by the way, I am still not sure how I manages that most of the summer.

Last Monday seems so far away, heck, so does yesterday.  I know that I went on the camping trip on Monday, but that seems like years ago.  In the span of a week I have driven hundreds of miles, gone camping, scuba diving, played guitar at two campfires, wrote a tribute to a dear friend, got signed up to play camp-counselor 2-on-2 beach volley ball, and so much more.  I was actually very happy that for the most part today, my services were only required for the setup of the big screen so that our Spanish “mafia” could watch the World Cup finals.  It was actually a relaxing day and the heat wave has mostly broken it seems.

All these things have gone on, and while I was sitting at campfire, watching the embers drift in the thermals I was thinking that tonight would be a great night to write.  Well, here I am getting back to my computer and I feel like I have just hit a block.  I don’t really know why, other than the fact that I feel like I should be writing more than just the summation of the things that have happened over the past week.  There is something so mesmerizing about watching the embers from the fire dance up into the sky.  That is probably what made me think that it would be a good night to write.  Watching that always reminds me of the scene in the movie The Right Stuff where the embers from the aboriginal fire seem to fly up into space.

Today was just one of those days, all the best intentions, none of the motivation.  I have a list of things that should get done, and I probably could have checked a bunch of them off today, but I didn’t.  In truth, I didn’t really do much of anything besides play guitar and eat today.  It seems like all we do on Sundays is eat.  Mostly because we have a late breakfast, but lunch is at a normal time.  The sad thing is that we manage to have both one of the best meals and the worst meal of the week on Sunday.  I am sorry, cold-cuts on rolls that are not big enough for a sandwich just does not a dinner make.

Unfortunately, while it sounds like many of the thoughts and ideas that I put down on last week’s comment card were applauded, odds are nothing will change.  I missed most of the staff meeting this week because I was setting up for the World Cup.  I heard through the grapevine that some of the admin liked my ideas for making the daily schedule better, but often times this is one of those organizations that won’t change because they think the way things are is tradition.  Well, it could be better and I wish that we could get it there.

Life is good though.  Camp is fun.  Maybe if I play my cards right I will get to go on another trip.  That would be a lot of fun.  It is just nice to do something different as the day-to-day routine here can get old fast and when you have lots of kids out of camp on trips, hiking, at competitions and at the lake, it can be like a ghost town.  In some ways, it makes the job easier, but it can also make it less fun, especially for the campers.  It seems though that for the most part people are in good spirits, so that is good.

“Freedom! Heading home for a much needed day off.” ~Christine Macken (1985-2010)

I often have written about how life is short and we need to make the best of what we have.  Sometimes the stark reality in that sentiment comes out and slaps you in the face.  I have often looked around me at my friends, finding it so strange that they were getting married and some even having children, but when it comes to my contemporaries passing away, that is a completely different story.  Death is an unfortunate phase of life when it snuffs out an amazing light so early.  It is immutable though and as such all we can do is keep the memories alive in ourselves.

As I walked across the field to my cabin this evening I just watched the lights through the mist.  In a way it was very surreal, walking and thinking about my friend who passed away last Monday, July 5.  I knew what I was doing, I was trying to compose some kind of post in my head and while I thought all of these ideas that came to me were good, probably none of them will actually make it here.  All of the thinking really just made me remember her and started to make me feel sad.

I remember the last time we were together.  It wasn’t really that long ago.  We met you at Squatters along with some of your other friends from the area.  Your mother was there too.  We had some food and a couple beers and caught up on old times.  I am sure that neither of us thought that would be the last time that we would see eachother.  At least it was a happy and fun time.

I met Macken at the University of Utah.  She was a theatre student who did some work and internships with us at PTC.  I don’t think that I ever actually realized that she was an EMT, but all things considered, it doesn’t surprise me.  Macken was an amazing person and a great friend.  She was a person who really did live life to the fullest all the time and I would imagine that it wasn’t easy given her medical history.  I can’t remember a time that I didn’t see her happy.  She was dedicated, hard-working, friendly, and kind.  While we may not have been best friends, she was a great friend to have!  I (and anyone else who did) was lucky to know her.

Life is like that sometimes.  Sometimes the best of people get dealt the lousy hands.  Sometimes you just have to look for the silver lining, the golden ticket.  Hopefully the place beyond this harsh world we inhabit for our brief moment of life is actually a better place.  Hopefully it is place where the things that plagued us in our Earthly life are set aside so that we can exist in some state of peace with the rest of the universe.  I would certainly hope that if we move on to a non-corporeal existence that the physical “defects” of our bodies will cease to haunt us.

For Christine, a short poem that this sad time inspired:

Freedom comes in many forms
In days off,
nights off,
and passing storms

Those left behind can’t understand
you lie
in peace
on beach’s sand

A laugh, a smile, a memory
of time spent
living
frolicking, free

We are but travelers here on earth
we seek refuge
in passage
to death from birth

Life cannot be lived when you hide in fear
so dream
make friends
and keep them near

Life’s release to death will freedom give
yet in our hearts
and minds
you live

This post is of course dedicated to Christine Macken and the Macken family.  I am so glad that I had the chance to get to know and work with Chrstine.  She was a wonderful person and a great friend.  May you find greener pastures wherever you are and I hope you know that you will be missed.  If you want to read more about this amazing person, you can follow this link.  Rest in peace Mack.

That is yours truly in the chilly waters of Maine at "Two Lights" on Cape Elizabeth.

Yes friends, that is how I spent my day off today.  After a week of hot and sweaty weather, Ruth an I jumped in the truck and headed for Cape Elizabeth for some scuba diving.  This is certainly the way to beat the heat, with the water temperature dropping as low as 55˚F at our deepest depth of 32 feet.  It is a little chilly at first, then you get used to it, and then later on you start to feel cold, but it sure was better than being out in the hot and muggy weather!

We had a very successful dive day today.  We visited a different dive shop than where we went last week and they were much nicer and friendlier.  We will probably visit them again for our future diving needs while we are here in Maine.  The whole experience in their shop was better and I think that it set a much better tone for the rest of the day.

When we got to the dive site we saw another pair of divers who were just coming back in.  One of them was dragging what appeared to be a pretty old boat anchor crusted in barnacles and such.  It was actually pretty impressive that this guy had lugged it all the way back from wherever he found it.  It could not have been easy since it looked pretty heavy!  They told us the conditions were pretty good and we gave them a hand getting back up the beach to their car before we suited up to dive.

Everything about our dive day went really smoothly.  We got in and acclimated to the water, swam out and really had no issues getting down, equalized and on our way.  We saw a whole bunch of crabs of various varieties, a couple fish including what we thing was a flounder, but we didn’t see any lobster.  We saw lobster traps, but no lobster.  I suppose that leaves us something to look forward to on our next dive.

After returning the gear and returning to camp we pretty much did an about-face and headed off to dinner.  This was the first time this season that I went to the 302 for dinner and it was good.  We met up with some of the other staff there and then went to see Livingston Taylor in concert.  That was a lot of fun, he is a great performer.  I actually sang with him back in high-school at some concert in Newton.  It was fun to see him again years later!

So, a pretty good day off, very fun and very successful!

So, my blog has been a little quiet for the past couple days and that is because I was on a camping trip with some of the kids from camp.  I love camping and I love getting out in the outdoors even more than we do on the campus, so when they asked me to go on the trip I was happy to get out of here for a couple days.  This particular trip happened to be with a great group of campers, but I am sure that any of the trips that we run would be fun to go on.

This trip was to Boothbay Harbor and the surrounding area.  Now, when I say that we were camping, this is pretty posh camping in that we stay at a nice campground with most of the amenities you could ask for.  There was a lake where they had all kinds of water toys and craft for rental, showers, bathrooms, pool, hot-tubs, store, snack-bar, laundromat, the works.  This is car-camping at it’s finest, which is fine with me, but I think that it is important to mention that we were not doing any hiking and real hardcore camping.  We did sleep in tents though and cook meals over the fire and eat outside.

For some of us (namely those of us over the age of 15), there were many points of interest on this excursion.  We got to do things like go fishing on the Miss Boothbay, a small fishing boat that leaves from Pier 8 every couple hours to take people mackerel fishing.  Unfortunately, my shift on the boat didn’t catch any fish, but we had fun, and it was a lot cooler out on the water than it was walking around town.  Fortunately for the second group that went fishing they actually caught something, so we ended up with nine fish to have for dinner.  This did make my personal fish tally on these trips a big fat zero.

We also spent our first afternoon out there at the lake in the campground.  We rented a bunch of water toys like kayaks and water-tricycles.  I think the kids enjoyed this, I know that I certainly did.  Beating the heat of the day on the lake was a lot of fun.  This was followed, of course, by the obligatory lobster dinner at the lobster pier.  While I am not a lobster person, fresh fish is always good and most of the kids seem to really enjoy the lobster.

The real highlight for the boys though, was crusing for girls at the campground.  This was one of those big campgrounds where people stay for the whole summer or for extended periods of time, so there are a lot of people there.  I was actually very impressed at the success rate that our boys had.  Within the first evening we were there they managed to make some strong connections with a number of young ladies.  I don’t think that we went on any trips like this when I was a camper, and besides, I went to a co-ed camp so all of our trips were co-ed anyway.  To tell the truth, I don’t think that I ever really went cruising for girls like these boys did.  Probably because I thought that I was the awkward, dorky, geeky kid that wasn’t “hot” or something like that.  The strange thing is that part of me, I think, was a little jealous of these boys that they could do this and be successful.  Not that I am looking for girls, I have a wonderful girlfriend, more that it is something that I never really did for whatever the reason.

Needless to say, with hormones running rampant, I managed to stumble over at least two of our campers “making out” with girls from the campground.  Personally, I don’t care and I left them to their own business, most of the time not even acknowledging them.  Boys should be boys, and it isn’t like they are not doing the same thing at camp!  In fact I bet some of them are worse at camp.

The boys managed to invite and receive a fair number of young ladies at our campfire on our second night of camping.  While I tended the fire the boys made and shared s’mores with the girls and everyone sat around and chatted (and probably sucked some face).  I don’t think that any of our boys actually snuck out at night to go visit any of the girls, which is something that I totally would have done when I was a camper (actually, I did…).  I mean, at least at the campground it wasn’t a two mile walk like it is at camp!  Though I have to say, if any of our boys actually walked the four mile round trip from IA to FA and back to visit a girl at night, I would let them because you have to be determined if you are going to spend an hour walking in the middle of the night!

It is just so interesting to watch these kids, especially the ones that I have developed rapports with over the past couple years.  It is funny when kids ask me for advice because I never knew what to do, and it is also interesting to just watch what they do.  It seems to work, and then they get embarrassed and don’t want you to talk about it, but when you get back to camp, everyone knows what was going on during the trip before you even get back to your cabin.  It is great to be young!

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And by-the-by, my postcard offer still stands.  I picked up some new postcards on the trip, so if you write to me, you will get one!

If you could spend the summer in one of the most beautiful places in the world (in my opinion), wouldn’t you?  Wouldn’t you also want to take advantage of the opportunity and anything that was offered to you?  I hope that yoHu answered ‘yes’ to both of those questions.  I know that I certainly would.

I ask because, in spending the summer at camp in northern New England (NH/ME), I do truly believe that this is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Have you ever been someplace where at night it gets so dark that you see stars that you never knew were there?  Have you ever walked across a field back to your cabin looking only at the sky, letting the Milky Way guide you to bed?  Have you ever laid out on a field at night with a bunch of friends and watched the stars looking for satellites and shooting stars?  For that matter, have you ever just laid out on a field at night with a group of your closest friends just because you can?  Have you ever picked up a frisbee or basketball and played a game with someone 10 years (or more) younger than you and just had a good time?  If you could do these things, would you?

If you could walk out your back door and swim in a river, would you do it?  If there were mountains to be climbed that are closer than a stone’s throw from your bed, would you climb them?  If you were spending the summer in moose country would you go out as often as you could to try and see them?  If you had the opportunity to participate in your favorite activities every day with people who also love those activities, what would you choose to do?

These are the questions, the ideas, and the things that I do every day at camp.  People wonder why I love to be here and why I think this is such a magical place to be.  There is so much that is offered here, and most of it is free.  Every clear night when I walk back to my cabin I look at the sky.  Since the beginning of time we have been fascinated by the stars, but most of the time we take them for granted.  Taking the time to remember that there is an amazing world around us is something we often forget to do.

If you have the opportunity to do these kinds of things, would you do them?  We need to remember that the world will still be here if we take a little time to enjoy it or to do something we like or want to do.  You don’t have to go to camp to do many of these things, you might be able to do them in your back yard or in a local park.  Many of them don’t ever cost money, or only require that you get to where you can do these things.