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feste_sylvainMonday, September 12 started with us hauling a week's worth of packing for a camp-out for myself and my younger, and ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tamidon driving us to the school at 7:30am so we could ride a bus up to Wiscasset, Maine. I volunteered to chaperon because these middle-school trips usually get three female teachers and three female camp instructors and as many moms as can afford the time. As more than half of my daughter's middle-school (of 30 students) is male, I believed it important to have some men around.
Fortunately, two other class fathers also felt this way, so the adults were properly gender-balanced for this trip.
The bus ride was almost uneventful, with only one incident involving the class trouble-maker, who was properly disciplined by the teachers who know much more about dealing with class trouble-makers than I do, so I shut up and observed.
We arrived at Camp Chewonki before noon, got our camp-issued back-packs, packed our stuff into them, and then split the 30 kids up into three groups of 10. None of us father-chaperons got our kid in the groups we were assigned to, which made sense to everybody but the three kids. (Aw.) Our group was handed a milk-crate full of lunch makings, and we made sandwiches of jelly and "sun nut butter" (ground sunflower seeds). This camp would be peanut-free.
During lunch, our wonderful instructor named Hirsch ("like 'Hershey bar' without the '-ey bar'") got our kids to come up with the name for the group: the Furry Cheese-Balls. She explained that we'd be hauling the cooking equipment and food for the week to our campsite in primitive devices called "wanagons", big heavy wooden boxes carried by four people with a long pole. Then we'd hike the half-mile back and then carry our packs to the site. Then we were introduced to our group's medical kit, containing all the kids' meds and the first aid stuff. Hirsch had the group propose and vote on a name for the kit, and the name they chose was "Charlie Sheen".
I took my place at the rear position on the pole of the heavier wanagon, but that's when I was told that policy was that the kids do all the burden-bearing. Okay. I brought up the rear in the other fashion, walking behind the whole group, making sure that all ten were always together, and assessed just what these kids were made of. Two ganglies (sudden height spurt over the summer), two rock-solids, three delicate flowers, one ring-leader, one natural-born lieutenant, and one rapidly-maturing.
The wanagons proved to be the heaviest task of the whole week.
After getting our packs, we pitched our tents; the teacher and instructor shared a tent, there were two tents of three boys each, two tents of two girls each, and five platforms. My tent (solo!), the instructor and I pitched my tent on the ground overlooking the tidal inlet.
Next came basic fire safety instruction, saw and axe safety instruction, how-to-shit-in-the-woods instruction, hand-washing instruction, and food preparation instruction. This was the first time I had an opportunity to show competence, as I can make a fire out of just about anything. We had a lot of tinder, kindling, and firewood available all around us, and I showed the kids how to gather it. Hirsch was officially responsible, so she held the matches, and reminded all and sundry that one does not strip birch bark off the living tree. We got a fire so warm, everyone had to back away from it by a couple feet. Dinner was black-bean burritos.
After that, everyone was pretty much exhausted. We got our how-to-brush-teeth-in-the-woods instruction, brushed our teeth, and went to bed exhausted around 8:30pm. I slept like a rock.
tamidon driving us to the school at 7:30am so we could ride a bus up to Wiscasset, Maine. I volunteered to chaperon because these middle-school trips usually get three female teachers and three female camp instructors and as many moms as can afford the time. As more than half of my daughter's middle-school (of 30 students) is male, I believed it important to have some men around.Fortunately, two other class fathers also felt this way, so the adults were properly gender-balanced for this trip.
The bus ride was almost uneventful, with only one incident involving the class trouble-maker, who was properly disciplined by the teachers who know much more about dealing with class trouble-makers than I do, so I shut up and observed.
We arrived at Camp Chewonki before noon, got our camp-issued back-packs, packed our stuff into them, and then split the 30 kids up into three groups of 10. None of us father-chaperons got our kid in the groups we were assigned to, which made sense to everybody but the three kids. (Aw.) Our group was handed a milk-crate full of lunch makings, and we made sandwiches of jelly and "sun nut butter" (ground sunflower seeds). This camp would be peanut-free.
During lunch, our wonderful instructor named Hirsch ("like 'Hershey bar' without the '-ey bar'") got our kids to come up with the name for the group: the Furry Cheese-Balls. She explained that we'd be hauling the cooking equipment and food for the week to our campsite in primitive devices called "wanagons", big heavy wooden boxes carried by four people with a long pole. Then we'd hike the half-mile back and then carry our packs to the site. Then we were introduced to our group's medical kit, containing all the kids' meds and the first aid stuff. Hirsch had the group propose and vote on a name for the kit, and the name they chose was "Charlie Sheen".
I took my place at the rear position on the pole of the heavier wanagon, but that's when I was told that policy was that the kids do all the burden-bearing. Okay. I brought up the rear in the other fashion, walking behind the whole group, making sure that all ten were always together, and assessed just what these kids were made of. Two ganglies (sudden height spurt over the summer), two rock-solids, three delicate flowers, one ring-leader, one natural-born lieutenant, and one rapidly-maturing.
The wanagons proved to be the heaviest task of the whole week.
After getting our packs, we pitched our tents; the teacher and instructor shared a tent, there were two tents of three boys each, two tents of two girls each, and five platforms. My tent (solo!), the instructor and I pitched my tent on the ground overlooking the tidal inlet.
Next came basic fire safety instruction, saw and axe safety instruction, how-to-shit-in-the-woods instruction, hand-washing instruction, and food preparation instruction. This was the first time I had an opportunity to show competence, as I can make a fire out of just about anything. We had a lot of tinder, kindling, and firewood available all around us, and I showed the kids how to gather it. Hirsch was officially responsible, so she held the matches, and reminded all and sundry that one does not strip birch bark off the living tree. We got a fire so warm, everyone had to back away from it by a couple feet. Dinner was black-bean burritos.
After that, everyone was pretty much exhausted. We got our how-to-brush-teeth-in-the-woods instruction, brushed our teeth, and went to bed exhausted around 8:30pm. I slept like a rock.
