Successful First Week
Our Saturday schedule here at camp looks intentionally identical to Monday through Fridays. We play and do activities! At camp the only real way you know what day it is is when Sunday rolls around. It’s very set apart at Alpine with some wonderful traditions, church included. I’ll look forward to writing more about Sundays at Alpine in a future blog.
But today has felt like the other days - a full slate of activities. We did receive our first significant rain this afternoon of the term. We are all fine and thankful to have no damage. Probably like some of you in north MS and Birmingham to Nashville corridor, a strong line of storms passed through. We were able to get in Store Period (can’t miss that drink and snack!) before sending everyone back to cabins to ride out the storms. It will probably be a top memory for many of the boys. Each cabin has a “rainy day box”. Hunkering down and playing cards or drawing while listening to the rain on a tin roof is not the worst way to spend an afternoon. Especially if it’s just once a week after a gorgeous week of weather!
I had a chance to visit quite a few activities over the last few days. Our fishing classes have experienced success so far in our stocked pond at our farm where horseback also meets. They were catching mostly bream the day I visited but reported some bass caught as well (giant bass bigger than their armspan as any good fish story goes!). Fly fishing classes spent the first few days practicing casting in a field, as most of our campers are novice or beginning intermediates.
Bailey Adams, invited me to join one of his smaller horseback classes where I rode our newest horse, Buster. He’s a beautiful appaloosa with such an even keeled temperament, a perfect camp horse. We own all our horses, rather than rent, so we can control who we ride. Bailey, who is a teacher at The McCallie School during the year, does a great job of identifying and training our horses.
I joined one of our golf classes for the newest sensation at camp, Bucket Golf. I have to confess, I saw it on my Instagram feed (how do they always know!). It so simple, yet so much fun. 9 labeled, pop up, plastic buckets can be placed around a yard or field. A flag in the middle pins the bucket down and a string and marker used to denote the tee box. It’s meant to be a fun yard game but can also help with short game chipping and accuracy. Boys had a blast playing it and did not want to leave the activity when the bell rung signifying the end of class.
Archery played a game called King of the Range. If you’re familiar with 4-Square, where the goal is to work your way to the King, or 4th, square, this is similar in goal. 3 shooters shoot an arrow in a line from the same distance. If the King’s arrow is closest, he stays. If he is bested with a closer arrow by #2, then they all move up and he’s out. And so on as the line of boys get to rotate through to try to be the King of the Range. To be clear, it’s not a race, and the counselors use the same target commands for each shot and each camper shoots at his own target. It’s very safe!
Yesterday I walked up to the woods where our Project Adventure ropes course is built, just uphill and to the south of our gym and team sports field. I taught PA for 3 summers while on staff in college. It combines the best of fun and risk taking that boys need. Many before me have stated this: boys are going to take risks (so do girls but it seems to come more naturally for many boys). Our job as adults is to guide them into safe risk taking. To attempt to remove all risks is futile, and frankly, probably a recipe for them to go out and find bad risks on their own. So PA starts out “on the ground” working through group initiatives to build teamwork and trust before being hooked into the high ropes. On this particular day they were doing trust falls. Each boy took turns climbing up on top of a boulder, about 3 feet off the ground. His friends and counselors lined up on either side below. To perform a trust fall, you place your back to the friends, cross your arms around your chest and slowly fall back from your feet, stiff as a board. Each time the guys caught their friends and erupted into cheers. I should note that the counselors strategically placed themselves in the middle of the catch line. Trust, not to mention confidence and adrenaline, soars as you are caught by your peers. There are so many great metaphors that exercises like this carry at PA but I will spare you of any more pontification.
Maybe I’ll end with this about activities. Our goal for activities is three fold: that campers have fun, stay safe, and learn or practice skills. Like everything else at Alpine, it’s the counselors who make it.
Tomorrow we will sleep a tiny bit later on a Sunday. Our friend, Lane, a professional photographer from Chattanooga, will be down in the morning to take cabin and individual photos of your boys before church. After Mrs. Gail’s Sunday morning pancakes of course!
Have a great weekend and thanks for reading, Glenn
