Whoa, how did it get to be July 30th? There was supposed to be a game of Find Evan Cook on the Golf Range at second free swim today, but it just started raining a few minutes ago. The trick to finding Evan Cook is that he owns this amazing camouflage suit as well as a camouflage water bottle. Although, his water bottle has been lost and no one can find it (despite the one soda reward) because no one can see it. It is similarly difficult to see Evan himself during Find Evan, but eventually he gets up and comes in for dinner.
It was an amazing day for flag football; The Purple Nurples faced off against the Red Bulls for the Superbowl at first free swim. The Purple Nurples, a true Cinderella story –who lost every game until the playoff that got them into the Superbowl– sailed to victory with much thanks to coaches Chris Brown and Jacqui Clark, and MVP Michael Springer. As usual, we brought our chairs up to sit and watch the spectacle. The rocketry class set off rockets every time a touchdown was scored, and the dance team came on after the show to do a choreographed number by counselor Myi. Counselors Ryan Hertlein (dressed up as John Madden) and Brownie commentated, detailing the game play by play and also offering funny asides and fake histories on all the campers/players, such as where they went to college and how many setbacks faced before making it to the Superbowl.
Some announcements: Brendan Arnold had the loomster today at lunch. Ashley Scheller scored a bullseye in archery and Jesse Alloy nearly tied counselor Drew Wolfe’s record of getting every arrow in Archery into the target (he only missed three). Jasmine Whims beat all of girls’ side in a game of Knockout. Quinn Morrow made a legitimate ping pong serve onto the table all the way from Riley’s play area, and Vito climbed Lord Equinox ten times in one activity period.
Just as an aside, I want to say that most of the announcements are hard to record faithfully. For example, today counselor Jason made two announcements that were just “Oh yes!” Often, people stand up and announce that admin’er Mark is doing a good job and then sit down again. Plus, there are different styles to the announcements. Today, everyone made their announcements in a “Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs here!” voice. Sometimes they make their announcements as if they are asking questions, like “Today? In Riflery?” And then everyone goes “Riflery?” The Gersh brothers are known for the most over the top announcements, which usually involve running, jumping and waving their arms.
Anyway, the Ghost Court punishments were fulfilled yesterday, with a few stragglers finishing up today. Jordan Kovalsky stood in the middle of the dining hall and explained what “Nam” means. It can be something really bad–derived from “Viet Nam”, really good– derived from “Phenomenal”, and something that’s good when you expect it to be bad, but I don’t know what that’s derived from, and I still don’t really understand “Nam.” I was standing with nurse Sara when Carl Lasker came up to give her his ghost court gift– a sparkly rock he’d found–and told her she was a really good nurse. Unrelated to ghost court, there was an outbreak of pointing at lunch, where the entire boys’ side and the entire girls’ side just started pointing at each other, walked to the center of the room pointing at each other, and then stopped pointing and walked back to their seats.
Anyone who did not do their ghost court punishment was gathered up by the Judge Mookie Mobile at Free Swim. Unfortunately there was a rebellion and Judge Mookie was pushed into the pool.
In the evening we had Cheesy Skit Night. Cabin G&H did an awesome skit about Eskimos, with subtitles, and Girls’ Tent Group 2 did a funny show using rocks with smiley faces as actors, but Ug’s group, Girls’ Tent Group 3, won 3 Gouda’s from the judges with a song-filled number and came in first place.
Right now, the seasoned campers are meeting behind the gym to talk about Initiation. It’s a really beautiful night and always a secret until it happens. The actors are practicing the play. And people are talking about color war – it even made it into the Knitties talk today.
Things should be pretty exciting from here on out. See you tomorrow!