Thursday, August 19, 2010
Today started the good stuff. All week I’ve been hearing about pranks and gags that cabins are plotting against each other and for the first couple days nothing happened. Until today.
Girls Cabin 1 got ransacked. Party streamers, party poppers, confetti, mattress turned this way and that. I was sitting by the lake when I heard the scream. I know who did it. I know who planned it. I know how and when it was executed. It happened during the afternoon run, while girls Cabin 1 was in the lake for a water workout. I’ve been waiting for someone to start a prank war since I got here. But I’m not telling. Not yet at least. But I did sit by the lake and giggle myself silly while vengeful screams echoed from the fastest girls cabin at Camp Chipinaw.
About an hour later, while I was inside my own cabin, I heard a ruckus outside, something about payback and some laughter. When I came out, girls Cabin 1 had dumped all the party favors that littered their room onto the front porch of an astounded and very confused boys Cabin 2. Most of the boys at camp were outside already so it became a giant show. (I'm working on getting pictures. In the meantime that's my Cabin 1 at the top of the page)
Cabin 2 didn’t do it. (yes, I’m laughing out loud right now)
I think the girls realized that the boys Cabin 2 was innocent and now they probably started a brand new beef. Everyone’s still trying to figure out who the perps are. But at least it got things started.
This isn’t just my journal. I thought it’d be better if someone else told the story. So I got the fastest girl in camp. Here’s Ward Melville junior Caroline O’Hea:
We were swimming in the lake for a water workout, and when we were done we walked back to the cabin expecting to just go get changed in our running clothes. When we walked in our mattresses were off our beds, and confetti was everywhere. Streamers were hanging from our beds, and everyone was so mad. We knew that prank would come sometime, but we did not expect something this good. As we were flipping out boys ran by and yelled “Cabin 2 boys rule!” after hearing this we gathered up the mess and put it in a garbage bag and proceeded to their bunk and dumped out all the trash on their porch.
We expected them to be laughing but they all looked very confused. Our counselor soon walked over and informed us that it was not the cabin 2 boys who pranked us. So now we have two cabins wanting mad, and hopefully the next prank wont be as good (or as bad for us).
We already started plotting. We’ve got a couple good ones. But now we’re afraid to do another swim workout.
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After dinner we met in the playhouse to listen to guest speaker Peter Hawkins. He’s a T-6 paraplegic, a former star football player at Valley Stream Central High. He was involved in a tragic car accident after he and his friend had been drinking at his friend’s 18th birthday party. They were both drunk. His friend was driving and ended up drag racing down Sunrise Highway in Rockville Centre. Hawkins went through the windshield. He never played football again.
But he has a black belt in karate. He’s done road races all over the world. He’ll race in Japan for the 10th time later this year. He skis. He’s been sky-diving. And he naturally doesn’t ask anyone for help for anything. I wrote about his talk last year. Here’s the link for last year's story.
Tonight was movie night. So after Pete talked the campers met for a showing of Big Daddy. I had a headache coming so I decided slip back into the camp for a nap. Camp is an easy reminder that I’m not a teenager anymore. I was in bed for about 30 minutes before the front door busted open.
“Dude, they stole our bench. They stole our bench.”
I shocked myself with how fast I jumped up. By the time I made it outside, Evan Purdy (Shoreham-Wading River) had already chased down the thieves and was walking back toward our cabin with our bench slung over his shoulder. For the record, Evan is 5’6, 125 pounds. The bench is bigger than he is. He’s my hero.
Oh, and the morning run. I didn’t make it but the guys ran 8.8 miles. Only one of the guys got dropped. I figured it was Forest Gilbakian (Westhampton Beach) because he was the first one back to the cabin and he looked like someone had beaten him with a club.
The Fast Twitch
- We had a “boot camp” workshop today. Apparently the instructor had a conflict and ended up coming late. We were sure what was happening at first so I jetted over to the cabin to try to catch up on some work. It ended up working out in my favor because I missed it when she arrived. When the group was headed to the next session, “form running,” I could tell they were dragging. They all said the session bashed their legs. Everyone’s sore. I don’t think it would have been pretty if I participated.
- Forest decided to pull his mattress off the bed and take a nap on the front porch. Great idea. It was the only place the sun was shining. It only took 10 minutes before Patrick Corona (Fairfield Prep, Conn.) brought his bed out too. It’s like we’re living like hobos. We’re hobos with iPods.
- It’s astonishing to me that we have a runner named Forest in our cabin and I have yet to hear ONE “Run Forest Run” joke. I would have put money on it.
- Brian Bennett (Fairfield Prep) showed up today. There's a board outside our cabin that lists the miles everyone runs each day. For the first three days of camp Brian's mileage says "Cruise" because he was absent because he was on a cruise. Now is name is Cruise. He was here for literally 16 minutes before everyone knew him.