It pains me to say this is it. In less than twenty-four hours, the final goodbyes are said, between counselors and campers alike, it ends. It doesn’t really hit you until you look at the camp and realize it is a bit emptier than it used to be. But even when camp ends and people leave, all that changes is not waking up to a bell. The memories stay in your mind and the skills you learned stay in your muscle memory so a little bit of CTT is always with you.
As much as I love the big things at camp like campfires and bowling trips, I really remember the little things. I remember Greg Sheyn always refusing to get into bed and having to throw him there sometimes or the Rosenthal brothers and Oliver Walke being incredibly good at Frisbee golf that hopefully by the time they hit high school, they can represent the U.S. in the Olympics (hopefully it’s a sport by then). As much as I mock him, it is impossible to forget a Chet Stein story or Chet Stein skit or Chet Stein noise the same way it is impossible to forget Krista Ross-Black singing her heart out every day in preparation for her Grammy award. I don’t have enough space in this blog to write out every memory I have from Third Session, but rest assured, they were priceless.
And that’s what CTT is. It’s what it is to me and I think for most, it is a haven for fun and memories. Perhaps the greatest thing about CTT however, is that it is always there. For the next eleven months, all I think about is the next summer and I am comforted by the fact that there is a next year, a next summer, and a next opportunity to better myself and have a lot more memories. The bell may not ring as much and the cabins might not be as clean, but CTT waits for us; the same way we wait for it.
In a matter of minutes, I leave my blogging computer and head off to a college class, and I’m not worried like some of my peers. I hear from friends that they are worried about leaving home and making new friends and I just get to chuckle because I had a decade of Camp Tall Timbers and that does more for me than any freshman orientation Rollins College can offer me. I digress, but it is true, you may leave CTT and spend a summer working or training, but CTT sure doesn’t leave you. The traditions stay there and you rest easy because you know, deep down in your heart, that there is always a next summer, and there is nothing that makes me happier than picturing myself there.
We’ll be seein’ ya real soon, summer 2013 is less than a year away. This has truly been an honor. Thank you all.
Alex Fang