Hi, my name's Fletch and I'm on Nightwatch...

Nothing denotes Kawabi symbolism more than Nightwatch. A pain in the ass when you're a camper, and a bigger pain in the ass when you're on staff. I always felt there was a little bit Shawshank Redemption with the camper/nightwatch relationship, since as a camper your view of nightwatch was someone who kept you in permanent lock down (in your tent), enforced a strict lights out rule, and was your only conduit to the outside world (via letters from home). And then there was the threat of isolation if you made a peep after lights out, by hanging out on the rock.

Thanks to being a camper with Will (Crockett), I was a regular visitor to 'the rock'. The boy had three different 'bits' he would use to crack me up. One was to imitate the trailer voice and sounds from Psycho 2 (even funnier when he used a flashlight to show his krazy facial movements), the second was to sing the Ewok song from the end of Return of the Jedi (which would crescendo with a "yop-yo", with such enthusiasm that I would always lose it), and the third was in the still silence of the tent he would let out a tiny high pitched fart, and then exclaim, "oooo, a little freep!" These may not sound funny, but the stupid voices he used, would cut me up. Of course, the bugger would synchronize these 'bits' just in time for when nightwatch was coming by our tent, equipped with that other signature of Kawabi-dom, the kerosene lantern (which nobody else in the Western World has used in years, except those with extremely rustic cottages). Of course the fun for Will was that he knew any combination of these bits would set me off like clockwork, and would bring down the wrath of nightwatch. And everytime it ended with an angry staff voice coming from outside the tent, "Furneaux...out...NOW!!". Now Will and I were campers together for six years, and once or twice every week for at least four of them, he would pull this stunt. By our last year together in anticipation, I began to wear thick long-legged pajama bottoms, sweatshirts and thick socks to bed, despite the temperature discomfort. 'The rock' was nothing to me by my last year as a camper, a la Alec Guinness in the Bridge on the River Kwai.

And then there's the flip-side of it. As you all know, one has very little 'down time' on staff. You're going from 8 in the morning to 10 at night with a one hour break in the middle of the day. Sure you're at camp, and its mostly fun, but man, that's still one long-assed day. And with nightwatch, your day was even longer and without any break in the middle. Hell, you'd even miss lunch because you were spraying gasoline everywhere and picking up orders for smokes at the landing. And it was always worse at the beginning of a session when some group of hormone addled senior boys would try the 'dress up and dash' to the girls section, because they're too stupid to realize that they're not the first to try this pointless exercise, and that they're too awkward and obvious not to get caught (never saw a group of studs make it past the windsurfing bench). And don't get me started on lifters...other than to add that nowadays, I would be pretty paranoid that while lifting a kid, one of his tentmates woke up, and then wrote home about how one night Fletch took his buddy out of the tent and off into the woods. Yeah, that will look good to an over-reacting parent.

Because I knew it sucked, I somehow managed only to be stuck with nightwatch four times during three years on staff. Some may call me a slacker, but I call myself lucky.

Now lights out, no talking, and if you need anything, I'll be passing by and holding my lantern up to the side of the tent.

Still haunts me...

You remember that short story that Harris used to read in the lodge at the end of evening activity. The Rod Serling-esque one about a war on another planet that ended something like "horrified by the creature's strange scream, patches of fur on its head, pink skin instead of scales, and it having only two arms", or something like that, which revealed the twist ending that the enemy creature was human. Made me think a lot over the years about context and perspective. I even think it helped me out when dealing with Critical Theory during my undergrad. Whatever, I loved that story with the krazy sci-fi motif with the morality tale embedded in it. And late at night, it still gives me the chills.

Regarding Outsuppers and Overnights

A couple of weeks ago I was kicking it with Kevin(Xante), during which we were discussing this very Blog. Kev asked what kind of material would be in it, and I said anything related to Kawabi. As we polished off our second bottle of red wine on his back deck, we started delving into potential 'lists' or rankings of various Kawabi items. One of the first to come up was favourite Outsupper and Overnight spot. Kev made the valid point that these might have been different from camper to staff, but for me and the benefit of hindsight, it didn't matter.

So what were my responses you ask?

1. Overnight: Clear Lake. For nostalgic reasons, my first impulse was to blurt out Sherbourne (sight of my first and most numerous overnights), but upon refection Clear was the one. I liked Clear because is was so peaceful and calm. There never seemed to be anybody else around. The grounds were good for camping and swimming. But most of all I loved the way that the site had an incline that led to a cliff that provided a beautiful view of the lake, as well as facing west that allowed one to view incredible sunsets framed by a very Canadian panorama.

2. Outsupper: Had a really hard time with this one. As a rule Outsupper spots tended to be less memorable in my mind. That said I was partial to both Stan Hope and Brown's Caves, but in the end, I think I enjoyed Picnic 2 most of all (yes, I can hear the chorus of "Ewwww!" going on upon reading that). I liked it because of the ease of getting to it, functionality of it (usable BBQ stands/pits, and tables), the rapids for reckless water fun, and a good size clearing for football games. Plus it had a shelter in case of rain. Sure it was fairly drab and located beside the road, but I thought it had character, and was more park than wilderness, which I thought was more apt for an outsupper.

Other nominees?

I sank sailboats

Here's a little entry to start things off.

Its no surprise to anyone who went to camp with me that I was not a 'waterfront' type of person. I was much happier spending my days at camp doing activities on dry ground, where the risk of drowning was considerably lessened...plus I tended to enjoy the activities set out amongst the forest and lodge more than those on the waters edge. Nonetheless, waterfront activities had the shiny glossy reputation, no doubt given that you were out under the sun getting a tan for that still well proportioned teenage bod. But I always thought there was certain hierarchical element to it all. The pretty and popular, and yes physically fit people did the water front activities. And no one can deny that he --and note that it was almost always a he-- that drove the ski boat was the camp number two, the chief lieutenant, the most trusted of Skip's lackeys. Those who did waterfront activities were members of the master race.

And then there were the sub-strata of us who were relegated to the deep recesses of the forest, bidding our time in the fern and root encrusted darkness until our next day off. We were damaged goods and bare competents, who despite being trusted with all of Kawabi's marshal and weapon related activities, could only relied upon to make sure some kid didn't flip off the tramp into the B2 tent head-first, or that there wouldn't be some freak gimp accident in the craft shop. We were the proletariat of Camp Kawabi.

All that is utter crap of course. There was an egalitarian mix of activities and staff, but in my hormone addled teenage mind, I saw the world in this distorted Darwinian way. Poor Nick. So to break out of my strata, I decided in August of my second year on staff to procure myself a spot in a waterfront activity. I chose sailing for a couple of reasons. First, I had done it several times as a camper, enjoyed it, and was almost competent at it. Second was that I didn't have the slightest clue about any of the other activities, having never really done any of them as a camper, except swimming, which I hated intensely and would have done extremely poorly in that position. So process of elimination = sailing.

At first I did ok. I remembered enough of it from being a camper that I was able to get the boat out to the middle of Big Hawk; this despite my complete ignorance of the various rope knots that one was supposed to know as a sailor (did admire the 'knot board' by the sailing bench many times though). However, one day the wind was really kicking and my boat capsized. This sucked, but I noticed that a couple of others had capsized as well. While we were sitting there waiting for the windsurfing barge to come and rescue us, I noticed that the hull of our boat was starting to submerge under water. I thought this was a little weird, and looked about to see if anybody else's was doing the same. Hell no, just mine. My first concern was to make sure my campers were ok and then to back them out of the way of the boat so as not to be sucked under with it, along with making sure they were cool with treading water for the next little while. After that was done, I turned around and witnessed an image I can still vividly recall, that red hulled sail boat fading away from sight as it sank to the bottom of the lake. I remember people saying afterwards that it was really unusual for that to happen due to the buoyancies within the boat that should have kept it at the surface. Strike one sailboat from the docks.

The next time happened in much the same way, except that I couldn't blame the wind; I simply screwed up a tack and turtled. However, I was now an expert at capsizing boats so I knew what to do, and did it in a calm matter of fact kind of way. And besides, this time around I thought the boat wouldn't sink so we could just hang on to the hull for a while. No such luck. This time I watched a yellow hulled boat disappear from my sight into the murky darkness below. I was completely baffled how this could happen, again?

There was a third time. It had happened in exactly the same manner as the previous one. Again I watched a sailboat disappear under water. As it sank, I think I turned to the kid next to me and exclaimed in a terror-tinged voice, "what the fuck is going on here!?" This time no one spoke of faulty boats or freak accidents. It was simple, I was cursed, a veritable one man Bermuda Triangle. After that incident I was freaked out and did not want to enter another sailboat again, least next time I sink more than just a boat. Realizing that I had cost the camp three sailboats in three weeks, I think I went to Skip and asked to switch activities, while at the very same time he said he wanted to take me off of sailing, i.e., the feeling was mutual. So back to third period tramp I went, not wholly unhappy; sure it was mind-numbingly boring, but at least you can't sink a trampoline, no matter how hard you try.

Fletch