Posted by: Birch Rock Camp

Peace, Goddess, sing of the peace at Birch Rock, 

Beautiful and bright, it brought campers incalculable badges, 

Rejuvenated souls of our heroic staff before activities in the blistering sun, 

As the will of Chief was moving toward its end.

Speak, muse, tell the tale of this glorious day. 

That’s how epic today was, I felt the need to invoke the muse with a Homer-esque poem before writing about it! It felt epic from the beginning due to the fantastic, Mr. Blue Sky, smiling down on us for the first time in several days. Nothing like a few days of overcast cold to make one appreciate some warm sun. 

As per my role, I must be the first and last on the waterfront. I walked down from Cabin 8 (or as I have unofficially re-named Reisert’s Retreat and Restaurant) down to the dock. The lake was as flat as glass. The trees across the lake were a stripe of green between the light blue sky and the reflected blue on the water. The only noise was the sound of a bird that was taking off, flying just above the water right down the middle of the everything. I watched both the bird and it’s perfect reflection on the surface. This may have been the most peaceful, sublime moment of the day; it was the calm before the storm. 

First and second period flew by. The start of the new week means the start of new lessons. If your kids haven’t told you yet, the general plan for the week at instructional goes as such; Monday – Thursday are regular lessons and laps, then relay Friday (where the whole age group is divided into relays and their skills are tested against each other), before ending the week with funday Saturday. 

Lunch period today was rather spiced up compared to last week. We have been given the. Go-head to mix cohorts while at outside tables. Being able to sit with a new cast of characters than last week certainly brought some flavor to the day. 

The Wolves age group left for a trip in the morning, leaving my third period instructional empty, but it was filled by one Mr. Campbell H. He missed his regular morning period due to a prior engagement, and made up the missed laps then. Fourth period with Otters went as all fourth periods with the Otters do. 

The moments that really made the day “epic” came mostly after dinner. For evening activity, the Otters played baseball but with a tennis ball and a tennis racket. Meanwhile, the upper campers played speedball. The only game where the only thing that matters, and even matters more to the game than how many points one scores, is how loud one can shout “SPEEDBALL!” I personally didn’t play, not because I can’t, but because of my superior athletic skills. I’m not the Waterfront Director because I can’t play whatever those games that get played on the field are, but because I was banished for being too good. 

Normally, this is bedtime after evening activity, but due to the weather yesterday, the 4th of July festivities were moved to this evening. All of the camp lined up behind our very American trucks that had been decked out in all sorts of stars and stripes, before we paraded all around the Plate’s (our lovely neighbors) farm house. We sang all the camp songs, waved flags. It was not the usual 4th of July celebration, far from it, but it was ours; it was unique, special, and none of us here would’ve had it any other way. We held off bedtime still further into the evening so as to see the fireworks, shot into the night sky by our other awesome neighbors, the Whichards. The kids were set to bed at a wild 10 pm. What an absolutely epic day indeed. 

Written by John Reisert