Last Sunday night, we had a group of junior high students from the church youth group here to camp out. The senior high students went to a site down the road about 3 miles, and the younger ones came here. I'm not sure if this was advertised as a camping adventure in the wild north country or what, but they came.As usual, the winds were whipping around when they got here, which made it quite an adventure -- junior high kids trying to put up tents. You know the expression, "trying to herd cats," well that really fit the first hour or so. They were having fun just checking everything out. Fortunately the adult chaperons recognized the situation and decided to help. I did suggest that it might be easier to set up the tents if they used the pine trees as wind blocks. As well as you know me, you know I would have had them lining up those tents in a straight line ("dress right, dress") and that campsite running at peak military efficiency. RRRRIIIIIGHT!!! Remember, these are junior high cats!!! They don't do Dress right, Dress.
Well, the tents were finally up, and it was time to swim. They had this part down pretty well and they really seemed to enjoy it. One of them asked in passing if there were fish in the pond and I said there were some. That same person then asked if they were big and I said some of them were very big. 
Since they didn't ask the last question -- "Do they eat people?"-- I didn't say anything about the last group that swam here. Besides, that's still under investigation (ha, ha). They were really having a good time. My neighbor was having a group of his high school friends over to their pool and they were having a pretty good time too in the nicer clear pool water with the diving board and the rock music being pounded in from the speakers of one of their cars. I suppose that's OK if you like that sort of thing. Give me a green pond, a dock and the possibility of being eaten by fish anytime. The kids then got into some fishing, although I didn't think they would be very lucky after just inflicting more commotion and unrest in the pond than had been done in years. But, they did catch some bass, bluegills and a few crappies. One of the bass was quite big, and one of the crappies was over 12 inches. They did a pretty good job of baiting their own hooks and taking the fish off without killing them. Of course, being junior high boys, they had to outfish the girls and show them who was the best at this.
When I was president of the Sidney Pilots Association, one of the rules for planning meetings and outings was "Bring food and they will come." These sponsors obviously subscribed to that as they had plenty to feed the kids. I did cook the hot dogs on the grill for them, but they had everything else under control. Two of the sponsors got everything all fixed up in the kitchen and everyone had plenty to eat.The boys tried their hand at fishing again before dark and gave it another go at swimming. Then it was time to put a fire in the fire ring and they sat around the fire, sang campfire songs and told some ghost stories. It was cooling off quite nicely, so I knew their sleep on the ground would be good. Pam, Bailey and I certainly had a good night's sleep in our bedroom, on our soft bed!! One of the boys wanted to know if they were allowed to get up early to fish again, and I told them early fishing started at 0530. They said they would be up. Sure enough, they were walking out of their tents at the crack of 0900. So much for the early fishing. Even the adults were up before the kids, sitting by the pond enjoying some quiet time. Now all the kids had time for was some juice and donuts before heading back to their houses and, probably, some more sack time.
All in all, I think everyone had a good time, even the chaperons who were probably not used to sleeping outdoors on the hard ground. Fortunately they didn't have to go to work the next day. I s'pect they've done this before. I know Pam and I and Bailey had fun sharing our place with them.I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. (e.e. cummings)
Hooah
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