Goodbye ITC

Friday was the last full day at ITC and there were signs of this everywhere. Campers like Bennett were exceptionally emotional and people were cleaning like crazy so we could leave as soon as possible on Saturday.

Richard was leaving in the afternoon on Friday so I spent the morning making sure he cleaned up all the messes he made. The biggest area he had to clean was the prop house, where I am sure he tried on over half the clothes and threw them on the ground. I was not about to let Richard get away with this mess, so I watched him like a hawk as he put all the clothes away in the correct place and not stuffed under a shelf, a trick he tried to pull on me several times.

In the evening, we had a family picnic where both camper and counselor families could visit the camp. My whole family came and I was happy that they could meet Calvin along with some of the other campers. I think Calvin made a lasting impression on them because he introduced himself by stealing my brother's cookie.

After my family left I had another task before the picnic was over. For the last two weeks, there has been a slowly growing group called the "Blow horn Bandits." The group started with one person blowing an airhorn in the middle of the night and trying not to get caught. Next, he passed it on to someone else and if that person did it successfully he or she would receive a coveted red and black bracelet along with the knowledge of who else sounded the blow horn.

This time it was my turn to blow the horn and in order to create more hype on the final day of camp, I had to do it right behind the band's stage at the picnic. For my disguise, I had a full-body orange suit. Sadly, the suit was not enough to hide my figure and many people recognized me as I ran past but it was still a thrill and I still received a bracelet so I was satisfied.
After all the campers were in bed, I had a great time reflecting on the summer with other staff members, sharing our best and worst times at camp this year.

Saturday was the last official day of the Seneca Sheepdogs and it was hard to say goodbye to a lot of the campers. When Calvin's parents picked him up, he gave them a big hug and they said he would definitely be coming back some time.

Overall, I had a great second summer at ITC. Although I was extremely tired and my patience was tested over and over again, I have no regrets because there were so many great campers and counselors I got to know this summer. I will miss my time there, and I will hopefully return for holiday camp in December.

Music is in the Air

On Wednesday, the band “Brena” returned and the campers had a great time dancing and singing along. This was with the exception of Bob who chose to listen to the music from the ropes course for reasons only Bob understands.

On Wednesday night, I played checkers with Gus on the porch while Jason and Bob played Uno. It was great to see Jason’s dismay while Bob laughed in his face, giving him one “Draw two” after another.

I liked playing with Gus because he always has a smart comment to make as we play. His comments annoyed me the last time he was in our cabin, but this session I have really grown to like Gus a lot more.  

In the afternoon, we made a cabin DVD that we will watch Friday. We chose to make an ITC commercial by first doing a spoof from an Old Spice commercial and then getting more serious by giving some camper testimonials.

The talent show went pretty well. We had Gus playing guitar while Jason played a keyboard. Of course, Richard dressed like Steven Tyler and screamed into the microphone. With all his practice, he was ready to go; toward the end of the song, the music overtook him, and he planted a kiss right on Kyle’s face. Kyle was very taken aback to say the least; he did not know how to react to this act of affection.

After the cabin act, Bob did his act, which was doing what he does best: picking on counselors.

For his act, Bob sat ready with a super soaker while Kyle and I had our backs turned. After a little bit of soaking, we retaliated by dumping our water bottles on him, which were conveniently full and ready.

After Bob’s act, Gus told a joke. The problem with Gus’s joke telling is that he takes forever to get it out. Instead of going straight through the joke, he tends to go on tangents, which, in my opinion, are actually funnier than the joke itself. 

The Olympics at ITC

On Monday morning, we woke up to Eric’s blankets and sheets tossed everywhere except for the actual bed. He spent a lot of the night getting out of bed and approaching us to tell us to put him back in bed. We only fell for this a few times before we decided to let him do it himself.

Nathan preparing the slip-n-slide

We have another talent show this week and Richard is without a doubt the most excited about this in our cabin. He spent his rest period practicing in the screen house for his big Aerosmith performance.

At night, we had a slip-n-slide, which was yet another opportunity for Calvin to enjoy himself playing in water. He went down every time with a huge smile on his face. I was happy too  because instead of using water from the dirty lake this year, we used hose water.

Tuesday afternoon was a rough one for JJ. We started off with a nature memory game. He stormed out a couple times and I was able to get him back in by finding books for him to look at while we played. The third time, however, I was not so lucky. This time he threw his glasses, something he does every time he is angry, causing the lens to pop out and the nosepieces to break. After he realized the nosepieces were not fixable, he threw them causing them to be lost forever.

The afternoon only got worse for JJ when I brought him to the bike track and he fell only a few laps into his ride. “It’s the end of the world, I’m dead, I’m dead!” he yelled, even though his only real injury was a scratched elbow.

Even though JJ had a bad time biking during sports and rec, our other campers were busy winning a competition.

Going along with the Olympic theme, our cabin had to rack up as many points as we could in the hour. Seth got points by throwing a football while Jason got points by shooting baskets and Eric bowled a few strikes.

However, the most important player in our cabin success was Calvin. Another way to score points is by riding bikes around the track, one of Calvin’s passions. Calvin racked up 60 during the time, giving us a total of 138 points, hopefully enough to bring home the gold medals. 

In the evening, we had more Olympics. Seneca and Chippewa had Scotland for their country, so we decided to paint beards on the campers to represent the typical Scottish person.  I do not think many people understood the beards, but I was happy with it

The End is Near

Both Friday and Saturday were restful days, to no complaint of any of the counselors.

Friday Morning started with a totem pole dedication ceremony using the totem poles we decorated earlier in the week.

Each cabin had to choose a chief and dress them up for the ceremony. We chose Alex as our chief and with a little bit of war paint and a flashy vest to go along with it we made him look like a true warrior.

Each of the chiefs marched down to the fire pit, assisted by a counselor, and read their cabin’s speech about what it meant to be a camper here. For ours, we opened by using a speech from “The Hangover” about a wolf pack and changed it to a dog pack.

We spent the rest of the day packing and we said goodbye to Max a day early because he wanted to go to his Mom’s birthday party.

At night, we had our final council fire of the year and I was rightfully the archer once more. I thoroughly enjoyed my time as the archer here and I will never forget my only line, “We are the campers and staff of ITC who have proven themselves worthy of this council fire!”

After a relaxing Saturday with a lot of napping, we welcomed our final new campers on Sunday. Our cabin for session seven includes many past sheepdogs. Both Calvin and Seth are staying from session six. In addition, both Gus and Bob are back. Four new campers, Richard, Jason, Eric, and JJ, arrived on Sunday as well.

One day into the week, there has already been a lot of interaction among our campers.

We gave Bob a great homecoming by having the camp’s power chair that is so dear to him. We also told Calvin to give him a hug, which he did with pleasure and put a huge smile on Bob’s face.  

The funniest example of the interactions is Eric and Bob. Eric is a nonverbal camper who often comes up to us and points to his favorite stuffed animal: Barney.  For some reason, Eric took to Bob right away. He pointed to Bob and we quickly realized that he would go anywhere with Bob.

“He is infatuated with me,” Bob said as we lead Eric up to get his medicine (the only way we could get him to go.) “I now have a leech,” he added.

During the fire, I noticed Bob off in the distance by himself laughing very hard. I was not sure what it was about but then I realized that he had found someone’s flip-flop and was throwing it to make it harder to find. The look of self-satisfaction on his face was hilarious considering he did not even know anyone was even watching.

At night, Richard organized a miniature game of football in our cabin. It was funny to see him try to get Calvin to mimic his three-point-stance.

The only person who did not enjoy the football game is Gus. Richard spent a long time trying to convince him to play, giving him very specific instructions to which Gus replied “Here’s the deal, just go ahead and pretend I am playing because I’m going to bed.”

Overall, I think this is going to be a great final week of camp because we once again have such a wide variety of personalities in our cabin. 

A Day in the Life of Calvin

Today is Thursday, I woke up to my counselors and I was ready for another day of camp.

At breakfast, I saw one of the camp bibs and it had a fray. I do not like frays at all, so I proceeded to rip it off, ripping the entire bib in half. My counselors were not happy because there are not many of these in the camp. However, I still managed to rip one more on the way out of the dining hall.

Next, I made play dough out of salt and flour in art class. I had a lot of fun feeling it between my fingers.

We had a special lunch today; it was a barbeque that some of the camp sponsors provided. While in line, I saw that Brian had his hands full with two plates of food. This was the perfect time to strike. I noticed there was a tiny hole in his staff t-shirt, and I had been dying to take care of it. I quickly ripped it as much as I could before he could stop me, leaving a gaping hole in his shirt. I heard him talking to the director to arrange plans for a new shirt for next week.

During rest period, Brian took me to the bikes and we biked for about an hour straight. Next, I went on the paddleboats and pattled my cabin mates around the lake several times. Hopefully all of this exercise will cause me to sleep better at night because I have been waking up earlier than everyone else.

At night, we had the talent show. I sang “Who Let the Dogs Out” with the cabin while wearing face paint and hats that looked like dog ears made out of construction paper.

For my individual act, I got to perform my great talent of destroying boxes quickly. I had 30 seconds to destroy as many boxes as I could. I ripped as hard and as fast as I could and I was able to completely destroy six large cardboard boxes.

I also enjoyed Javelle and Seth’s rendition of Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” it was a tough act to follow.

Overall it was a great day and I did in fact sleep really good at night after such an active day at ITC. 

Water Days

Tuesday started off with music class, where we quickly discovered one of Calvin’s passions: water. Because it is sensory week, campers had the opportunity to play with different textures. Calvin took to the water right away and continually poured it in and out of a bucket with a cup. We used this activity to keep him busy during rest period as well.

Jordan made big strides today. He overcame his fear of eating in front of people and I was able to feed him. First, I started with applesauce, the only thing he would eat last year, and then I tried sloppy joe meat because it is similar texture. Finally, I worked my way up to solid food and he still ate it to my surprise.

I was a little disappointed in the evening activity. There were sponsors of Indian Trails at the camp so during a ceremony we were instructed to play with the kids on the bikes and with a parachute. We were definitely just putting on a show instead of acting how we normally do with the campers and I really did not like this.

On Wednesday morning, Seth arrived. Because he was three days late, he is staying until next Thursday in order to get his full week’s worth of camp. Once he arrived, we threw a bathing suit on him and went to the pool with everyone. Most of the cabin enjoyed it with the exception of AJ who just wanted Kyle to hold him, something he always loves to do.

It rained again on Wednesday but “big booms” (thunder) is one of Seth’s favorite things second only to Lady Gaga so it kept him in a good mood.

We played with Play Dough and Javelle thrusted it wildly across the table while slamming it as hard as he could. We thought Calvin may throw it everywhere but he actually had a good time with it, making about twenty yellow pancakes.

In the evening, we decorated totem poles. Obviously, we went with the sheepdog theme and did a big head at the top. We added paw prints that everyone helped paint and a collar. The finished poles are going to be displayed for several years around the camp so the Seneca Sheepdogs will be forever remembered. 

Seneca Welcomes Puppies

When I worked the Easter weekend at Indian Trails I thought I would never have an easier cabin; so far it seems this week’s cabin proved me wrong. Of course, it helps when three of the eight campers do not show up. One of these three is Cody, who had tubes put in his ears and will not be back this week.

With only five campers, and a week to rest, we are ready to begin another session of camp. This is a kids week, so all of our campers are very young. This is exceptionally strange because we have always had the oldest cabin in the past.

Alex was the first one to arrive. He was here before in another cabin and he is both helpful and well dressed. Today he wore a polo and nice new shoes.

We also have Calvin. It is his first time at camp and he seems excited to be here judging by his high pitched noises that he makes. Both Alex and Javell, another camper in our cabin, love to echo what they hear, meaning that when one of them makes a loud noise the other repeats it, causing the other to repeat it back. So far, we have found that the best way to stop this is to take on e of them away so they no longer have anything to repeat.

Seth and AJ...best friends

AJ is in our cabin as well, and he seems to be a favorite among the counselors. He is small, cute and loves hugs so it is obvious why he is well liked.

Finally, we have Jordan who is nervous about being at camp so far. Like other times when I have had Jordan in my cabin, he will not eat in large groups because he is too nervous.

On Monday, we did in fact gain another camper; Max, who was in our cabin for the first session, returned to Seneca. He really enjoyed camp the first time and he was on a waiting list. With all the cancelations, he was able to come back. So much for the very easy week, but oh well.

Alex continued to walk around with a brush in his hand all day, brushing his head often, despite the fact that he does not have any hair.

We also discovered that Calvin loves to break glass. First, he broke a bowl that was in our cabin by dropping it on the ground and then he did the same thing during breakfast with my coffee mug. Because of this, we told the kitchen staff to give us only paper plates for the rest of the week.

For the evening program, we played a game of “Eagle’s nest.” It was a lot like basketball but with only one basket. We teamed up with Algonquin, our brother cabin for the week, and the campers took turns shooting balls into the basket.