Camp Greenvile

A few months ago, Mr. Jimmy had the bright idea of getting all of his high-school friend together and going to Daddy-Daughter camp at the YMCA Camp Greenville.     That would be me and you, Jimmy and his overnamed son John Swinton, Joe Pearson and Evelyn (aka Evie), and Cooper and your old buddy Lillie.    And when he suggested it, it seemed like a great idea.    It think it seemed more appealing because your brother had gotten real cute and I noticed that I’ve been spending more time with him and feeling like we weren’t as close as we used to be.   As an older child, I’m particularly sensitive to that kind of thing.    So we signed up and I forgot about it until it was time to go.

We left T4 and Mommy in Houston, flew to the cabin and hung out there a few days, as I began to realize I was going to have hang out with other people’s kids, in an unair-conditioned cabin, with at least three massive men who snore, in the middle of the summer, where booze is frowned upon.    Shit.    But you are so unrelentingly happy and cheerful, it didn’t seem so bad as we drove up away from Nana’s house.    

 

And eagle eyed.

And it wasn’t.    We had a great time.    You had the built in advantage of having two girls you already knew, and I had the built in advantage of having three like-minded boozehounds with travelling bars that we rolled out every night.    

 

Potential Missiles: Lillie, you, Evie

Once I got over the un-relenting murderous good cheer of YMCA “camp people” as Jimmy called them, I had every bit as much fun as you did.   A lot of it was little things- your fascination with black berries that grew along the side of the road to Pretty Place.   You'd wade through yards of briars to get them, collect them, pass them out to friends, and occasionally eat on for "energies."

Some of the other high-lights included our canoeing session that degenerated into parents (OK-me) flinging life jacketed children 20 feet into the lake, and watching you take a dip in the redneck side of your genepool.  

Gangster style

For some reason, you fixated on making a tie-dye shit, and whenever I asked you want you wanted to do when we got to camp, you’d scream- “Crafts!!!”    So we made some damn crafts- tie-dye shirts, necklaces, wood name tags, leave pressings, and I’m still working on a lanyard.   But you branched out too, starting with an activity called Rock Throwing,” which is kids collecting rocks, throwing them at a bunch of pans, then collecting them again.   Brilliant work by the counselors.  

Note the shirt

But I think the thing I think will stick with me was, during the closing campfire, during which various groups of older kids got up and sang god-awful koombayah songs and you were totally into, a Wrath of God type thunder storm broke out.   I scooped you up, put you on my shoulders and started running through the woods as fast as I can run at 41 years old.    We were mowing down campers right and left, whipping through trees, as the storm got so close we could taste the lightning before it hit.      You were 50/50 delirious with joy and terror.     When we got to a shelter, I wrapped you up in my shirt and we just laughed at the rain and the wind trying to scoop us up off the mountain and the wonderful of being alive.    I think I’ll sign us up again.