For 15 years, each summer I would look forward to going to the annual MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) Summer Camp in Green Lake, WI. Camp provided the opportunity to meet with friends and peers who shared similar disabilities, and life stories. It was a great time where we could spend time together, campers and counselors, as friends and peers, without the barriers that disability often bring.
Some of the funnest times at camp came from the crazy pranks and antics we would pull. In fact, one year we ransomed half a dozen alarm clocks from one cabin, set them for different times at night, and hid or taped them to the underside of beds in another cabin. We then wrote a ransom to the cabin whose clocks had been taken as if they had been taken by what I shall call the “cabin of no sleep”. It was a genius and hilarious plan. The following morning, bleary eyed from disrupted sleep the members of the “cabin of no sleep” arrived at the dining hall for breakfast. As the morning announcements were read (ransoms which often featured silly songs or dances were often included at the end of announcements, after which the ransomed items were returned). As the ransom was read for the stolen alarm clocks, implicating the “cabin of no sleep”, confusion and arguing arose amongst the ransomed cabin and the sleepless cabin. The Program Director of the camp, who was a connoisseur and folk-legend of camp pranks, had been cued into the joke, as the members of New Zaug sat laughing to ourselves at the sheer brilliance of this prank.
Summer camp forged many a strong and lasting friendship, and lives on in my fondest memories.
P.S.
Two great friends pictured on the right have passed since the summer of 04
In memorium –
Wayne Borth
Josh Gensch
You, and the friends we have lost over the years, are sorely missed.
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