Hello! And welcome to Loved Like Lazarus! Today, I hope you enjoy some stories about my time working as a wilderness backpacking camp counselor. Queue stereotypical phrase, “this one time, at summer camp…”
In college, I worked at a summer camp for three summers. The camp has been around since the 70’s and has its own unique culture which makes it pretty magical. It’s set up for the campers to spend half of their summer doing more traditional camp activities (sports, crafts, swimming, archery, various silly games, etc), and the other half going on over-night backpacking trips in the Rocky Mountains. It was a perfect fit for me because growing up in Colorado, I have always loved the outdoors and my major in college was to become a math teacher. So, working with kids, while doing activities I love, made for some of my best memories.
Here I am in a skit we did during the pre-camp counselor training. Someone said my back hair pattern looked like a panda… so we went with it.
This camp’s schedule is fun for the campers because they have three choices in what activities they get to do in their morning and afternoon blocks. It is called a ‘free choice,’ and makes for ‘happy campers’ :D. The counselors get a lot of freedom in providing the choices. Which has led to the creation of some very unique activities and games… Like the greased up counselor chase (self explanatory). Lurking (dressing up in disguises and spying on other activities). Creek-sloshing (walking down the creek trying to catch fish and bugs). LARPing as Scottish Highlanders. Even tricking campers into helping maintain the camp like, thistle-wacking, break-the-dam(beaver), log rolling and bailing hay. Even in normal activities, the counselors try and add a twist just to make it unique. Want to spend the day at the lake with your bros? Have pool noodle fights on paddle boards while your boys cheer you on while they crush Le Croix waters on the bank. Want to play dress up? Dress up like the geriatric population and yell at other campers while stealing their stuff. Think you are too cool for camp? Spend the day slack-lining, hanging out in hammocks and finish it up with a drum circle.
For 2 of the summers I was one of the 4 age group coordinators. I oversaw the 14-15 year old campers and their 6 counselors. The best part about being a coordinator is you get to create a camp-wide ‘Special-Day.’ All the campers from all the age groups with all their counselors get together and have a full day of fun. The day is based on a central theme, usually something pop-culture the campers will be into. Some bangers in the past have been, The Marvel Universe, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Mario Kart, the Wild West, a Zombie Apocalypse, Pirates of the Caribbean, Space-Jam, Heavyweights, you get the picture.
Here are some pictures of me in the Jumaji film Special Day. I played the crazed British trophy hunter, Van Pelt.
The camp has a version of tag that has been a favorite for decades. It is famously called Zebratonakus. The rules are as follows:
A player is considered ‘tagged’ when the hand of the ‘tagger’ contacts the calf of the ‘taggee.’ (Shins don’t count)
Once a player is tagged. They sit down and have their eyes laser focused on the person who tagged them.
When that ‘tagger’ is eventually ‘tagged’, the original ‘taggee’ is back in the game.
The game is ended in a final showdown. When the last two players standing go head-to-head in a diving/lunging/twisting/wrestling match in the hopes to score a successful calf-tag. Everyone fanatically screams encouragement to the player who tagged them out while the final battle ensues. The victor is crowned King/Queen Zebratonakus.
So, with this beloved game and the Hunger Games Series being all the rage in popular culture, my Special Day of the ‘Zebratonakus Games’ was born.
The day started out with an opening address in the rafters of the camp lodge. Picture me dressed in the style of a citizen of the Capital. Se the below picture of Seneca Crane, the game designer. I tried my best to make the beard the same. I had a giant black and white staff in hand and a fake zebra head shoulder-mount strapped to my chest (the fake zebra head was already mounted on the wall in my college house. It was my roommate’s. You can’t make this stuff up LOL). I gave a monologue on how this day is a remembrance on how campers had risen up against their counselors of old, and that they must spend the day training for battle in order to make the odds, ‘ever in their favor’ of victory. I then split up the campers and counselors into their various ‘districts’ and they spent the morning rotating through stations. Scratching my memory, some of the stations were melee combat, missile combat, strength and conditioning, battle paint, costume craft and creating a song for their district.
For lunch there was an epic feast. Picture the lost boys in the beloved 90’s version of Peter Pan motion picture Hook. Each district came up and sang their song while all other tributes held their three fingers in the air. I gave another address encouraging the tributes to leave everything on the battlefield, to choose to form a strong alliance amongst close friends, or play the odds by themselves like a rogue in the shadows. I made it clear that only one boy and girl in each camp would be a member of the Zebratonakus royal family. Then they would be paraded back to the lodge to take a seat at the high table.
The arena was a plowed circle hay field outlined in orange construction spray paint. The cornucopia in the center was a full size front-loader with the blade lifted up in the air. Two counselors had a megaphone and were seated in the bucket high above the action. They announced live play-by-plays from camper match ups. The atmosphere was hilarious for the adults and life or death for the campers. Everyone had three lives represented by bandaids. When players were tagged, they had to run over to the nurses’ station to get them in order to join back in the action again. The only bloodshed was by one counselor who ran into the blade with his head…. He got some stitches. Eventually, all the Zebratonakus games victors were crowned. One of the best moments I heard from another counselor the next morning. His camper was one of the victors. Like a soldier after a major battle once the dust is settled and the adrenaline has worn off. He looked at his hands in disbelief and pride saying, “I did it. I won.”
I still have two more stories I want to share from my summer camp days. This post will be too long to fit them both in. I hope you stick around and read about them in my next post!
24 Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. 25 Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable one. 26 So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; 27 but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified. (1 Cor 9:24-27)
Like in Zebratonakus, death tagged Lazarus out. But he was back in the game when Jesus raised him from the dead. Let us all never give and run the race well, so that we may receive the imperishable crown of heaven.
Feel free to comment on the content or answer these questions:
Did you go to a summer camp? What kind was it and how was your experience? Any, “this one time at summer camp” stories?
Are you a fan of tag? What is your favorite style?
Like the camper in my story, have you ever experienced disbelief and pride after an accomplishment?