“Steve Sir, you need to go outside. You will love it.”

I ran outside to see the first ever Camp Champions Highland Games.

This is what happens when 1) you hire creative counselors and 2) you put two Scottish counselors into the same cabin.

Scott Sir and Ryan Sir decided to add some variety to the lives of their campers. First, they painted the young competitors with Scottish flags. Some campers, however, played in a sprinkler, so their white cross on the blue field became a single sky blue blur. I feel there must be a clever analogy here, but I simply cannot conjure it.

Nevertheless, the counselors had a speaker playing bagpipe music as the boys (sorry, “lads”) rolled the caber. I must apologize to any Highland Game purists out there. In a true Highland Game, the caber is not rolled, but “tossed”. A true caber is essentially a 19-foot, 6-inch telephone pole.

Happily, the counselors correctly assessed that asking 11 year-olds to throw a 20-foot pole would be unsafe, so they opted for a log roll instead.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the “games” was the fact that both Ryan and Scott unveiled their strongest Scottish accents to yell encouragement. They initially attempted to issue instructions in the same accents, but that yielded merely blank stares from their young charges. A thick Scottish brogue is almost impossible to recognize as anything like English.

Perhaps the only real disappointment for me was the lack of any kilts.

As the one member of this community that owns a kilt, I am saddened that I was not invited to the opening ceremonies. [Note: Susie Ma’am points out that I should not feel sad since there were no opening ceremonies. She might have a point.] But I guess I can hope to be invited to the Second Annual Camp Champions Highland Games. If so, I have the gear!

Steve Sir