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[Camp Comic] Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - Campfire Stories #1
Dog
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
[Camp Comic] Tuesday, August 11, 2015 - Campfire Stories #1
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Oh, and dispense some wedgie justice.
Then give him another hug, and like five ice creams.
(Also, hugs now *hugs!* ^.^)
I think Good Samaritan would have given him a new pair of trunks.
I hope that Peter kid--and the counselors--got beat up on the side of the road and the ones who did it come back and say they're sorry but no one helps them while they lay there broken and with torn pants.
Well... I don't REALLY hope that, but it'd be mighty fitting.
I think wedgies are something amarican. Never seen them performed here on people (Netherlands).
At our summer camp, campers were split up based on their rank and experience. Younger/less experienced/lower rank scouts went to classes to learn the basics, middle of the road scouts went to merit badge classes, and older/more experienced/higher rank scouts went on things like rope courses and white water rafting.
It being his first year, the autistic boy obviously went to the basic classes. It was here that he interacted with a true to life bully from another troop. Having been exposed to the picking and teasing that our troop did to each other, the boy thought that this new bully was trying to be friendly.
The leadership of our troop found out and talked to the bully. They told him that it was not welcome, and if he kept it up he would be expelled from the camp.
The next day the autistic boy came back late with bruises on his arm. Even though the bully had bragged about doing it, the camp counselors couldn't/wouldn't do anything about it without concrete evidence, Since no one had witnessed it, the bully was given a free pass. Later that day the bully bragged about getting away with it and went further to indicate there would be more the next day.
The next day the autistic kid came back with a bloody nose.
The bully wasn't being talked to by his own troop because apparently his dad had made a largish donation to the troop (heard from another scout in that troop). The camp gave more of the same rhetoric.
Now, I'm not a violent man. I usually do not condone violence in others. But that night 8 senior level scouts snuck out of their tents, and crossed the camp grounds. The next morning the bully showed up to classes with a broke nose and bruises. And he was soaked to the bone and dirty because he and all his wardrobe had been dragged down to the lake and tossed in. The camp made a stink about how that wasn't the Boy Scout way. They wanted the names of the 8 scouts that did this.
A scout is Loyal.
Eh, broken people do broken things.
Somebody did come along afterwards and let me borrow a pair of shorts, though.
Yeah, the irony wasn't lost on me, embarrassing though it was.
I remember it going though my head at the time, "This will make a great story someday." Didn't expect I'd get such great illustrations, though. Katie, you totally nailed it! :biggrin:
I think the most dramatic actual camping story was seeing helicopters fly over the campsite, followed a half hour later by rangers carrying someone on a stretcher and one of them remarking, "who wants to tell her family she was a stupid mom and died trying to climb up a 50 foot waterfall"? (paraphrasing)
It honestly took me back to my first girl scout camp experience. No violence at least, but I still felt picked on. Oh, and my bullies were the counselors. Let me explain...
I had never been away from home for longer than an overnight stay before and was very excited. It was a small camp (mess hall could seat maybe 30 kids) and the only new thing there was the single ply toilet paper, but it was an amazing place when seen through a child's eyes. I had been enjoying the arts and crafts a lot, but didn't notice that the councilor on the walking stick project was getting frustrated with me until she snapped at me for taking too long trying to make it perfectly symmetrical. I was use to it though because that's how a lot of adults treat Aspie kids (especially pre diagnosis). It probably didn't help that I had OCD too.
Fast forward two or three days later. I had been having lots of fun while my counselor was having decidedly less. Two other troops (3 to 6 girls each) had drawn super duty (one to cook and one to clean). It was drilled in our heads to clean our plates unless we were allergic to something because not doing it was an insult to the troop who had made it. Anyone who knows an Aspie knows we are very sensitive and particular about textures and it's worse when we're young. Well, for our last large meal of camp, they made sweet peas and a main dish with green bell pepper in it and I couldn't stand them. I sat there and picked out every single bell pepper piece before eating the meat and scoop of fruit. I was still hungry after all the walking so I asked for more food. That's when my counselor snapped. Saying I was sorry for asking for more didn't help matters. The two older counselors came over and chimed in. They were nice at first (pointing our how I was being very rude to the cooks) before I got the spoiled brat treatment from them too and sentenced to sit there until I cleaned my plate. I'm not sure how long I sat there, but it was long enough for the other troop to clean up after the meal and shower. They let me go after a lecture and telling me to apologize to the other troops. We ended up leaving early the next day, so I never got to apologize. I still won't eat sweet peas.
I guess that's why your story put such a smile on my face. I was always the weird girl that knew about too many random things, talked too much, and seemed a little oblivious. I didn't get friends who would stand up for me like you did until I was in my mid 20s. It makes me proud to know that there is somewhere out there where somebody like me doesn't have to spend most of their youth ostracised.
I was born with bad hearing, and was deaf without my hearing aids. And my hearing worsened as I got older. So by the time I was ten, I was fully deaf in one ear, and only had half hearing with the other with my aid in. So as you can see, this was a recipe for trouble.
At every activity we went to for the camp, we were given instructions. I'd often ask to have instructions repeated, for them to talk louder, to enunciate more, speak clearly, etc. and the counselors got tired of it very fast. Not to mention the other girls. But basically, I'd do something wrong because I wouldn't get 100% of the instructions, and then I would be banned from participating in the activity for the rest of the week.
It was pretty clear the counselors thought I was mentally disabled and wasn't worth the time to re-explain things to. But it wasn't that I didn't understand instructions, but that I couldn't hear them. God, that gets my blood boiling even now, but I digress.
It got to the point where I spent most of the week sitting on a bench watching everyone else have fun. The only thing of note I didn't get banned from by the end of the week was horseback riding, and I WOULD have if the thing that caused me to be banned hadn't happened on the very last day, so there was nothing they could do to me. It wasn't even about instructions-- I won two barrel racing ribbons, another girl won only one, and I returned to our tent to find her crying on her bed because of it.
I told her that she was lucky she got anything, because most people got nothing at all (over a hundred girls competing for fifteen ribbons, do the math) including our other tent-mates, who clearly weren't happy with her spoiled behavior. Well, she didn't like that, and ran to the counselor to claim I was rubbing my ribbons in her face.
I didn't get dessert that night as punishment for "bullying".
I bought post cards at the camp shop every day to write to my parents. I begged them to pick me up. I said I hated it here. I was miserable. As the week went by, I bought multiple post cards at a time so that I could send multiple letters a day, hoping the deluge of mail would get their attention. I wasn't allowed to call my parents, though I asked multiple times.
It wasn't until I got home that I found out they hadn't mailed the letters until I left. This was while I was sobbing to my parents and wondering why they hadn't come to rescue me, ten-year-old me felt incredibly abandoned by that. Well, they hadn't known, because the asshole counselors hadn't mailed it until the end!
I quit the girl scouts after that. I never went to another away-from-home camp, either.
I honestly always thought my experience was the exception to the rule. Looking back, the camp was pretty bare bones. I really only remember us doing arts and crafts and nature walks. There was a short seminar on selling cookies and the prizes you could get for them I think. No technology allowed (it was the mid 90s). I had fun considering.
A few months later our den mother quit because she couldn't afford it anymore (my parents knew her which is how I found out). While camp was paid for by parents (5 of us went), everything we did in our weekly meetings was paid for by her. There were around 8 of us (give or take 2), so the craft projects, regular projects, building rental, snacks, and entertainment really added up. We had one or two others who would basically stand their while she did all the work and wouldn't chip in for anything. After she quit, our troop slowly died off as we quit one by one. The new women never worked out or lasted long. Rather they were nice or perpetually angry, they never had any projects for us to do, fun things, or even a plan on what to do with us. It had become a group of girls sitting in a little undecorated building with a concrete floor talking until our parents picked us up.
Sometimes I wonder if anybody started doing it again. If they did, I hope it's less money gouging and pyramid cookie schemes and more learning and fun. My nephew's live in a larger city and have a blast in the boy scouts and girls deserve no less.
I did have fun as a preteen at church camp though. It was my only other organized camping experience and a few crappy things happened there too, but I had fun overall. The counselors were the nice ones this time around although they had a weird rule about short and dress length that doomed all the really tall girls. They allowed them because it was sweltering outside, but they couldn't be shorter than about 3 inches (it was 2.5, 3, or 3.5) above our knees. They would carry around measuring sticks and if you went over, you had to wear giant clown pants that day. My shorts were all a half inch to an inch too short and so was my sundress, so I was sentenced to clown pants a lot (like most of the tall girls). The irony kicks in when you realize that we went swimming all the time and they had no rules on swimsuits other than wear a swimsuit while swimming (although they preferred a one piece). We were also expected to change clothes in our cabin (single gender) which housed 30 to 40 people each. We could also change in the room with our cabin's shower and toilet stalls, but we weren't allowed to take up a stall just to change since there was so many of us. The shower stalls failed at hiding any details anyway. One of the men's cabins had no stall doors on the shower or toilets. Apparently straight up nudity was fine, but showing too much thigh while eating a sandwich would send you to hell. XD
The boys' shower at my camp was just all one big room. The bathroom was a trough and I don't think the stalls had doors. It definitely didn't have toilet paper holders because I remember the rolls were set on the side.
The girls on the other hand got stall doors and had shower curtains hung up for each shower head.
I went to a private school and in elementary school before they instituted uniforms, the teachers would do the same thing about shorts and dresses. Don't think I ever saw the point of policing an 8-year-old for wearing shorts half an inch too short for Jesus.
I almost forgot to mention. The pool was coed and there was a wide age range of kids there. The cabins didn't separate by age so there were kids from about 10 to early 20s all staying in the same cabin along with 1 to 3 pastors or their spouses in each. I was a 12 or 13 year old girl in a room full of naked women which was slightly awkward considering that I'm bi. XD
Oh yeah. They were really adamant 3 inches above the knee rule. I'm not sure who came up with exactly 3 inches rule, but I hope they copyrighted it because they are due for some major royalties from Christian schools and camps.
I know right? Why 3 inches? It's not even fair considering that they use the rule for everyone regardless of hight. I just thought it was funny that we could be naked in front of the same sex and half naked in swimsuits in front of everyone, but shorts were sinful. Then again, their rules were always a little weird.
On a side note, the camp experience was actually the first time I seen a mature woman naked. Before that, my only reference for the human body was myself. If you think that's weird, I was 23 when I seen my first naked man and he has been my SO for the last 7 years. He was also my first kiss. We still laugh about how innocent I was back then.
I think I was like that because of my crazy mother. She was far from a saint or mothering. When my parents were still together, I distinctly remember them having an argument because she believed I was too old to not have been with a man yet and wanted to higher someone to fix it while my dad was strongly against it because I was in the 5th grade. -_-
That was what my Girl Scout troop experience was like, a bunch of girls sitting around in a little concrete building with next to nothing to do.
Your church camp sounds about what could be expected from a church camp. Lots of inconsistency and odd priorities regarding body display.
For real.
I wouldn't worry about being a late bloomer. I didn't have my first kiss until my 20s and I'm still terrible at it.
Religious upbringings tend to bestow a lot of sexual hang ups. Being told you're going to hell has that effect.
Tell me about it. The woman was definitely a few pawns show of a chess set and did some things that would universally be considered evil (stealing money from the elderly, conning people, child abuse, cleaning my dad out before Christmas leaving him with nothing but $300, a beat up old jeap, a traumatized daughter, and a dog....), but a lot of the stories are actually pretty funny. They are just so random that the only TV shows you could do them on and get away with it would be over the top comedies. It took us a long time to laugh, but now we just bring up random stories. Dad never said a bad word about her until I was in my 20s though because he wanted me to make up my own mind on how I felt about her first.
It was actually pretty fun before the woman left. Afterward it was mind numbingly boring. I wonder why the boys have it better?
@Invisible
Lol! I'm sure you do just fine. I on the other hand only know how to properly kiss one person on the planet, so I'm pretty sure I would fail with anyone else
My first kiss was actually a goof. I was complaining to my then best friend about being 23 and not kissing anyone yet. Some girls out at the college had done the whole pity/mocking routine with me when they found out and I was pissed. He said let's fix that and planted one on me which morphed from silly to something else to shocked silence and confusion (on both parts) to fumbling apologies to PG13. A couple months later we had to stop in the middle of stuff when I finally seen his stuff because I needed a spontaneous anatomy lesson and had five billion questions. Typical Aspie XD
Lol! Actually, my upbringing was pretty much the opposite. My dad's parents were Christian (but in a good way), biomom was a party girl who had been with a lot of guys since she became active at 12 or 13, and my dad was a Vietnam vet and former hippy. My parents got married because the had went out a few months off and on, she wanted a baby and lied about taking birth control, and he didn't want me to be born a bastard child. There's a chance I'm not biologically his, but he doesn't care either way and says I'm too stubborn not to be. My talks often consisted of "don't make him wait to long or he'll get tired and leave you" (both), "condoms suck but they keep you from getting something Ajax won't wash off" (dad), "it's stupid to get married without test driving the equipment first" (biomom), and many more!
Church was something I did with my grandparents. It was a really nice group of people. I feel sorry for my Sunday School teachers though. From age 3 to 13 I argued with them on the parts that didn't make since to me (average Aspie behavior). I'm still a Christian, but now I think of it as more of a guideline than a concrete rule.
A random moment I remember is when a guest preacher once convinced me that any music that was not classic gospel (from Mozart to modern Christian to Snoop Dawg) was as bad as murder and would send me straight to hell. God help my teacher and her informative sing a longs after that. XD
There's so many things I look back on that I think that was really messed up, but I also find hilarious in retrospect.
My youth group went on a ski trip when I was around 13. It sucked. My skis didn't fit and I just ended up falling down a lot and getting covered in mud. I got separated from the group at one point and no one even noticed I was gone. I walked back to the hotel by myself. How I got there without dying or being abducted is still a mystery.
Then the youth pastor yelled at me the next day for getting left behind.
It was pretty bad. But I also find it hilarious, because I can picture myself covered in mud and desperately explaining to the clerk at the desk that I didn't have ID and didn't have my room key, but I really needed a new one. She was nice and gave me one.
Also, either this pastor didn't have any idea what it's like to be properly humiliated, or he's just a dick. Possibly both.
Religious camps seem to have the worst bullies in them