Do you remember the old opening credits for ABC’s Wide World of Sports? That old “thrill of victory and the agony of defeat” spiel that had an endless reel of athletes behind it?
Well, last night it looked as if all of the athletes in the reel had called all of their jock friends and went roller-skating. It was skating night for the CTT bunch and our theme was sports, so everyone pulled on the jersey of their favorite player and donned the logos of the teams they support. There were Redskins fans, Yankee fans, LeBron James fans and even a Seattle Seahawks fan (namely, Emma – she sported a nice Shaun Alexander throwback jersey).
Skating night is always a big one at CTT. The veteran campers generally zoom around like professionals while the younger ones try to keep up. That is usually a sure-fire way to tell how long someone has been at camp, but last night there was an exception named Enrique.
Enrique comes to us from Spain and has been nicknamed the ‘Super Spaniard.’ He claims to be 16 years old, but due to his hulking size and staggering athletic ability I have a suspicion he might be somewhere closer to 26. He makes most of the counselors look small and generally dominates at any sport, regardless of whether or not he has ever played it before. For example – in one of his first golf lessons, he was able to chip the ball out of the sand and into a bucket. He was the first of the session and achieved the feat before the instructor, Ethan, could do so.
So no one was surprised when he, on his first trip to the skating rink, threw on some quad skates and was quickly doing tricks. He fell a few times, but from what I understand no one could believe this was his first time. I couldn’t help but be impressed with his quick mastering of the activity, even if I do believe he is pushing 30 years of age.
Also at the rink, Spanky challenged Dana Marks to a game of pool. Apparently, Dana is a pool hustler in her spare time because she destroyed him.
CTT offers dozens of different activities for the campers to participate in. There are normal sports, water sports, extreme sports, wilderness activities and much, much more. Despite all of this, we found out this morning that a new activity could be added to the list soon – agriculture.
Or gardening at least. For the entire summer, we have been tracking the CTT tomato plants growing outside the dining hall. We had almost given up hope, but then Emma stood at breakfast today and announced that she was holding the first ever “CTT toe-maht-toe.” With the help of a British-to-American translator, it was revealed that she was holding the first ever CTT tomato. Adam Gersh sang “You say tomato, I say toe-maht-toe” as the rest of us pondered a possible agricultural boom here at camp.
Regardless of whether or not that idea gets off the ground, the fact that we have successfully harvested a tomato is pretty cool. Hopefully there will be more to come. Maybe we could add eating our home-grown tomatoes to the long list of things we will take away and cherish from our time at CTT.