Today’s blog has no real theme. I just want to share some fun tidbits that Susie Ma’am and I have enjoyed during Friendship Games and Man Cave. As a reminder, these are the times that we get to spend an hour with each cabin individually.

The girls are having fun with one particular discussion question: “if you could be any age for a long time, what would it be and why?”   Here is a sampling of answers that have amused Susie Ma’am enough to share with me:

• 4 Years-old because everything is magical. There are unicorns and princesses. It is the time before the stress of elementary school.   [Note: I love the hyperbole of 9 year-olds. Listening to this camper, you would think that elementary school was like the first year of law school.]
• 8 years-old because I am 8 and I everything is working fine for me.
• 19 years-old because I would still be a teen, but I would have less acne [this was a 13 year-old.]
• 25 years old because you can rent a car and your car insurance goes down. Also, you are still on your parents’ health insurance, but they have not started to ask you about your plan to get off when you are 27. [This was a counselor, but I thought it too good to withhold.]
• I choose 30 years-old because I am told those are the Golden Years.
• 40 years-old because life would be awesome. I would be married with a couple of kids. We would live in the suburbs . . . down the street from a candy store!
• 50 years-old, because you are halfway there!

The boys provide their own style of amusement. I give the campers a kit from Lego Education and ask them to build a model of either their favorite activity at camp (ages 6-12) or an example of a group of guys working well together (13-14).

I have learned that boys love to combine their favorite activity with an odd combination of insight and macabre humor. A typical model will feature a jetski pulling an innertube in Water Toys. A counselor (typically denoted wearing a crown) drives the jetski while two campers ride on the tube. One wears a red shirt and the other a blue shirt. A closer inspection reveals that the blue-shirt camper is without an arm.

“I love water toys because it is so much fun. I also enjoy going with a new friend each time. I am the red shirt because I am a Spartan and I am riding with a camper who is a Trojan. It is important to be friends with everyone!”

So far, so good. But I know that the 11 year-old macabre silliness is around the corner.

“The Trojan lost his hand because he put it in the water and a shark bit it off.”

“What? That does not sound good.” I playfully suggest.

“Its OK. The nurses will make it better. He just did not want to lose his turn to ride.”

Another camper made a model of Man Cave with 5 people sitting in a circle together. I am usually represented with a crown, but I am occasionally a skeleton because I have a white head, albeit from graying hair and not an exposed skull.

Pointing to one of the Lego people, one boy declares, “And here I am. I am building a model just like now. In fact, I am building a model of myself building a model of myself building a model of myself. “

“Its like Inception. A dream within a dream.”

With my mind slightly blown, I ask him whether there is an even bigger version of himself above us that is build a model of us?!?! I think this is clever and perhaps even profound.

“No way. I’m right here.”

Enough said.

Here is a nice model of the Pirate Ship.  I believe this model did not involve any ambutations.

I will continue to share the occasional tidbit from these sessions when they provide anything fun.

Steve Sir