When D and I are 16, we are camp counselors for the YMCA up our street.
He is black, I am white and we'd been neighbors for two years, since my family had moved to Monroe Street. We are still friends.
J runs the camp. She is Much Older, meaning 19. Her younger sister B volunteers and runs the "baby room" with the 3-5 year olds.
In theory we have kids age 6-12 but there are some employees' kids who are 13. We also usually have a teen somewhere between 16 and 19 doing community service. We ignore them if they don't do anything. We are BUSY.
We have 20-30 kids or so. D and J have lifeguard status. I had gotten sick at the time of the test, so didn't finish. We have to take this crew swimming each day. We have them from 8 am to 5pm, I think. It is insane. Teens taking care of teens and babies.
At swim time I have the younger kids, the 6-8 year olds and anyone who can't swim. The pool is old style so most of my small kids can't touch. One kid is named River. He cries at even the thought of the pool. I feel that I am very successful when I get him to put his feet in the water sitting on the side of the pool. I do not care when his mom wants to know why he is not making progress swimming. We have to be brutally practical as well as bossy to manage that many kids without anyone drowning. Discipline is swift and impartial. We all back each other up all the time.
Our main room is an auditorium with gymnastics equipment stored along one wall. The kids are not supposed to climb on the mat draped over the horse. They climb on it all the time. I'd done some gymnastics and seen and heard two girls break their arms on the mini tramp. D gets the mini tramp out. I say I will have nothing to do with it. He shrugs and persists. He later has a second career as a gymnastics coach and makes book. Figures. At any rate, I don't veto it, I just refuse to be involved with it. No worries.
So, the 19 year old, the 17 year old and two 16 year olds take the 20-30 kids camping over night once every two week session. We drive in a school bus out to a Virginia park. Before the kids are let off the bus, we say, "Stay on the paths. If you go in the woods you will get poison ivy which will make you blister and itch like crazy. Do not go off the paths."
Yeah, well. The oppositional defiant ones promptly run into the woods. Not very far into the woods, though, these are city kids who are worrying about lions and tigers and bears, oh my. We never worry about one getting lost, though I don't remember being conscious of why. We help them set up tents, send them on a snipe hunt, feed them chili, have a fire, sing stupid camp songs and send them to bed. In theory we don't have any 3-5 year olds for overnight but actually we always have a couple because it is an employee's older child's younger sibling and the parents beg. Yeah, ok. The counselors sleep in a row, with a 3-5 year old tucked in between each of us. The 3-5 year olds are particularly scared of lions and tigers and bears oh my after their older sibling tortures them on the way to the park. We each have a 3-5 year old staying within touch distance or hanging on to our shirt or leg, all the time.
One oppositional defiant employee's kid runs into the woods and pretty much stays there and mocks us. "Nyahh, nyahh, I'm in the woods." Yeah, we ignore him. His mother comes after us the next Monday. "He's head to toe poison ivy! Why didn't you keep him out of the woods?" I think the 19 year old is diplomatic. I would have said, "Short of handcuffing him to the bus, there was no way to keep him out of the woods." I have a terrible reaction to poison ivy, but I have very little sympathy for that kid. Listen to your elders, brat.
We sing little bunny foo foo. In our version it is the Good Fairy. And the pun at the end: The moral of the story is Hare Today, Goon Tomorrow....
And now I veer into dreamland.
The goon looks at the Good Fairy.
"What the hell business is it of yours if I am picking up the field mice and whacking them on the heads?"
The Good Fairy stares back at him.
"You are right! I'm sorry! What the hell business is it of mine if you are picking up the field mice and whacking them on the heads." Three iron bands around her heart burst open all at once and she falls into the arms of the goon.
Her hair bursts into bloom. She and the goon live happily ever after. She keeps him so busy that the field mice are happy too, and anyhow, it was love taps all the time. Now sometimes the field mice have to beg the goon to pat them.
Hair today, gone tomorrow.