Hey everyone, sorry about the total lack of blogs since last Wednesday. Everyone I’ve talked to loves daily updates and I love to give them, but some big things were going down in regards to wrapping up first session and beginning this one. I’m back now, and after the madness of Color War, the sadness of the first group of campers leaving and the excitement of the new batch I can assure you I will have tons to talk about.
On Thursday and Friday last week I got my first chance to experience this phenomenon known as Color War. It began early in the morning when the generals, Trow and Rachel/Medusa for white and Spanky and Krista for blue, came barging into the bunks at around 7:30 sounding sirens and calling names. Everyone received a bolt of either blue or white paint to sort out the teams, and the games began!
It was sheer madness for a day and a half. It began with a cheer face-off outside the pavilion before breakfast, included team sports and an unruly, yet oddly carefully organized Apache Relay (which included near every activity at CTT, even a gum chewing and bubble blowing stage) and wrapped up with the presentation of the team songs, skits, plaques and speeches.
The battle was at a near dead heat going into the presentations. The Blubonic Bots had taken a lead early in day one but The White Glove of Michael Jackson battled back by winning the Apache. It would all be decided on the spacious front porch of the rec hall.
The Bots skit parodied the Transformers saga, while The Glove’s skit showed Michael Jackson protecting small children from evil robots. The songs were well written and performed with great enthusiasm and the plaques from both teams looked great. Hannah Sherman delivered a powerful Obama-esque speech for the blue team that got the crowd cheering and her near tears (this is her last year, so appropriately so). The white team sent up Ian Lever, who spoke about campers being able to realize their personal potential in an environment that is incredibly conducive to doing so. His speech was equally fiery and the crowd was moved.
After the closest Color War in years, the judges convened and deemed that The White Glove of Michael Jackson had won! After some cheers, the teams embraced and it was over. Just like that, we saw that the bond between all of the people at CTT was instantly restored, and that through everything we are all still one big family.
The next day, it was time to say good-bye to first session. It was tough to see familiar faces like Lindsay Heiman, Bob, Tucker and everyone else get on those buses and leave. The people on those buses had made the three weeks that made up first session truly magical. But everything that is good comes to an end, and eventually we all must trudge back into real life…
On Sunday, those buses returned and this time they were carrying campers for second session. There are some familiar faces from last week like Jakeable, Miller, Hayley Sanders and the Dennison triplets but for the most part, there are a lot of new names to learn.
The second session really got rolling last night at the camp fire. It started with a rousing round of boom-chicka-boom, a rock/paper/scissors tournament and an interesting game your kids will have to teach you on your next trip to the beach called “Cut the Cake.” Jason Gersh and his buddies Ziggy and Matt Kasoff treated us all to a mini-set of songs they have been working on in their guitar classes, including one that I feel really sums up life at CTT.
Amidst the craziness of the first few days, such as the start of boy’s leagues, flip-flop (the sandal) advisories and an ongoing fight between Rachel/ Medusa and Flip-Flop (the counselor) about whether peanut butter is good or nasty (for the record, 80% of the people at breakfast sided with Rachel and are supporters of the by-product), CTT has a feeling of home. It is a place where we all come to be ourselves, to be with friends and to try new things. This is a place where we can come to really live.
The song Jason played was “I Feel Home” by OAR, and thinking of CTT and the people seems to echo the words of the song. Even at the beginning of the session, this group of campers has come to their second home, a place they love to be, with the people they love to be with.
I feel home when I see the faces that remember my own,
I feel home when I’m chilling outside with the people I know,
I feel home and that is just something I feel,
‘Cause home to me is reality and all I need is something real.
-OAR