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Camp Question of the Week
By John | August 3, 2008
Summer Camp.
There’s nothing more frightening to an introverted 10 year old than hearing mother say, “Let’s go! Time to get in the van & go to summer camp!”
Thankfully, that wasn’t me. I loved to go to camp! My parents would ship me off to Camp LRCA for a week every summer & I don’t remember wanting to come home. It was a Christian camp, so we slept in cabins named after Bible people (the cool kids got to stay in Peter’s cabin, while the regular kids got to sleep in Samuel. You tried to avoid sleeping in Joab - those kids didn’t have a chance socially all week.) We did the obligatory Bible memory verse contests, campfire devotionals/confessionals, and excessive candy consumption at canteen time. But the one thing I’ll never forget was the unique game that stood in the rec barn. I’ve never seen it anywhere else probably because insurance companies have placed it on their 1,000,000x normal premium list.
The game was simple.
Table construction:
Picture an air hockey table. Then cut the table in 2 lengthwise. Construct it with cheap, near rotting wood, line the surface with AstroTurf, and put a trench just a bit lower than the surface at each end. Now, here’s the key: replace the air hockey puck with skull-cracking pool balls.
Game Play:
Contestants stand at each end of the table and roll their balls to the other end of the table, avoiding all obstacles along the way. Player with the most balls in the far trough wins.
Alternate game play:
1. Contestants begin game as above, but when the counselors leave to go get another snack from canteen or find their favorite opposite sex counselor, contetants pick up balls from table and chuck them at each other. First one to get sent to the camp nurse loses.
2. Contestants begin as above, but the obstacles encountered on the tabletop now include various bodily appendages supplied by willing or unwilling onlookers. The contestant to cause the most bodily harm wins.
I shared first, so in a spirit of campfire equality let’s go around and share our favorite summertime camp memories!
…Smore anyone?…
Topics: Question of the Week |
August 4th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
I never got to go to summer camp
But I did got to confirmation camp during the winter a couple of times with my youth group when I was growing up. That was good stuff. That is the snowtubing and broomball were great, though I must say that getting my underwear frozen was not a highlight.
I have been going to family camp with my wife’s family since we got together and this year I was part of the excitement of winning the first annual mud pit dodge ball contest. If you want to talk about insurance premiums going up, that event ought to hurt Lake Beauty considering the number of injuries I and others received (though thankfully all simple flesh wounds).