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Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Erica

Two years ago we lost Erica Vallario to a tragic car accident. Former camper and first-time counselor (in 2006), Erica was beloved throughout the Campus Kids-NJ community. I'm not just saying that; she was unusually friendly and energetic and she reached out to many people beyond just her specific bunk group and staff friends. She lived the spirit of camp and I'm sure she would still have been a counselor today. I'm wondering tonight what each of her many camp friends is doing. One thing I'm certain of is that each of us is stopping what we're doing and thinking about or praying for Erica and her family. I would find it hard to believe that each of us is not also crying. You can't have known Erica and not be deeply saddened by this senseless loss, even two years later. I am hoping that each of you is alright because I know how close you were to Erica. I saw your unfathomable heartache during those days following the accident. I could not believe the pain you were enduring and the courage that you showed and the support you gave each other. I know that you still have this support and that you are finding comfort tonight, each in your own way. I also know that remembering Erica is a joy. She was happy and funny and active and caring and loving of everyone around her. The memories of her days at camp are wonderful and they are part of our lives forever. We share a common sadness, but we also share an amazing friend.

Tom

P.S. -- This is a page on our website with memories and photos of Erica: http://www.campuskids.com/nj06/galleries/Erica.htm

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Where Does It All Go?

We have some staff who are part of our pre-camp or post-camp "work crew". That's when staff either come to camp early or stay later to help us move all of our equipment into place. Because CK-NJ is on a college campus, we have to move most of our program equipment and supplies to offsite storage lockers at the end of the season. It seems like everything just disappears because it happens so quickly. But in reality, with the amazing organizational talents of Jeremy, much of the equipment travels a few miles down the road (just past our corn fields, in fact) to Locker 615 and Locker 617 in Mansfield, NJ.

You wouldn't believe how jammed full these locker are once Jeremy directs the crew as to the right packing techniques. Items range from the extremely heavy skate park pieces to the gazillion fans we use in our dorm rooms to sports equipment, swimming noodles, art supplies, health center furniture, phones, chairs, props and costumes, sports trophies, refrigerators, archery targets, linens, camping equipment, Stu's favorite pencils that he uses to plan our our Camper Choice programs every day, and the secret recipe for Frito Pie.
There it all stays until a day in early June when Jeremy rents the truck again and recruits another work crew to bring everything out and set it up for another summer at camp. How many days left until that happens?

Tom

Monday, August 18, 2008

Empty Camp

After the campers left on Friday and the crying subsided, all the staff worked incredibly hard to pack away everything and do some final cleaning. We had a farewell banquet late Friday night, which included a great slide show retrospective of the summer put together by Jeremy. Then most of the staff each took a few moments to share what they think will be their most special memories of the summer. Seeing the slide and hearing the staff speak was a dramatic and emotional way to realize exactly what we accomplished here this summer. After a very late night campfire on the Anderson (sorry, Clifford) field, bagels and juice were served out on the quad early Saturday morning and it was, unfortunately, time for our wonderful staff to pack themselves up and head off to their next adventures. Saturday night we had just a small work crew to finish things up; the crew completed those final end-of season tasks by late Sunday (including letting Jeremy talk us into lunch at White Castle), and then it was time for Jeremy and I to say goodbye to them: Paula, Emma, Stevey and Matt.

Camp seems so quiet after everyone has left. I stayed here last night, the only CK person on campus. I went out to the corn field just as darkness was descending on the valley. Our field is not yet ready to harvest, so I'll have to come back later to taste the results. This picture shows "our field", the one we used to measure the passing of time this summer. I thought it was appropriate to show the field with no people in the photo because that's how camp is now, empty of camp people. I then returned to campus to catch a final picture in the quad before the sun set. And I just sat there for a while, remembering all that had happened in that quad this summer, all the campers and staff who had spent many happy days there. And I felt great because I knew it was an awesome summer.

Now it's Monday morning. I got up very early to move my last few things out of our Van Winkle office and I'm about to close up my dorm room and head out. I'll walk through the quad one last time and drive past the corn field. I'll remember the practically barren field of early June and those first few days when we arrived at camp and started to set it up for the season. And I'll remember the corn field changing dramatically every week while at camp we kept having more and more fun, making more and more friends, and wondering how a summer could be any better than this.

The end result out at the fields will be corn to eat and perhaps forage for cattle. The end result at camp, however, isn't known yet. Even though we know that we made lots of friends and had incredibly huge amounts of fun, we don't know completely how camp has affected our lives; just that it has and it will be a long time, if ever, that we forget the CK-NJ Summer of '08.

Tom

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Predictable

Not much of a surprise out in the fields this week. The corn stalks are about the same height as last week and the ears of corn are a little longer and a lot fatter. Just as we knew it would happen. Very exciting, but very predictable.

At camp we had another very exciting week, but it was far from predictable. We like to think of ourselves as organized the way we run our camp. But I have to admit that being organized and being able to predict what's actually going to happen week-to-week are two different things. When we planned out this summer, who knew which activities would be most popular with the campers? Who knew what new ideas would come up from the staff and campers for activities, special programs and tournaments? Who knew that ga-ga would get an earth shaking new rule? Who knew that we would learn several fun facts every day? Who knew how the personalities of the counselors would mesh as they formed their co-working teams for the summer? Who knew what songs we would sing, what acts we would see at shows, what artistic creations would spring forth? Besides knowing that we would have Frito pie every other week and that we would be gathering around our sundial before every activity, who knew what was really going to happen this summer?

Nobody. The fun of this summer -- of every CK summer -- is how unpredictable it is.

But we did predict that it would be fun and we were right. As we trekked out to the corn fields, Jeremy and I talked about the fact that there's only one more week of camp to go. We're sad that the end is now in sight, but we are very happy that this unpredictable summer has ended up predictably wonderful.

Soon we'll be able to eat those sweet ears of corn, the predictable outcome of the amazing process of growth. And when the corn is all gone, we'll think about next summer and be glad that the farmer will plant the fields and we'll have corn once again. The story will be the same.

Soon we'll be saying goodbye to this camp season, but the stories we tell will be different from every other summer. There never was a summer like this and there never will be again. It's the predictable result of a most unpredictable summer.

Tom

Sunday, August 03, 2008

All the same?

The ears of corn are growing rapidly. This week they look like they are about half the size they need to be for harvest. All is well in the fields.

As Jeremy and I gazed at "our field" and looked across the many acres of other fields in this part of town, I thought about how it all looks the same, which is kind of cool. It's like huge carpets of corn, lush green with light yellow tassels. And when the breeze blows, you can see it travel across the fields like waves. Very pretty. But very hard to tell one corn field from the next, one row from another, one stalk from its neighbors.

This summer I've been thinking about how the lessons of the corn fields apply to camp, but this week I'm thinking how different camp is from this beautiful uniformity. For we certainly are not an anonymous blend of look-alike campers and staff. On the contrary, we are each very distinct individuals; you might even say a hodge podge of different people.

Camp is a place where we actually encourage people to be themselves and to stand out from the crowd. Take a look at our community when we're in the quad or gathered for announcements and your eye moves from person to person, noticing each one's individual traits. It's definitely not a blend of identical people. Probably the only time we look alike is when we're on a day trip and we are all wearing camp t-shirts, which is for safety reasons when we're out in the public. There are camps, which you may know, that always want their campers and/or staff to be wearing camp shirts and it does look sort of neat. But I would miss the wonderful mix of colors and styles if we did that at CK-NJ.

We also have campers and staff with many different interests because we are not just a sports camp or music camp or whatever. So when you look at the daily schedule of activities that all the campers have chosen, it's a great big mixture of everything. And that makes camp lots of fun.

I think we have a beautiful camp because of our diversity. It may not be as orderly as a perfectly planted corn field, but it's much more interesting. As we get ready tomorrow to welcome more new campers we're excited to see all the different types that will step off the busses. It's going to be a great week at camp (and probably out in the fields too).

Tom