Go RED Team!!!

(The Red Team and our Battle Wagon, the Moose!!! 2006)

As we approach yet another fantastic celebration of our great nation's independence, one can't help to think about all the ways we've spent the holiday over the years. While I don't have tons of concrete memories about the 4th of July celebration in Hillsboro, Ohio (other than the Festival of the Bells and watching the fireworks as they scattered over the football field), my celebrations and traditions from the five summers I spent at Camp Tapawingo in Sweden, Maine during and after college, are pretty much cemented in my brain.

Working at Camp Tapawingo, the 4th of July was always so much fun. Normally the night before we'd load all the kids into the big vans and haul them into town (Bridgeton) for the annual firework display. It wasn't so much that the fireworks lasted all evening, but the traffic coming home took forever (even in rural Maine) so it'd be about midnight by the time the kids were all settled down for the night.

(Lockwood and I sport our 4 on the Fourth shirts, 2004)

The next morning a few van loads of us counselors and kids would drive back into town for the 4 on the 4th road race. One of my favorite years doing this, I did a dualathlon by riding my bike 15 miles into town and then running the race.

(JD and I biked it into town on the 4th to go for a run, 2004)

By the time we got back to camp and cleaned up, it was a day full of games and other activities... but the highlight was always the counselor vs. senior camper water fight. We'd spend all afternoon plotting our tactics and pranks (like finding where the seniors hid all of their water balloons and then locking that room shut), and then going down to the arts and crafts room to add our war paint.

(red team war paint, 2006)

The seniors in the meantime, would all get their swimsuits on.

(Seniors of 2001, probably some of the best kids ever. PP4L!)

We'd reach raid the landsports shack and grab lacrosse sticks as we discovered (I actually discovered this) that they make great water ballon launchers. As well, if you are good enough, when water balloons are thrown at you, you can catch em, cradle them, and launch them right back at the thrower.

(yes, I will take credit for adding lacrosse sticks to Tapawingo water fight accessories ever since 1998. photo 2006)

When it came time for the water fight to begin, all the other campers would grab their crazy creeks and sit out by the softball fields, waiting for the procession of counselors to storm up the hill towards the Sr. Cabin. (In later years though, this was changed due to some items in the bunk getting soaked and unfortunate foot to crotch combat with male staff members.) Once the water fight started, things just got crazy. I loved it! It was totally a "no holds barred" kinda thing.

(Ellery takes a seat. 2006)

Of course when the counselors got wet, our red paint bled... so once the Camp Director Jane called the water fight off, I'd always make a mad dash (with a lifeguard counselor friend) to the water front where we'd run down the dock and then cannonball straight into the lake. It was the best way to rinse off.

(Marielle cools off. 2006)

After I finally got cleaned up, the afternoon would be pretty relaxing. A 4th of July cookout was normally on the schedule, but and hopefully -pending on my jobs at camp- that evening I'd be able to make it out of camp to go eat some lobster, drink some beer and swap stories about the great water fight and how we totally dominated once again this year.

Even though I've had several amazing 4th of July's since my days at Camp Tapawingo, I'll probably never have as much fun in one small dose as I did in those water fights. It's not everyday that you can round up 20 kids and 30 adults, give them water, give them balloons and say "go for it". Overall, I have Camp to thank for a lot of great memories. Thanks Camp Tapawingo, and yeah, Go Red Team!

(they just called me levo)

a day dream

I originally wrote this on a particularly dreary January day here in Portland. In my mind there were many other places I wanted to be at that time, and one of those was my summer camp in Maine. And now, here at the beginning of May, as schools are wrapping up, the sun is shining and people are making their summertime plans, I'm aware that for so many it warrants a return to Camp Tapawingo. While I am happy that my current summertime plans involve mountains, bike rides, beer, camping and graphic design here in Portland, Oregon... I'm always going to get a little nostalgic for my days there and the great people whose lives interacted among those tall pine trees. Anyways, here is that post. (I'm catching up on reposts from my old myspace blog).

  

It's funny because recently my mind has been inidated with thoughts of my favorite place in the whole wide world, Camp Tapawingo, located in the tiny hamlet of Sweden Maine, the tranquil place where I spent five summers of my young adult life. Be it a random thought of my favorite Maine beer (Alagash), looking up at the deep dark Maine sky, a song we always used to sing, jokes we made, an awesome day off spent hiking or canoeing, the best place to grab breakfast, a favorite camper, or trouble we should have gotten into but didn't.... my mind has been thinking back to those days and those people that have been so influential to me and the person i am today. 

For example, this morning during my spin class, my mind wondered off midway through the torturous 11min hill climb and settled into a peaceful day dream of climbing the hills and rolling roads near my summer camp on my bike. It took me back to so many mornings at camp that were spent doing exactly that. Almost every morning, I'd be up and out of bed by 6am. With the morning sun creeping through the window, I'd throw my clothes on and step out into the crisp and fresh Maine morning air before any of the campers or fellow staffers awoke.

Twice a week I'd make my way down the big hill and descend the steps that reached down to the lake. There, with the morning fog burning off the surface, I'd lay my towel on the deck, slip my goggles around my head and ever so quietly, dip into the still water. I'd push off the splintery wood and make my way across, breaking the surface with every breast stroke till I reached the rock on the other side. Once there, I'd sit for a minute and look back across the waters I'd passed through, up to the tall pine trees and then to the Main Lodge, perched ever so perfectly on the hill bathed in morning light. 

On the other mornings, I'd lace up my tennis shoes and walk over to the Den to sign myself out of camp. I'd walk to the edge of the camp border, just underneath the Camp Tapawingo sign, and from there I would run down the bumpy camp road, past the cemetery, all the way till it reached St. Route 93. Once here, I'd turn left and make my way down the massive road only to run back up the other side where it turned into Bridgeton Road, then turn around and do the whole thing over again. That hill is the hill of my dreams, I've never faced a hill so formable and impressive, that just to look at it, to drive up it, to hear your car engine kick in overdrive... would make your heart pound. It wasn't so much the steepness, but it was that once you reached the crest of the hill... you were that much closer to camp. That much closer to home, to your family away from your family, to people that understood you, and people you loved.

Then, every once and a while when I had more time to kill, I'd get out my bike and take it as far as I could in as short of an amount of time as I could. I'd ride it up and down the curvy hills, through swarms of black flies, through the pine trees and past the apple orchards and small farm houses that reached all the way to the next town. When there, once again, I'd turn around ... and then come back to camp. I always wanted to take that bike and ride it just a little bit farther each time, but duty would always call and I'd have to get back to either get to breakfast or to teach my next class. I never got enough time...

So, this morning, when pounding away on the stationary bike, thinking of challenging hills, I thought about that hill. I thought about how scared I was the first time my car reared up over it, I thought about all the people I didn't know who resided there in this place I'd never been. I thought about how just after one day, i felt at ease and at home, and I thought about how even though the faces and the stories always changed at camp, the challenges and the friendships were as ever present as that hill. And lastly, I thought about that sunshine and how it peered through the pines. How there was always one pinnacle moment in the summer, when you noticed the light had changed and at that moment, you accepted that fall and it's changes were on the way. 

I long to go back to my summer home. Though I won't be able to work at camp for a very long time to come, I toy often with the idea of visiting again. In the summers between the summers I worked there 1999-2006, I'd often fly up for a long weekend, meet with other formers counselor friends of mine, and return to camp once again to visit my friends and my family at this beloved home, far off in the Maine woods. Now, I live so very far away so trips are few and far between. This next time i visit though, I'm going to find a way to rent a nice road bike. And instead of driving up that big hill for a reunion of my favorite place... I'm going to ride my bike. I'll start from a long distance off and I'll ride and ride. (I did 70ish straight miles two weekends ago without any problems, so I figure a 100 plus ride, for starters, would be adequate, no?). Anyways, once I ride up that big hill and I turn down the bumpy road that takes me back underneath the large Camp Tapawingo sign, I won't have to worry about turning around to make it to someplace else, I will be at my destination. I will be home.