Time does not stand still at Skylemar. In fact, it runs a whole lot faster.
So much is packed into every hour at camp that a day equals a week, a week equals a month and a month equals a year. What was such a big deal three days ago has long been forgotten.
At this point in the season each cabin is in the groove. For the most part everyone knows and accepts each other’s idiosyncrasies. Sure, there are minor disagreements, but for the most part we’re a band of brothers.
We saw it on the tennis courts during the Camp Championships. In between match play, the courts were filled with those casually hitting. Leopold asked his partner Cooper E for help with his serve. Coop offered some tips and patiently coached his friend on toss and follow-through. As Leopold followed the instructions of his 12-year-old coach, those of us on the other side of the court were impressed with the improvement.
When the tournament began, it was surprising to see that the first match was actually Cooper vs Leopold. Even though Cooper was determined to win the match, he had taken the time to help his opponent become a better player. Now that’s brotherhood.
Tonight’s Talent Show II was a more relaxed vibe than the first. This time most of the acts fell into the silly category, which is as to be expected at this point of the season. That’s because everyone’s now totally comfortable performing in front of their Skylemar family, and they know that it’s fine to giggle and the audience laughs too. Theo burped, Ethan K and Eli W made duck noises, Jacob W screamed, Carter S whistled. Spencer S read a page of a book, and Bunk 26 read some kind of poem. Several others played sports, tossed hats, rapped, flipped, danced or dressed up like Spiderman. Sawyer did an excellent impression of Shep. Truly talented was Asher on the piano, and the Nolan-Hayes Duo. Nolan played “Riptide” on the ukulele while Hayes sang. Such a happy night, and the winners were especially pleased with their prize of a much-too-big staff shirt.
Love was in the air, as we said farewell to Senior Staffers Lexie and Mitch. They will be married in just a few weeks, so it was time to head back to Wisconsin for wedding prep. Their parting gift was a book of advice for the newlyweds, written by Skylemar campers. There were lots of traditional suggestions like “don’t go to bed angry”, but our favorite one was far more direct: “Please flush the toilet”.
Only at Skylemar. After all, he did say “please”.
