Closing Campfire revisited…

07/24/2009

I get a lot of questions about the kind of magic that happens here at Frost Valley. I can’t quite explain what it is we do here that makes this place as amazing I think its the sum of all the small wonderful things that makes this place as great as it is. Here is a short description of one of those small things….

We are all seated under the tent across the dirt road from the boat house in our respective villages. The weather is threatening rain, but the feeling is that our very attitude can hold it off just long enough. Before we walk out to CIT Point we are asked to remain quiet and reflective. So Windsong gets dismissed first and they light torches all the way out to the Point. After that each village is walking across the sandy beach of the water front being lead by torches along the way. All of us in our villages walking silently out to a campfire. When I arrive there is already some directors and alumni sitting around the fire, singing old songs from campfires long ago. Everyone sitting in their villages and just soaking up the experience. For some of our campers this is it, its the last campfire they will have here as a camper. Each Village sends up their counselors to share a song or poem and when we finally get to the end all the Village Chiefs come up to the front and sing with the directors the song Four Strong Winds. When that ends the VC’s share some thoughts with their villages then hand out our Hird patches. Each patch has a number on it from 1 through 9 signifying the years each camper or counselor has been coming to summer camp, anything more than 9 is a patch with a star at the top. Each group of campers come up and gets their patch from their VC as well as a hug. With their fellow campers clapping for them. When that is finished I share some thoughts with them about their experience and we dismiss them past the torches, back across the sandy beach, past the boat house across the dirt road towards their respective villages to finish up the night in their own villages.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Morgan Theze

Born in New York but raised in Ireland, Morgan has spent every summer he can remember flying back to the US to attend summer camps. Over the years that Morgan worked at a well-regarded private camp in Maine, he took on many roles including Cabin Counselor, Head of Rocks and Ropes, Program Director, and Operations Director. Morgan began working at Frost Valley as a program instructor in 2014, leading activities for our schools and weekend programs, before becoming our Director of Camp Henry Hird. Campers at Camp Henry Hird range in age from 13 to 16. Morgan loves working with this age group as he finds that this is the time of their life where they form into unique individuals and discover the values that they will hold with them for the rest of their lives.