Description:
The bell in the center of camp marks our day. It wakes us up, calls us to meals, and marks the time. It can be heard as it echoes across the lake and deep into the woods. When it rings continuously, it’s known as The Assembly Bell, and campers come running. This rule keeps us ready in the event of an emergency, but usually just signals the start of a Big Game. We have two "duties" every morning, mandatory periods where the boys learn archery, knife, hatchet and map reading skills, make things in the woodshop, work on group construction projects, and gardening. That is followed by a compulsory swim where we work on building skills so they can pass the Lake Test, a 1/4-mile swim. After drying off, it is time for milkshakes, which is followed by Jury, where the boys meet together with the Director to solve and discuss camp issues as a group. Then it is lunch, rest period and free time. Counselors announce where they will be and the boys are welcome to choose their activity or make their own. Either way they are supported in an activity they want to do. Then it is dinner, where cereal is always available (an old camp tradition), followed by the evening game and bed. This routine is punctuated by special events – bonfires, campouts, hikes, evening swims, stargazing during meteor showers and trips. We take the boys on a clear night to a local observatory to look at the heavens through telescopes, to a dry creek bed littered with fossils they can collect, or to a magical land of waterfalls, they can play in and sit under. Then there are the Big Games. The Flour Bomb Wars have two teams of boys armed with paper lunch bags filled with baking flour. They must attack and defend a cabin simultaneously. The most anticipated of these Big Games is the Villa Hunt. It’s origins date back to World War One. Poncho Villa and his Raiding Party are secretly chosen and spend weeks preparing to raid the camp. When the whole camp is together, they run shouting through the assembly, then disappear into the woods. The boys and counselors break into teams and scramble to get their things together for a three-day game of hide-and-seek over a square mile of woods, fields and streams. Our program is designed to help boys rise above their limitations and learn self-respect. They do their best to meet expectations not from threat of punishment, but from a sense of responsibility to others. They have so much fun; they don’t realize they’re growing.
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