Here I am, sitting in the staff lounge on one of the computers. This is already unusual; the staff lounge is usually overflowing with people waiting to spend hours wasting time on Facebook. Steve's here next to me, but he doesn't really fit in with the usual crowd in here either. Granted, he spends a lot of time in the staff lounge, but he hides in the kitchen and works on his paintings. Tent repair, commisary and dining hall have all gone home and what's left of program leave soon.
What all has happened in the last week? I haven't got a lot of energy right now; it's been hot for the past couple of days, as if the summer is trying to extend itself by raw effort. Wednesday was a real triumph: on Tuesday Brian informed me that my bus tour for Wednesday was canceled and that I would be going on a backcountry tour instead. We began in the buffalo pasture, chasing down the buffalo and taking photos of them for half an hour. Then we made our way to Hunting Lodge and Cimarroncito, where my passengers briefly amused themselves by climbing in the rock gym. Finally we went to Clark's Fork and Pam got the Chase heart brand on her shoe (she also tried to get me the branding girl's number, but I managed to drag her away after minimum embarassment).
That afternoon, Pam, Cameron, Kim and I went out to the waterfalls. Those that have been following closely know that I've already been there once this season, but it was worth another trip. For one thing, the water was warmer, and for another, I had a waterproof camera this time around, meaning bolder pictures of us freezing our tails off. I very skillfully climbed on the rocks all the way around the tiny lake at the top to let Cameron take a picture of the three of us on the other side, then slipped into the water. A good time was had by all.
Closing program this week was a composite of all of the best skits from the summer: the tent city infomercial, Falling Rock, the scout singers, the banana skit. It felt like a good way to close things out, particularly since it took the last shreds of my energy to play the farmer immediately after playing the interpreter. Summer's sun is fading into the dusk and sunset of Fall. It's as apt a metaphore as I am up to for now.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Week ten: entering the homestretch
When I first got my assignment for week ten, I was a little nervous. It wasn't about the group, since I had the Mustangs (11-13 year old girls). They tend to have all of the energy of a younger group and the activities and attention span of an older one. I didn't have a problem with my wingman either; I was working with Morgan, an eighteen year old who seems to have become such by combining the enthusiasm and spirit of two nine year olds. The tricky bit was that we were assigned to two kids: ideally you would have eight to twelve of them - thus giving you a personal connection with all of them but still giving you enough people to play games with. Failing that, a bigger group is better than a smaller one; you don't necessarily learn all of the names, but at least you can play some of the more epic games. With a small group, everything you try to do takes less time than you want or expect it to, and then you find yourself scrambling for new things to keep their attention.
On Monday morning, only one of our girls showed up. It was a mind-blowing development - we've never had a group of one before unless the kid had a severe developmental issue. Fortunately, necessity is the mother of invention and Morgan and I did what we probably should have done in the first place: we combined our group with the Trailblazers. Obviously, dropping a girl into a boy group had a few logistical issues - starting with the overnighter and the infamous "blood talk", but Hope fit right in with the boys. Okay, they wouldn't sit together, but they didn't mind playing together.
I felt a little bad joining the other group, since I have a tendency to take over, but Pam and Emily didn't seem to mind. We switched the all day hike to Crater Lake so that we could spend the night at the Stockade instead of setting up two separate campsites at Hunting Lodge. We had to sleep with Hope in one tower, the girl leaders in the other, the boys under the roof and me in the kitchen, but we got it done and we even managed to have a roaring campfire.
This weekend's adventure was Mt. Capulan, the last volcano in this part of New Mexico. It wasn't really a hike, just a long drive and a stroll around the crater, but it was everything you'd expect a volcano to look like: a perfect cone caved in at the top.
The sad news is that everyone is leaving. There's a lot of hugging going around, but the goodbyes aren't as tearful as you'd normally expect. Maybe we're just tired, or maybe we all expect to see each other again (I know that just about everyone expects me to be back next year). Perhaps it's just that we've had too much joy this year to be sad. Our staff have hiked almost every mountain on the ranch, we've gone to campfires at half of the camps out there. We've bonded at Colfax and the James and over a hundred movies in the staff lounge. We've messed up our lines at opening program, danced at cobbler night, done the tush push at western night, sung "follow me boys" whether we liked it or not, and forgotten what group we even had at closing and gone back to do it all again. And, God willing, most of us will get to do it even more.
On Monday morning, only one of our girls showed up. It was a mind-blowing development - we've never had a group of one before unless the kid had a severe developmental issue. Fortunately, necessity is the mother of invention and Morgan and I did what we probably should have done in the first place: we combined our group with the Trailblazers. Obviously, dropping a girl into a boy group had a few logistical issues - starting with the overnighter and the infamous "blood talk", but Hope fit right in with the boys. Okay, they wouldn't sit together, but they didn't mind playing together.
I felt a little bad joining the other group, since I have a tendency to take over, but Pam and Emily didn't seem to mind. We switched the all day hike to Crater Lake so that we could spend the night at the Stockade instead of setting up two separate campsites at Hunting Lodge. We had to sleep with Hope in one tower, the girl leaders in the other, the boys under the roof and me in the kitchen, but we got it done and we even managed to have a roaring campfire.
This weekend's adventure was Mt. Capulan, the last volcano in this part of New Mexico. It wasn't really a hike, just a long drive and a stroll around the crater, but it was everything you'd expect a volcano to look like: a perfect cone caved in at the top.
The sad news is that everyone is leaving. There's a lot of hugging going around, but the goodbyes aren't as tearful as you'd normally expect. Maybe we're just tired, or maybe we all expect to see each other again (I know that just about everyone expects me to be back next year). Perhaps it's just that we've had too much joy this year to be sad. Our staff have hiked almost every mountain on the ranch, we've gone to campfires at half of the camps out there. We've bonded at Colfax and the James and over a hundred movies in the staff lounge. We've messed up our lines at opening program, danced at cobbler night, done the tush push at western night, sung "follow me boys" whether we liked it or not, and forgotten what group we even had at closing and gone back to do it all again. And, God willing, most of us will get to do it even more.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Weeks eight and nine: how I learned to be careful what I wished for
I'm sure that you (meaning the five people that I know for sure read this) are wondering why I didn't post a blog for week eight. That's simple enough: I post at the end of every week when I can find the time. Thus the business of week nine left week eight undocumented until now.
I had small fry week eight- probably because I requested it for week seven, but let's not be bitter. I'm not actually all that fond of small fry, for all that it may be one of the greatest things to bring me back here (for those that don't know, I spent my first year out here on dining hall and went to small fry on my days off mostly to visit the cute group leaders that would work there. That was where I discovered my love of children). The kids are still adorable, but there doesn't seem to be any challenge in the program. We watch movies, go to pony rides and, yes, change diapers, and that seems to be about it. The kids absolutely loved me and mostly all I did was lay on the floor and let them pile blocks on me. Oh yeah, and push the swing. Essentially it's like taking a painter who began by painting walls and moved up to murals and then giving him a project where the instructions read "I think beige would be good".
For the lackluster week, the cure is a fantastic weekend. Pam, Kevin and I took a little trip up Rayado Canyon to my favorite camp: Fish Camp. As we walked, old memories didn't so much flood back as trickle, and it seemed to me that my last hike up that particular way had been many years ago. Still, those memories were spot on: there was an amazing lookout point where the trail passed through a hole in the cliff and opened up to a view of the plains on one side and the canyon on the other. It wasn't even spoiled by the fact that Pam went around to the other side to pee off of it. What almost did spoil it was my minor miscalculation on distance; I had Rayado Canyon pegged at around five and a half miles rather than the ten that it was. After dinner (which the staff charitably invited us in for) the three of us headed up to Philips Junction to visit with a friend and gossip around a roaring fire.
After such a boring week, I really wanted something fun. I wanted a big group of kids that liked to play and I even wanted an overnighter. What I got was twenty one sidewinders (ten year old boys). It was just what I had hoped for with the charming Faustian twist of making it exactly what I didn't want. Every group has its challenges; I once read a study that said that when you take the class clown out of any class, someone else will step up to take his place. I've had several groups (about two per summer) that disproved this by being perfect angels across the board, but by and large it's true: every group will have a kid that just wants to drive you up a wall. What the study didn't say was what they did with all of the class clowns that they removed from that class. They sent them to Philmont last week.
Of the twenty-one kids, at least six of them consistently gave us trouble. One child picked fights and absented himself from activities, another simply didn't have the attention span to listen to our instructions, a third waited until our backs were turned to do exactly what we told him not to. Worse, there was nothing to threaten them with: we couldn't withhold activities because most of what we were doing was going on hikes and to museums and we couldn't withhold games because they wouldn't stand still long enough to learn the rules to any game. We were so overworked that when one of the kids stopped showing up on Thursday, we didn't even know which kid it was (I later remembered that little Andrew's grandmother told us that the family was leaving on Tuesday night).
My saving grace this week was Alex, my wingman. I've heard a few people say that his boundless energy and boyish pranks are more than a little irritating, but I don't think I would have survived without him. I sang on the bus until I was hoarse and he would start another song to let me rest, I stopped to do first aid on a splinter or a cut and he organized the group into a line, I got half of the kids cleaning up after lunch at Carson Meadows and he took the other half to fill their water bottles. It was his last week of the summer and he had the worst group of anyone, and the kids never knew his disappointment.
This next week I have the Mustangs- one of my favorite groups- but then again, Sidewinders is one of my favorites as well. I feel like I need a chance to shut down, not to think, not to work, not to engage my brain or body in any way. The group is only one element of it all; hiking with my friends has physically drained me and a surprise visit from a friend this week has emotionally wiped me out. As much as I hate to admit it, I think I need to spend a little time killing goblins and space marines just to reboot my brain.
I had small fry week eight- probably because I requested it for week seven, but let's not be bitter. I'm not actually all that fond of small fry, for all that it may be one of the greatest things to bring me back here (for those that don't know, I spent my first year out here on dining hall and went to small fry on my days off mostly to visit the cute group leaders that would work there. That was where I discovered my love of children). The kids are still adorable, but there doesn't seem to be any challenge in the program. We watch movies, go to pony rides and, yes, change diapers, and that seems to be about it. The kids absolutely loved me and mostly all I did was lay on the floor and let them pile blocks on me. Oh yeah, and push the swing. Essentially it's like taking a painter who began by painting walls and moved up to murals and then giving him a project where the instructions read "I think beige would be good".
For the lackluster week, the cure is a fantastic weekend. Pam, Kevin and I took a little trip up Rayado Canyon to my favorite camp: Fish Camp. As we walked, old memories didn't so much flood back as trickle, and it seemed to me that my last hike up that particular way had been many years ago. Still, those memories were spot on: there was an amazing lookout point where the trail passed through a hole in the cliff and opened up to a view of the plains on one side and the canyon on the other. It wasn't even spoiled by the fact that Pam went around to the other side to pee off of it. What almost did spoil it was my minor miscalculation on distance; I had Rayado Canyon pegged at around five and a half miles rather than the ten that it was. After dinner (which the staff charitably invited us in for) the three of us headed up to Philips Junction to visit with a friend and gossip around a roaring fire.
After such a boring week, I really wanted something fun. I wanted a big group of kids that liked to play and I even wanted an overnighter. What I got was twenty one sidewinders (ten year old boys). It was just what I had hoped for with the charming Faustian twist of making it exactly what I didn't want. Every group has its challenges; I once read a study that said that when you take the class clown out of any class, someone else will step up to take his place. I've had several groups (about two per summer) that disproved this by being perfect angels across the board, but by and large it's true: every group will have a kid that just wants to drive you up a wall. What the study didn't say was what they did with all of the class clowns that they removed from that class. They sent them to Philmont last week.
Of the twenty-one kids, at least six of them consistently gave us trouble. One child picked fights and absented himself from activities, another simply didn't have the attention span to listen to our instructions, a third waited until our backs were turned to do exactly what we told him not to. Worse, there was nothing to threaten them with: we couldn't withhold activities because most of what we were doing was going on hikes and to museums and we couldn't withhold games because they wouldn't stand still long enough to learn the rules to any game. We were so overworked that when one of the kids stopped showing up on Thursday, we didn't even know which kid it was (I later remembered that little Andrew's grandmother told us that the family was leaving on Tuesday night).
My saving grace this week was Alex, my wingman. I've heard a few people say that his boundless energy and boyish pranks are more than a little irritating, but I don't think I would have survived without him. I sang on the bus until I was hoarse and he would start another song to let me rest, I stopped to do first aid on a splinter or a cut and he organized the group into a line, I got half of the kids cleaning up after lunch at Carson Meadows and he took the other half to fill their water bottles. It was his last week of the summer and he had the worst group of anyone, and the kids never knew his disappointment.
This next week I have the Mustangs- one of my favorite groups- but then again, Sidewinders is one of my favorites as well. I feel like I need a chance to shut down, not to think, not to work, not to engage my brain or body in any way. The group is only one element of it all; hiking with my friends has physically drained me and a surprise visit from a friend this week has emotionally wiped me out. As much as I hate to admit it, I think I need to spend a little time killing goblins and space marines just to reboot my brain.
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