This last Sunday, the 14th, I began my third year working at Camp Munhacke Cub Scout Resident Camp in Gregory, MI.
This first week is "director's week", which means all the directors come to camp early, before the general staff, and work their asses off. We were setting up tents, setting up the dock at the waterfront, even setting up some battleships (more on that later). I have never set up tents so fast in my life. I spent all of Wednesday tottering around like an old man, burnt to a crisp from the shoulders down, and covered in massive horsefly welts. I have to go back this evening. Should be fun.
I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed the work, all except putting in the dock. You have to understand this monstrosity before you can appreciate how difficult it is to set up. Firstly, the thing is about twenty years old. The metal frames are rusting apart, full of convenient jagged corners and finger-biting hinges, the kind of tetanus nightmare that makes you wish you had boxes of booster shots on hand. Now add to this the fact that you have to set them up in murky water up to your shoulders. Toes, anyone? No thanks, I don't use them anymore - they had to be amputated after two or three dock frames were dropped on them. No biggie. At any rate, there we were, cursing and growling as we tried to jerk the warped, twisted frames into position and sink the feet down into the murky clay on the bottom of Bruin Lake. The worst possible piece of this whole iron maiden assemblage was the infamous NUMBER ELEVEN. NUMBER ELEVEN (painted in sickly yellow on one side) is the point at which the dock turns. Now, this could have been done the logical way: simply having it snap onto the side of Number Ten to form the L-turn, thus necessitating only two metal legs, like so:
Fig. 1-1: The Way It Should Be.
Instead, some ergonomic genius decided to have it clamp to the end of Number Ten. This means it has three metal legs, plus two metal overhangs that clip to the end of Number Ten on the side, thus:
Fig. 1-2: The Way It Is.
This first week is "director's week", which means all the directors come to camp early, before the general staff, and work their asses off. We were setting up tents, setting up the dock at the waterfront, even setting up some battleships (more on that later). I have never set up tents so fast in my life. I spent all of Wednesday tottering around like an old man, burnt to a crisp from the shoulders down, and covered in massive horsefly welts. I have to go back this evening. Should be fun.
I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed the work, all except putting in the dock. You have to understand this monstrosity before you can appreciate how difficult it is to set up. Firstly, the thing is about twenty years old. The metal frames are rusting apart, full of convenient jagged corners and finger-biting hinges, the kind of tetanus nightmare that makes you wish you had boxes of booster shots on hand. Now add to this the fact that you have to set them up in murky water up to your shoulders. Toes, anyone? No thanks, I don't use them anymore - they had to be amputated after two or three dock frames were dropped on them. No biggie. At any rate, there we were, cursing and growling as we tried to jerk the warped, twisted frames into position and sink the feet down into the murky clay on the bottom of Bruin Lake. The worst possible piece of this whole iron maiden assemblage was the infamous NUMBER ELEVEN. NUMBER ELEVEN (painted in sickly yellow on one side) is the point at which the dock turns. Now, this could have been done the logical way: simply having it snap onto the side of Number Ten to form the L-turn, thus necessitating only two metal legs, like so:
Fig. 1-1: The Way It Should Be.
Fig. 1-2: The Way It Is.So imagine trying to horse this thing into place: three five-foot long legs, two clamps, and you have to try to jam this thing into the bottom of the lake whilst keeping perfect alignment, all as you are scraping your feet to hell on rocks and metal and getting sunburned like pork on the grill. Oh, and did I mention it will be uneven when you're done? You have to level it.
When I get my first $50,000, by God, I am buying that camp a nice plastic floating dock...
That was the worst of it. The second worst (by a long shot) was setting up the Battleships.
Now, here's the background: our camp has a different "Theme" every year. My first year it was Wild West; last year it was Time Travel. This year, it's Naval Base. In keeping with the theme for the year, our esteemed Camp Director, one Daryl Barton, comes up with new and exciting games for the scouts to play. This year she came up with a game wherein the scouts attempted to "sink" a set of "battleships" by batting or golfing various projectiles into goals on the opposite battleship. The battleships are composed of three palettes, two on the ground with one stacked on top to form the poop deck, and outfitted with a climbing platform from which the scouts will "fire" upon the opposing battleship. Doesn't sound too difficult, right?
Problem is, the palettes she had in mind were not your nice, small cargo palettes you can lift with a hi-lo. No indeed. These were wall-tent platforms. Imagine this: twelve feet by sixteen feet. Solid white oak. Twelve years old. These things must have weighed three hundred pounds. I just remember the look on our Quartermaster, Bret's, face when he saw the size of these things. Our Ranger had said it took "eight to ten people" to maneuver these beasts; we'd brought seven. It was like trying to load an aircraft carrier into the bed of the Dodge pickup we were using. And then repeat the operation four times.
Hey, at least it wasn't a dock, right?
Setting up tents wasn't as fun as the battleships, but neither was it as labor-intensive - just a lot of extra straps and stakes to set up and tie down. Myself and Jeff Thompson, our Assistant Waterfront Director, had the tent-setup down to a system, to such an extent that we were doing a tent every three minutes (okay, more like seven minutes). We had a little friendly competition going on with our Quartermaster. He cheated, of course. And, of course, we still set up more tents than he did. Ha. At any rate, we were supposed to leave around noon of Tuesday, but when the tents came by FedEx, it looked like we might be spending the night. Luckily we had the drive to get all those tents up before nightfall - and before it started raining.
So tonight I get to go back and meet all the newly-arrived, general-staff flunkies (did I say that?). Some of them were here last year, some were here two years ago, and most are completely new (Aren't recessions great? We have 'em lined up around the corner waiting to get in). We'll see how it goes. We have some exciting new changes this year, especially at the old BB Gun Range, where Yours Truly is supreme Lord and Rangemaster. Yep, I'm the BB Gun Range Director. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. If you have a pipe, anyway.
Rick Out.
When I get my first $50,000, by God, I am buying that camp a nice plastic floating dock...
That was the worst of it. The second worst (by a long shot) was setting up the Battleships.
Now, here's the background: our camp has a different "Theme" every year. My first year it was Wild West; last year it was Time Travel. This year, it's Naval Base. In keeping with the theme for the year, our esteemed Camp Director, one Daryl Barton, comes up with new and exciting games for the scouts to play. This year she came up with a game wherein the scouts attempted to "sink" a set of "battleships" by batting or golfing various projectiles into goals on the opposite battleship. The battleships are composed of three palettes, two on the ground with one stacked on top to form the poop deck, and outfitted with a climbing platform from which the scouts will "fire" upon the opposing battleship. Doesn't sound too difficult, right?
Problem is, the palettes she had in mind were not your nice, small cargo palettes you can lift with a hi-lo. No indeed. These were wall-tent platforms. Imagine this: twelve feet by sixteen feet. Solid white oak. Twelve years old. These things must have weighed three hundred pounds. I just remember the look on our Quartermaster, Bret's, face when he saw the size of these things. Our Ranger had said it took "eight to ten people" to maneuver these beasts; we'd brought seven. It was like trying to load an aircraft carrier into the bed of the Dodge pickup we were using. And then repeat the operation four times.
Hey, at least it wasn't a dock, right?
Setting up tents wasn't as fun as the battleships, but neither was it as labor-intensive - just a lot of extra straps and stakes to set up and tie down. Myself and Jeff Thompson, our Assistant Waterfront Director, had the tent-setup down to a system, to such an extent that we were doing a tent every three minutes (okay, more like seven minutes). We had a little friendly competition going on with our Quartermaster. He cheated, of course. And, of course, we still set up more tents than he did. Ha. At any rate, we were supposed to leave around noon of Tuesday, but when the tents came by FedEx, it looked like we might be spending the night. Luckily we had the drive to get all those tents up before nightfall - and before it started raining.
So tonight I get to go back and meet all the newly-arrived, general-staff flunkies (did I say that?). Some of them were here last year, some were here two years ago, and most are completely new (Aren't recessions great? We have 'em lined up around the corner waiting to get in). We'll see how it goes. We have some exciting new changes this year, especially at the old BB Gun Range, where Yours Truly is supreme Lord and Rangemaster. Yep, I'm the BB Gun Range Director. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. If you have a pipe, anyway.
Rick Out.
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