A wonderful and much needed day of rest! Counselors in particular have been here since May 23 (and many longer than that) without a day off, and very little time to themselves during days and nights! The wake-up bugle sounded at 8:30 a.m. with our traditional pajama buffet breakfast following. Dave said the girls really tucked in, recounting to me the vast quantities of everything he set out: bacon, French toast (made with the leftover homemade Hawaiian bread, yum), grits, oatmeal, vegetarian omelettes, and more.
Worship was held at Cypress Hollow, with Melissa Osmun Kearney of Sanger as our guest speaker. Melissa’s three daughters have been/are campers/counselors, and she herself was also, along with her sister, niece, and great-aunts, so there are lots of deep family roots here at The Heart! Melissa’s topic was “Who Are You?” and the answer was, “a child of God”. One point she made is that in the creation story, woman was God’s last creation, the “finishing touch”, and how wonderful that is for us.
At worship, the Volunteer Voices sang, mostly younger campers, and a small group. We had minimal practice, but we were fortified and enhanced today by the guitar and voice of Frananne Willis, last summer’s assistant program director, who stayed all day to help with singing.
We sang the old Hank Williams tune, “I Saw the Light” and led the whole camp in “Standing in the Need of Prayer”, among others. After lunch, we broke out the guitars again and had a long sing-along of camp favorites. Audrey H and Frananne played along then, too.
Extended siesta occurs on Sundays, and they are nice, too.
Afterward was a filled afternoon. Campers collected their credits, turned in their H&H charts (Health and Happiness). The H&H is a checklist of sound personal habits that the campers can accomplish each day to earn points for their tribe. Each division’s list varies somewhat, but includes things like washing hands before each meal, getting to places on time, eliminating litter on camp, and pitching in with cleaning up the tepee. Once a week, campers can get additional credit for writing a letter home, washing out their swimsuit, and so forth.
For the first time in many years, we had a Bonus Day. It actually was not the entire day, but a two-hour block this afternoon, when counselors were stationed at various activities, and the campers could come by to demonstrate their prowess in something and earn bonus points for their tribe.
Right after flag lowering, the girls gathered by division and offered up raucous pizza cheers to see which division would go first to supper at the Grand Patio—pizza, salad, and watermelon slices.
Juniors then were invited to Mesa Manner for their ice cream party, which was lots of fun.
As it was getting dark, we had counselor vespers at Cypress Hollow, with the theme, “You’ll Never Beat This Summer at The Heart!” The singing was robust, the lyrics were all about camp, and the costumes imaginative.
The sun was shining all day and I can honestly say the “fog has lifted”!