CAMP: Part III, 2010

   SGYC 2009 was incredible, and the AI concert was really cool, too. But we still weren't done with the rebuilding, there was a lot of trials and struggles (and stress) left to go.

 Cody W, his sister Annette and their pal Roy E were pretty good at keeping me in the loop of what was happening back home,  and encouraging, Josh and Marie were there on the few Sundays we were able to make it to church, and there were a lot of camp people helping out, providing laughter, insight, and encouragement. Daniel, his sister Emily, Ray and Jessica, mainly. They helped out quite a bit, and it was neat to be able to share the struggles and small victories in life via Facebook and email, and knowing you were being prayed for and being able to pray for them, too. And there was Maddie, too.

   I started at a new paper, we were still working on the house, laying the floor down and things like that, when football season began. It was a rough year: 1-9 record, losing most every game by three touchdowns, the band was horrendous, even for high school bands; the cheerleaders didn't memorize their own cheers and kept tripping over their own feet, and the coach was impossible to interview. But my writing was getting better, a lot of fake-positive spin was needed for those articles.

   We moved back into the house in early October, which was great. Also weird, since walls and things had been rearranged, our dog Sport never did understand that things had been moved. We had a hard time figuring it out, too, there's some things we haven't figured out why something is that way even now. (For example, why we have three times the amount of light switches needed...) And through Facebook, I got to know Ash and Matt better, and also Jessica's sister Amanda.

   Got back into the the skits and things of the drama group, but it wasn't really worth it any longer, for some reason. Too dumb, too pointless, and pretty disorganized. And you could feel the tide sweeping us all off into our own separate paths, the writing was on the wall.

   Following some stupid mistakes that seemed like the right thing to do at the time, Maddie and I broke up in early December, which left a gaping hole of guilt, which has slowly been erased. We were trying to do the right thing, just went about it in the wrong way, and it blew up in our faces. Painful, but very valuable, learning experience. (And if anyone's wondering, I've never tried again since, though I will eventually, whenever it's time. That just hasn't came yet.)
   Things were going well at church, though, Steven was helping us grow in Christ and gaining our trust, growing more comfortable in his position as youth pastor, I was still on the outside, but there was slowly an opening found, a niche where I fit in. I still don't really know what that role that I played in the youth group's chemistry and dynamics was, but it was a good journey. This guy named Dylan joined, and he become a part of our group.
   In December, we went ice skating near the BOK Center as part of what they call Winterfest as a youth-group activity, soon to become an annual tradition, most of us hadn't ever skated on ice before, or at least in a long time. I discovered I could skate, which was neat, but I've never figured out how to stop. Marie had brought a friend along, it was neat to meet her. Her name was impossible to remember, so she said just to call her Sam. She was from Oregon, had moved down here to Oklahoma about four months ago. Also an oldest, she was learning guitar, too, and she liked listening to country music sometimes. Very friendly and good to talk with, I thought "I want to get to know this girl better." I have over the years, and she's one of my closest pals now. After the skating, we all went over to a family's house to play board games for about four hours.
   It was a good time, especially considering what all else was happening around it: Christmas, and all the hassle and stress of that, the one-year anniversary of the fire, our cats disappeared, which was awful, and then Dad fell off a ladder and broke his ribs and wrist.
 
   So 2010 came in a lot like the previous decade was: One set of things to deal with after another, but we were able to get through it okay. Basketball went all right, and covering baseball was a challenge, but I did an okay job on that. The Vancouver Winter Olympics were held, we watched that often, one might while Mom was out getting pizza she also picked up a half border collie/half Austrailian Shepherd puppy. With athletic-type names on the brain, and with the fact that we already had a Sport, we settled on calling this puppy Skeet.

   So time passed, I kept at writing and school, finally started to learn how to actually play guitar. Thought about dating this one girl I knew, but something told me that that would be one of the most disasterous mistakes I had ever made. So I didn't. But anyway, things were just rolling along too smoothly. When it came time for camp, I wasn't in the right mindset, wasn't really ever there all week. My focus was on me, and not on Christ. How much fun it would be, and seeing people I knew, not about worshiping God and learning how to serve Him better. Feeling sorry that I only had one, maybe two years to go after this.
   Anyway, we had a mixed crew of veterans and rookies coming up from Tulsa, Josh and I, with his friend Caleb W and Dylan coming for the first time, and then Caitlin, Corinne, Justine, Kerra, Laura and Marie with first-timers Sam and Suzanna. The Friday before we left, we made these matching shirts that were part of a Scrabble game, since the theme was Board Game Character; starting with our names, and then branching out to include things important to us, or qualities we were trying to achieve. My board was too shallow to mention.
   So, it was a pretty quiet drive, everyone took a nap. (How boring. There's nobody to talk to except whoever's driving.) When the others weren't asleep, they were telling (stupid) Chuck Norris jokes or (even worse) Yo Mama jokes. And Caleb entertained us all by shouting "Corn!!!" whenever we passed a cornfield.
   We got there pretty early, enough so that the ping pong tables were empty. (We fixed that problem fast.) Then it was time for registration, and the orientation speech, sing/swim time, and the first major change of a year full of them: The square dance was on Monday night?

   Well, yes.
   It didn't meet with much favor, but it was moved from Thursday to Monday to take the focus off of it, and take away the "So, which girl you gonna ask?" and "I hope he asks me out" aspect that was receiving too much attention. Instead, it could serve as kind of an icebreaker instead, used to help the first-time people get more at ease with all these strangers, and let the experienced campers get to chat and see each other again, to catch up.
   And with the rain coming down(again), it was moved indoors to the tabernacle, which made things interesting. Partners for the Virginia Reel were selected by numbering off, so that was different. I danced with Madelyn M that time, it went well, except she kept getting her directions mixed up and going backwards of whatever direction we were supposed to swing. For the third straight year I asked Ash(now my teammate) to start the Gay Gordon, and she accepted. Her little brother Austin wasn't sure what to think about that. Not only were there a lot of people not used to how to dance it, but instead of a circle dance it became an oval dance, with the walls accounting for this change. I couldn't think of anyone to ask for the third dance, so I sat that one out and took pictures instead. Then for the box-and-square, or whatever that's called, I danced with Eva, she went to the camp pastor's church, she was from Texas, and would be on my Black team. Though complicated and confusing, eventually we got it all figured out, and it was hot, sweaty fun. A quick run up to the cabins for Bibles, water bottles and a bathroom break, and then back down the trail to the tabernacle again for general session. Mack T was again the camp pastor, he taught a series from John 15, that part about "I am the vine, you are the branches...Abide with Me".

   Also, Tim wasn't there. We were worried and praying for him since about January, when he found out he had a cancerous tumor growing behind his nose, lots of speculation over whether or not there would even be camp held this year. His surgery to remove that was about two weeks before camp started, so he wasn't able to attend, but it went on anyway. Brother Larry and Mrs Boyer(everyone's Camp Mom) took the reins in planning and guiding even more than they already did, it was an amazing cooperative effort among all the counselors to keep things on track, both with lighter things like the Tournament Challenge, and more important things, like the reason why we were gathered there.
   Tom the photographer wasn't able to come, either, because he was bad sick, with cancer or something, Mrs Boyer, Jed, or a variety of counselors were in charge of the camera and taking official pics in his stead.
   Also, because of the new mix of counselors and sudden gaps that needed filling, Daniel was asked to start his counselorship(I don't think that's really a word) a year early, which he did, giving up his final year of camper eligibility.

   Another change was that Ultimate Frisbee was no longer an official Challenge sport, replaced by Archery, and Golf and Ping Pong were made into separate events.
   So we woke up Tuesday, had devotions(led by Tom H, from the St Louis group), ate breakfast, went to the general session, and then it was Tourney Challenge time. My team was Black this year, there was me, Ash, Bethany, Dylan U, Lynnea, Joanna G, Jon L, and Shari, and the newbies: Dylan, Eva, Fred, Jarod and Suzanna. We had archery up first, led by Miss Kathy, and we walked about halfway down to the river to shoot. We were facing Blue, they decided sometime during the week to call themselves "The Who". With the huge oil spill on the Gulf Coast all over the news a few weeks before, we called ourselves "BP", which sounded quite scary and intimidating, and that was later changed to "Panthers", with sounded even better. Blue usually gave themselves a nickname each year, as did Red, so we decided to join in on the fun.
   We had a good time talking while we waited for our turn to shoot, then we did fairly well when it was our time to shoot, although we lost, the score was unknown. Red triumphed over Green on volleyball 15-13, and Yellow destroyed White on the cabbage ball diamond(with real plastic rubber bases this year, instead of shingles, pizza boxes, T-shirts and Frisbees) by a score of 12-1.
   On the golf course, Green beat Blue, Red topped White in ping pong, and Black beat Yellow 11,800-9,800 in Bible trivia. Then it was a taco salad and brownie lunchtime, followed by reading and rest time(where like always, Jed and I got in trouble for talking too much, but Jon L helped this time), group sessions, then sing/swim time, singing was great. Daniel and Miss Kathy led it, we had the camp version of "Come Thou Fount", "In Christ Alone", "The Power of the Cross", "Isaiah 43", plus new songs "From the Ends of the Earth", "Jesus I Come" and "Hear the Call of the Kingdom". And then all the hymns from the hymnbook.

   In the first of the Worst/Firsts, White chose Green in archery, Black beat Blue in volleyball three sets to two, and Yellow clobbered Red in cabbage ball 18-7. At the end of the first day of action, Red led with two points, Black, Blue, Green and Yellow were chasing at one point each, and White(the ones who always lose) hadn't scored yet.

   Wednesday was more of the same routine, a terrific breakfast of pancakes and sausage, good sermon at general session, and then Green outshot White in archery, Black beat Yellow on the volleyball court 11-5, 11-6, and Blue beat Red in cabbage ball. In the BPG section, Red beat Black at golf, Blue topped Yellow in ping pong,  and White (finally) won something, a Bible trivia match against Green 2,600-0.
   Reading and rest time was also Talent Share practice time, but I stayed in my cabin, not sure if I was going to do anything or not. I asked Patrick about the song I was thinking of, Josh Turner's "Long Black Train", he thought that would be fine to perform in that setting, so with his okay, I went with that in the Talent Share. It's a good country song, with a good message, and (even better, then) it's simple to play. I really could play by then, although not too well yet, on the video I sound nervous. And I was, kinda - afraid I'd mess up on playing it, not used to an audience of any more than my little sister Amy. But it went all right, though I (again) didn't have the right attitude behind it. I sang that year with a "Look at me!" mindset, not a "Here's something God's given me, now praise Him because of it" way of thinking.
   Good things in this year's Talent Share included Jed's piano, Nathan making a surprise visit to attend(and play) the show, Miss Kathy on her cello, Drake Leith blowing up a hospital glove with his nose, and Jon's human drum solo, using two water bottles as drumsticks and pounding on the the wall, the floor, and Noah Smith.
   Once back in the cabin after general session, Jed, Jon and I were jamming around, little bit of country, touch of classic rock, little bit of classical, just random tabs, etc, when Jon snaps a string on my guitar. True, it was(and is) nothing special, designed to learn how to play on and that's it, but it was which string snapped that was so astounding: the low E. (That's the top-most string when played, and also the thickest. None of us had ever seen that one break before.)
   And also there was a candy stampede, even stronger than usual, a Rubbermaid kitchen container full of Whoppers was devoured in one night, and a similar sized one of Milk Duds was also consumed. Guys were snorting Pixi Stix and getting extremely high on sugar, it was insane. Joe M grabbed a cape from somewhere and went tearing through the cabin and outside wearing it. And he was in his last year as a camper, not like some fourteen year-year-old that it could be teasing ammo forever. But compared to the stories the girls tell, we didn't eat hardly anything. They've had five people eat six pounds of candy by themselves, not counting Mrs Boyer's huge stash!

   A bunch of us guys, bummed out that UF wasn't an official sport, just went ahead and played our own games during swim time. Cody threw this one pass towards the end zone(he'd forgiven me for practically beheading him with my newspaper throw the year before), I trapped it on one hop with my face to the birdhouses and back to the field. Gabe: "Did he catch it?" "I dunno, let's ask him. He's a pretty truthful guy." "Hey, Wes, did you catch that throw?" "Um, well..." It had just barely skipped off the dirt. "Not really, no. It bounced." He either doesn't hear this or ignores it. "He caught it! Touchdown!!"
   "Hear the Call of the Kingdom" could be heard very often in the showers or on the way along the path, that and Daniel 4:35. And Jake and I teamed up several times to sing various country duets. Did we look like idiots? Maybe, but it was fun!

   With Thursday's second Worst/First, Red and Yellow went to the archery range, White beat Green in volleyball, and Blue beat Black(we got to know one another's strengths and weaknesses really well) in cabbage ball, we lost 5-1. Then White and Yellow went golfing, Black beat Green in ping pong nine games to five, and Red and Blue had Bible trivia.
   The afternoon went by pretty ordinarily, and bringing us to (ack!) the last night of camp, and (hooray!) going down to the wire in Tourney Challenge. Red and Yellow shot archery, Blue and White played volleyball, and there was the possibility of a three-or-four-way tie for first place.
   We(Black) were playing Green in cabbage ball. They were at bat first, and got on the board 1-0, we tied it up in the bottom of the first. Our defense was awful, and Green pranced around scoring four runs in the second, we couldn't answer. The score was stationary until the fourth inning, where Green pushed one more run across the plate. The Panthers were hitting well, and getting good basepath movement, but it just wasn't paying off in runs. We racked up a quick two outs, then reeled off five straight runs to re-tie the game. Fred and the Dylans were leading us, each side scored a run in the fifth, Green scored four more runs to lead 11-7, we clawed our way back into it several times, but the door was about to shut. We had ten minutes to play, and there was buffalo running loose. (Remember Rule #2?) Oh, and we had to get three more outs in order to even have a chance at a comeback. Well, it seemed like it took forever, but we got them,  and then we somehow managed to load the bases. BUT, we had two outs. And guess who was up at bat? (Yeah, me. Who has depth perception issues and hates baseball. And isn't very good at things when pressured. But, it's my turn to try to keep us in the game.) Feeling like Charlie Brown, where I'll either be a hero or a goat, I was hitting left-handed, since I can switch-hit, seemed like a better chance of putting the ball where they ain't. I hit a weak grounder that rolls down the third-base line, down the hill into foul territory. FOUR TIMES IN A ROW. Another pitch came in, I swung, good line drive between third and short. Unfortunately, Jason over at third scoops it up on one hop and gets the force-out at second. Game over, the best we can hope for now is third.
   That set up a tie for first place, Blue and Red were both at five points apiece, and they'd split their contests against each other. So after a bit of quick thinking, the counselors decided it would be settled by a tiebreaker Bible trivia match during book-signing, three questions each.
   Book-signing is always crazy and enjoyable, and then with the added drama of watching the two teams huddle up and try to figure out the answers, it was even better than normal. Blue got two of the three questions right. So did Red. But Red always got the third, a two-part question, half right, so they won the tiebreaker 2.5-2, to win the Challenge with six points on the week.

   No bones were broken, but a showerhead flew off Friday morning and the water was stuck on, so the guys bathroom flooded, and they had to call in a backhoe to come get to the septic tank. That was crazy to witness. We then went down to the river during free time, sang some songs and took pictures, talked a bit, it was fun. Really pretty place, everything was so green. Courtney rode along with Mom to pick us up, so she could see what the campground looked like and start to place faces to names from my stories.
   Dylan had a good time, he followed me around most of the time, so I introduced him to everybody(the Freelands, Daniel, Jed, Jon L, the Minners, Ash, the Davises, etc). Caleb seemed to enjoy his first year, since he came back two other times. Caitlin enjoyed meeting all the people her friends had told her about, and Sam loved it, made a lot of new friends.
   I had some great teammates. Not just Dylan and Suzanna, who I knew already from GBC, Ash, Bethany, Dylan U, Lynnea and Shari, who are neat people that it was cool getting to know better, and also good athletes; Dylan had a sprained thumb from a Sunday game of after-church Ultimate, he just taped it up so he could keep playing, since we needed the help. Eva, Fred, and Joanna were really cool to meet, and they were good to have on the team.
   Good things came from this year, it was the lowest-ranked time I've been there, but that was kind of my own fault. I had to grow up, and this was the year I started doing it.

                                                          # # #

(NOTES FROM CAMP BOOK)

Shari H - Shari is a good person
Hannah J - Slightly rude
Madelyn M - Neat, has trouble with left and right
Mimi M - Short, funny, has an attitude
Ray P - Ray didn't come to camp this year
Eva S - Nice, good teammate
Caroline T - Got horribly sick, stayed indoors all week
Olivia W - Same Olivia. :)
Lynnea W - Very nice, good teammate
Cody B - Still the same
Jed B - Jed's still cool
Alex C - Always looked really mad
Jason C - Neat guy
Marshall D - Got saved Thursday
Matt F - Matt finished camp in one piece this time! Lol
Austin H - Ashland's little brother
Fred K - Neat guy
Troy K - A nut
Jon L - Cool guy
Joe P - Not as annoying as used to be
Gabe R - Goes to Ole Miss, good at Frisbee
Dylan S - Dylan was a little nervous, but her liked it
Dylan U - Good guy
Caleb W - Quiet, okay, Caitlin's little brother.

(CAMP BOOK SIGNINGS)

"(Austin Hankins' signature)

Jesus said: "As the Father has loved me, so also have I loved you; continue in my love." John 15:9. Wesley, may you be led by the Spirit with even more fruitfulness! enjoyed your singing. - Kathy Butler

hey man keep up that guitar it was great and see you next year. In Christ, Jed Boyer

Hey man, I hope you enjoyed your time at camp! Talk to you on Facebook. Matthew

Hey I had a great time playing on the black team. It was really nice to see you again. God bless you alway! From Joanna G

Wesley, you are an amazing person and friend. You need to email me some of your paper stuff so I can see how good you are. Can't wait for next year! Love you man! Cody Bieber

Wesley - You are Pretty Darn Awesome. See you next year! - Mimi

Wesley, I hope you had a great year at camp! I pray that you were blessed by the teaching. I'll be praying for you. God bless, Daniel Noah

Keep singing it will spur you on (Signature indechiperable)

Yet another performance to be proud of. I don't have the guts you do to do that. Josh

Wesley, Stay sweet! See you next year bud. - Shari. PS: go black! :)

Thank you for showing me around my 1st year at camp. Dylan Steeley

Weley, God bless you in every way. Press on to know Jesus more and more. Love in Him, Mack Tomlinson

Wesley, You are one of the sweetest young men at camp! Stay strong in the LORD, He'll never fail! Terry Boyer PS - GOOD SONG!

Wesley, It was a great honor and privilege meeting you. Camp was awesome. I hope and pray you live a blessed, fruitful life. Keep it real, man. - Gabe Randolph
 
 Joe Paxton til next year

Proverbs 3:5 Hey Wesley, Sorry we didn't get to talk much this year. Maybe next year? but, I still enjoyed your performance at talent share. - Marshall Davis

Hey, great job our team almost won!!! great seeing you at camp! Lynnea Wright

Hey Wes, I had a great week with you! - Micah J.

Wesley! you did awesome in the talet show :) I hope to see you next year! Shelby Henry

Wesley it was great having you on my team! you hit an amazing hit in cabbage ball! Bethany

It was fun being on your team this year! I hope you had fun! Ashland

Wes, Have a great summer. May the LORD bless you always. J. Smith

What's Up! Nice musical piece, nothing like a little Turner to make you feel at home! JAKE

It was great to see you at camp this year! Marie

your a great friend!! :) SJ Samara Jensen

(Madelyn Minner's signature)

Jarod Hill have a great year

Hope you had an awesome year! DJ Freeland

Wesley, I am so blessed every year by your sweet and joyful spirit. I hope the Lord worked in your heart this week as much as he has in mine. Love in Christ, Olivia Wilbanks

Wesley! So good to see you again! I always enjoy getting to spend time with you. - Dylan Underwood

(Noah Smith's signature)

Hey! Hope you had a gr8 yr! Jon Lange

Hey! Glad to see you again and I hope to see you next year too! You did awesome in the talent share! Madelyn Davis :) :P"

Strange Things are Happenin' to Me/AIn't No Doubt About It...

   This past year I counseled three of my closest friends, lost my job, taken my SAT(all those at the same time), picked out a college, got enrolled, graduated high school, led worship for my youth group, started this blog, and just otherwise set about growing up.

   But this last month or so, a lot of strange things have happened.

   I went to my last church camp as a camper, and saw the Lord work in such an incredible way. It was amazing. Terrifying, but wonderful. It was a good time, but it was a somber enjoyment. Almost melancholy, in a way.

   One of the guys I grew up with got married. Not that there's anything wrong with that; but it's just an unusual path to take at this stage of life. But hey, if that's what God has planned...that's awesome. Kind of drove home the fact that "Hey, guess what? You're grown up now. Time to go face the world, do the best you can, and lean on God to pull you through."

   The Olympics are here, an event that only comes around once every four years; and in London, for the first time since 1948. In addition to showing loads of interesting sports we don't usually see that often on TV(Volleyball, kayaking, ping pong, track and field, equestrian, trampolining, gymnastics) and many non-interesting sports as well(Diving, synchronized swimming, water polo, swimming). Reminds you of all the amazing moments from previous Games, and you can't really help but use them as a marker of how far you've come in life. You think back to where you were the last time they were held, and see the ways you've grown, the mistakes that you've learned from, the blessings and mercies God's given to you, and makes you wonder what the future will be like four years from now. Kinda like Christmas trees, they do the same thing. By the time the 2016 Olympians arrive in Rio, I'll be heading into my senior year of college. What will my job be? Will I be good at it? How will I be able to serve God at that time? Will I have a girlfriend? Will I be married by then? (Unlikely, but it could happen in four years.) Will I have kids? Might I possibly have written a book that was published? If so, what kind?

   Wednesday night I went to visit my grandpa, he was really excited that I'm going to NSU. It was a good visit, the dogs were played with and swimming and gymnastics were watched.
   Thursday morning we went down to the campus for this thing called Rookie Bridge Camp, a get-to-know-you, here's-some-advice-on-getting-through-college type of deal; me for the camp, Grandpa was driving one of the buses. It proved to be an...interesting and eye-opening experience.
 
   We arrived at the student union just before nine a.m, luggage was checked in and nametags were handed out, then about five or six of us were ushered in, where we were, well...screamed at. Like, with people three inches away from our faces. Something about "cool pants" or something, we looked at each other in amused tolerance(and some fear) at whatever this was we signed up for. Those volunteers herded us into the basement, where we were hollered at and did some crazy stretching, then we were herded off to some more shouting volunteers, who instructed us to act like bacon. By now we rookies are really getting freaked out, and we flop down on the floor-skillet and cook as fast as we can to get on to the next station. Now we were  clamorously told to "Grab a rock!" We look around, there's several pails of spray-painted green sandstones with painted messages in white. Mine said "Who let the dogs out?" I was kind of starting to wonder the same thing, and exactly where was the dogcatcher?
   We then were hurried off into the elevator, where we were (again, loudly) instructed to "PARTY!!!" We feebly attempted to dance along with LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem", then were met by (yet another) screaming group of volunteers, taking us into this holding room by doing this dance called "The Wobble".
   All this in a space of about two minutes.

   Rookie Bridge Camp is a by-students, for-students type of thing, directed by a pair of upperclassmen, and then legions of other students helping out, with varying levels of responsibility. Extremely well-organized; however, the style is Total Chaos. Supposedly if you get thrown off guard in a situation like that, your defenses will be down(Due to the unbelievable onslaught of insanity and randomness) and you'll make friends easier. Not sure if that's true or not, but it's an interesting theory.

   So we come into this second-floor holding room, while there's a lot of icebreaker songs and speeches and stuff. (I bet the volunteers had so much fun in herding all the shell-shocked rookies along all day.) Things like where this guy would say "Bananas!" and then the strategically-placed volunteers around the room chanted "Go Bananas!" and moving everyone around. A way to learn the other people's names, I guess, since you were supposed to introduce yourself to whoever happened to be standing by you at the moment. That lasted for about an hour, then we listened to a speech by a member of the faculty, and then off in the color groups(Black, Cyan(blue), Crimson, Mint and Violet) for some more icebreaker/mixer-type games, like People to People, Ships and Sailors, and Knight, Rider, Princess, and then breaking up into small groups.
   Then it was time for the Trust Walk, we were all blindfolded and hiked all around campus with only vocal commands to guide us. It was interesting, and a little scary. We arrived at a creek, where we tossed our rocks into the water, and left high school behind. A (very noisy and vocal) 45-minute bus ride later(I kinda felt sorry for the driver, putting up with all that noise. And everyone else was complaining that it was taking forever, didn't feel like anything to me.) we arrived at the campground, after learning the school fight song, more rounds of the holding-room songs, and bad attempts at Journey and Kenny Chesney. It felt kinda like a plane ride - so much scenery to look at and drink in, and so wacky people around you...and, you know, just riding in a school bus was interesting enough in itself, being a novelty.

   We ate lunch, learned a little more about each other in another get-to-know-you exercise, then it was free time. Since it was about 109 out, and we didn't particularly feel like catching heatstroke or anything, we sat in the air-conditioned building and talked. Then it was skit-planning time! Or, more accurately, "skong-planning time". (A skong is like a skit/song mashup, btw.) With an hour and half to go from concept storming to performing, it was awesome, and time to get creative. We set about preparing a song, a dance routine, American Idol parody, and That 70's Show scene, they all went pretty well, it was organized improv.
   Our skit involved the following cast: YT pal Chance as Randy Jackson, his best friend Aubrey as Paula Abdul, Avree(the one who thought up the idea) as Simon Cowell, Cameron as Ryan Seacrest, Kaitlan as Carmen Crimson, Kaitlyn as Mandyy Mint, Kaceley as Cheyenne Cyan, Mican as the janitor, and Wes as Brandon Black. Here's how the script ended up going:

"Cameron: Welcome back, America, to this year's auditions! We're here at Rookie Bridge Camp, and THIS...is American Idol! [Crowd goes wild]

Avree: Hello, what is your name, and what are you going to do for us today?

Kaitlan: My name is Carmen Crimson, and I'm gonna be the next American Idol.

Aubrey: All right, then, go ahead whenever you're ready. [Kaitlan proceeds to wave her hand in the air and do a siren impersonation, which was the Crimson group's "chant".]

Chance: I don't think that's quite what we were looking for right now. You got some mad props, though, dawg.

Aubrey: I love your hair, but it's a no from me. [Crowd laughs]

Avree: What was that? Three nos, go on with you, now! [Kaitlan exits, Kaitlyn enters]

Kaitlyn: YO, what's up, y'all? My name be Mandyy Mint(that's "Mandy" with two Ys), and I've got a rap for you peeps. [Judges roll their eyes, she then proceeds to try to rap through the Mint group's long, alliterative name, the judges stop her halfway through, saving her the effort of trying to get the whole tongue twister out.]

Avree: No.

Kaitlyn, exiting: I can't believe this! What kind of show IS this, anyway, if you don't appreciate people with my talent...[Crowd laughs like crazy, Kaceley enters nervously]

Kaceley: Hi? I'm Chey-Cheyenne Cyan, and-[Avree holds up a hand, interrupting, he shakes his head. She exits, crushed. Mican enters, pushing a vacuum.]

Chance: Um...

Avree: What are you doing?

Mican(looks at him as if it's obvious): I'm vacuuming.

Avree: Well, yes, I can see that, but why are you vacuuming?

Mican: Because I'm the janitor, and the floor looks terrible, and it's my job.
[Dialogue builds faster and faster from this point}
Avree: Don't you realize that we're in the middle of live auditions here?

Mican: Yeah.

Avree: So, then, why - ?

Mican: You wouldn't want the floor to look awful on national TV, would you?

Avree: Well, no -

Mican: So then let me finish and I'll leave.

Avree, exasperated: Get out of here!! [Mican meekly packs up her vacuum and walks out, the crowd is in hysterics, and I enter. Judges exchange a hopeful glance.]

Avree: Finally, someone who looks like they know what they're doing.

Aubrey: What's your name?

Wes: I'm Brandon Black, I've got something worked up I want to show y'all, if you don't mind. Just whenever I'm ready? [Judges nod, I do our Black group chant, mixing up the horribly alliterative syllables. Really, try saying " B-L-A-C-K, Bearded Ballers Everyday" in 4/4 time)

Chance: That was great, dude!

Aubrey: I loved it.

Avree: That was easily the best thing I've ever heard all day. If you had a background group or something behind that, I would sign you right now.

Wes, aside: Are we watching the same auditions? I wouldn't have voted for myself there. I'll take it, though. [Crowd laughs] [to judges] Glad you liked it. Um, about the signing...were you serious?

Avree: Yes! If a group could do that, I would be in...like, that would be heavenly.

Wes: Well, then, let's see if we can't find your ticket there. [Aside to rest of our color group] Hey guys-!! [They all come marching onstage chanting, the judges are enraptured, and the crowd goes wild as we exit.]

The End."
   (If we could think of a way to do so, we were supposed to make fun of the other groups, Violet kept calling themselves the Vacuuming Vikings, so that's where Mican the janitor came from. Mint was the Magnificent Mafia, or something along those lines, so we had Kaitlyn be all gangsta.)
   The following skits(no song elements at all) by the other color groups were all much more poorly organized, awkwardly presented, or just straight out raunchy. It was painful to witness, and thankfully it ended after about an hour. Then it was time for - whatever you felt like doing. Me? I headed for the volleyball court, had to get the nasty taste washed out. And when there's competition, you meet people. And besides that, I was tired of control games where nobody wins anything. And it's FUN. So I played volleyball for nearly two hours, we had one of those workshop lights set on a tripod for light. It was kinda dark, could hardly see the ball. Met a lot of the volunteers, they were pretty good about answering "What-will-I-need?" or "So-what-exactly-should-I-be-looking-for?" type questions about what we'll be facing. A guy named Randy was on my volleyball team, he seemed cool. Also, there was a neat guy named Roy, he was also a volunteer. Corey, too; he was one of my small group leaders.

   We played until 11:45, when we had to quit. Nearly got to sleep around 12:30 a.m, when everyone was roused for singing the girls to sleep? I mean, not that I have anything against singing, but I'd been running up against who knows what all day, and that wears you out. And really...it was late. And I just didn't really feel comfortable with the whole thing. Thankfully, this guy named Ethan(he was one of the two directors of the whole thing) and Randy were fine if I sat out. So I just sat on the front steps and thought a while, prayed some, while waiting for the rest of the guys to come out of the girls' cabin, and watched the lightning in the distance, wondering if the float trip on the river would be canceled.

   The atmosphere once we got back was incredibly toxic, I wanted to escape so bad. Just was praying constantly, "Lord, please let me survive! I know I've been asking  that all day, but really...it's bad!" I got to sleep(finally) around one or 1:30, woke up just before seven and took a shower. Then it was breakfast time, a few more control-games, and getting back onto the bus for the ride back to campus for lunch. This ride was quieter, I think about half the bus was taking a nap. We ate lunch, then back on (another) bus out to the river for the float trip. The bus driver's six-year-old daughter was riding along with her mom, we made her day by talking to her, and then getting all these really old people, (in college), to sing The Alphabet Song, I'm a Little Teapot, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. (And also She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy, but only half of us were doing that one). It was really fun.

   Five people could be on a raft, Avree, Mican and I picked out boat 196, Roy and Jacob hopped on too, but then defected to other boats pretty quickly. Never having floated the river before, I wasn't too sure what to expect, was a little nervous, but it was really neat. Kind of a six-mile hike through water, since the water level was down this year, because of the dry spell we've been having. And, since I'm really short, it got too deep for me to pull pretty often, I became quite adept at leaping into the boat MacGyver or Bear Grylls-style. And then rowing kept me kind of busy, too. It was a really neat time, relaxing and good conversations. And we had the snack boat, kind of a water-bound drive-thru service, so we made a lot of people happy by being the food sharers.
   The pace was kept pretty steady, we made the six-mile trek in about four hours. We then rode back to campus for dinner, and shared experiences of what we'd thought of RBC, and re-crossed the bridge from Rookies to College Students.
   I think I met a handful of people I'd like to stay in contact with, hopefully, here in the future, we'll have to wait until this semester ends, at least, to see if the trip was worth it or not. But whether helpful or no, it was a valuable taste-test of the challenges I'll face in school, and I know that God'll bring me through whatever storms are up ahead, I just need to stay strong in the Lord, and lean on my pals for help every once in a while.

Once Upon a Time...

   Once upon a time.

   Some of the most magical opening words in literature.

Why so powerful? I have no idea. But it's a gateway into fantasy, where dragons ravage the countryside and poor maidens need to be rescued, particularly if they're princesses.

Lots of good stories begin this way. So do a lot of bad tales. It's a tool, which is only as useful or destructive as the writer's skills and intentions are. If you begin a tale this way, be careful to make it interesting.

CAMP: Part II, 2009

   Well, as soon as I got back from camp that first time, I couldn't wait to go back.

   Daniel and I began emailing each other, he provided a lot of encouragement and advice. A good example of showing how older believers are supposed to encourage the younger ones.

   I began my freshman year of high school, which went okay for the first semester. I continued writing for the local newspaper, doing the sports, I was learning new lessons and gradually overcoming my shyness.

   On December 11, 2008, around 11:30 p.m, Mom was feeding my baby sister Amy, and watching John McCain, the recently defeated Republican presidential candidate, on Letterman when she smelled smoke coming from the kitchen. She hollered for Dad, I couldn't sleep, so we both came running to see what was wrong. The inside of our refrigerator was on fire. I grabbed Amy, Mom woke up Courtney, and the three of us dashed out into the frosty cold of the van while Dad called the fire department and Mom went back and forth, trying to help. Caleb and Trevor were still asleep. The firemen got there, they wrestled and hauled the fridge out into the driveway, then ran a check to make sure nothing else was damaged, shaking their heads as to why the inside of a refrigerator, of all things, should catch fire. Courtney and I shivered and watched, trying to keep Amy asleep, and ourselves from panicking, we turned on the radio. I still can't hear Kenny Chesney's "Don't Blink" or Tim McGraw's "Back When" without remembering everything that happened. They left, and we swept up the kitchen, wondering how when we were going to have time to shop for a new refrigerator and put the oven back into it's place. We played Uno for an hour, then went back to bed around 3:30 a.m.
   I wake up around seven, and I check the news and play a computer game while I wait for everyone else to get up, Mom starts about fixing breakfast. She grabs the oatmeal from the pantry, leaving the light on since she'll probably need back in there pretty soon. We tell the boys what happened, Caleb goes around looking at stuff, when he says: "Mom, why is there smoke in the family room?" This is about 8:10 a.m. She laughs it off, "No, that was last night, there's nothing there now. Too bad you missed it." But she goes to check anyway. The pantry door is glowing. She opens it a hair to see what's going on, then shuts it quickly because of the heat. Our psycho cat Liesel shoots out the gap and flies for her favorite hiding place, under my bed. Mom yells "The house is on fire!!! GET OUT NOW!!!!" We scramble out, I'm barefoot, wearing an old hoodie and ripped-up jeans, the only thing in my pocket is my phone. It's like forty degrees outside, so we all pile into the van again and turn the heater on. Dad comes flying home from work, the firemen sail back(though it felt like they were crawling, since they were working on a grass fire on the other side of town), I call my then-girlfriend, some way or another everybody from church knows by that afternoon.
   The house is burning from the inside out, and we can only sit and watch helplessly. About three hours later, it's mostly out, safe enough that we look around. It wasn't a pretty sight. Everything coated with black smoke, our Christmas tree melted, the couch is crispy to touch, a VCR/DVD player is a shapeless warped collection of plastic and fried electronics. Pictures on the walls are blistered, their images unrecognizable.
 
   We were stunned, really, unsure of what to do next. Some people from the Red Cross gave us a check for enough to spend the weekend in a hotel, so we down the highway to the next town over and stayed there, trying to figure out what to do next. We numbly finished a meal at Burger King(I've always hated that place ever since, tastes like smoke and feels like flames), then sat around and answered phone calls from worried friends, wondering how they could help. My grandpa's trailer was empty for now, the guy who'd been renting it had moved out a few months earlier, he offered it to us as a place to stay while we figured out what to do next. All during this time, I had Tracy Lawrence's song "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" running through my head on nonstop repeat, and you know what? It's one of the truest songs in the truest genre there is, country music.
   We went to Wal-Mart and got some new clothes for all of us that didn't smell like smoke, while we were out, some friends of ours had dropped off a gift basket of things like snacks, soap, and toilet paper, and a note that said: "So sorry to hear about your loss. Here's some stuff that hopefully will help out, and here's our number, if we can help in any way." That was the first of many incredible actions we saw, that we don't really understand other than some of God's grace and mercy. The daughter of a couple we knew had her church organize up a small fund for gifts for us, since it was Christmastime, we'd only met her once. Half a dozen people that Dad worked with went through their closets for old things that didn't fit or they never wore anymore, that was basically how our entire clothing inventory was restocked.
   My aunt and grandma had taken charge of the move-in, from a nasty, uninhabited doublewide, they fixed it up in two days into a liveable house for seven people. Walls and floors were scrubbed, calf food was hauled out, the appliances were tested, furniture was donated; just like that, we had a place to go. It was an amazing testimony to God's provision that we didn't expect. We even had a Christmas tree, which was about the crowning touch.

   We began the long, long process of  remodeling, starting with sorting through the things that could be saved, in January, without any electric. So, it was really, really cold. Then came the demolition, we had a ton of help with that, and we got it basically finished in one day. A lot of last-minute decisions, things that technically could be done by other people, but would be cheaper to do ourselves. We learned a lot about home construction. Going back and forth daily, at one point, Caleb and Trevor had a conversation like this: "So, if you were going to take a nap in the car, where do you think you'd wake up?" That pretty much summed up our life. And we had our regular schoolwork to do when we could.

   There were some lighter happenings, though: I set about learning how to play guitar seriously, with a bright orange acoustic that'd been given to me as payment for cleaning after an ice storm. It was neat having so much extended family nearby, we could just run over to sit and talk if/when we needed to. And there was American Idol. Those who know me know how closely I follow that show, and my mom's cousins and I had started emailing each other, play-by-play and analysis of every episode. It's a really neat discussion group.
   It was a little hard to be stranded from my friends at home, knowing that they were going about their lives, and ordinary things, like the homeschool group's play, though.

   Most days the tension was through the roof, and I had no idea how we were going to survive. But I knew that God brought this disaster to teach us something, and to grow me as a person, that He'd get us through it. I just had no idea how that was going to happen(and sometimes I wondered if it even would happen). Then it came July, and that meant camp.

    From our group, there was Bryce, Josh and I, and then the girls coming were Caitlin, Corinne, Justine, and Kerra, and Ana Marie was going as a counselor again. We stopped at the world's largest McDonald's for breakfast(a sausage biscuit and Diet Coke for me), and then got there about 11 or 11:30. As soon as we arrived, it was a weird feeling, much like the start of a new football season: A whole new ballgame, but some familiar faces and people you know. We were assigned the same cabin as the year before(and actually found it with no trouble this time, haha) and settled in.
   Lunch went well, we listened again to Tim's orientation speech, then went to group sessions(held in the dining hall this year), and then sing/swim time. This guy named Matt J. was in charge of leading music this year, and he did a fantastic job. Not only did we have terrific songs, both familiar and new(You Are Holy, In Christ Alone, Wonderful Merciful Savior, You Are My All in All, and more), but the singing was powerful, most people were into it, it was a good time of worship each time. There was this one song, based on Isaiah 43: 1-3, that was so incredibly overwhelming. "When you pass through the fire, you'll not be hurt/And the flames they will not overcome you/Do not fear, for I have redeemed you/I have called you by name, you are Mine....For I am the Lord your God(repeat x3)/(I am) the Holy One of Israel, your Savior..."
   It's such a great song, I'm interrupting this post to post a link to it, take a listen, please: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23jeSAlB_GE
   Reading those lyrics for the first time as we were singing it, I couldn't help it, but just started crying, there was this overwhelming sense of gratefulness and thankfulness, that out of everything we'd been through the last six months, we were still here, together, and there was progress on this project, and that God had gotten us this far, He'd see us through to the end of this, and then on past to whatever came ahead on down the road. I still can't read those verses, sing it, play it, or even hear it without crying. That was one of the things I've gotten most from 2009, was that reminder that God was working everything just as He'd planned it, and this was just a challenging section of improv. Some of the tools that were used to help were camp friends, they were a huge encouragement. I talked about those verses in a post a few months ago, in March.

   Dinnertime came next, and (of course) ping pong. And it started RAINING. A steady, drenching rain, that kept going, and going, and going...so the UVC portion of the Tourney Challenge was rained out. (Complain, complain...) There wasn't much else to do but sit around and talk, take pictures(the lighting made it an impossible task), or watch and play some table tennis. This is where my education in ping pong got it's application started, from just observing the year before. Plus, the camp pastor was about seven hours late in arriving, so general session that night was about an hour behind schedule.

   Tuesday started like any other day, waking up two hours before everyone else, with devotions at seven, breakfast at eight, general session at nine, and then Tournament Challenge at ten. Black and Blue played Ultimate Frisbee, my Green team beat Red in volleyball 15-11 in a drizzle, the net was literally falling apart; and Yellow won over White in cabbage ball 4-3 in extra innings.
   Then it was the BPG, Black won the lowest-scoring game of Bible trivia recorded, a 3,400-3,000 victory against Yellow, White had eleven wins in ping pong to Red's ten, and Blue beat Green in golf 672-686, the rain was coming down in sheets. The carpet on the holes is already wrinkled and worn, and then the trees had dropped all these seed pods onto the course, and the raindrops pouring down were soaking us all, and it was COLD!!! And we seriously had to shoot through PUDDLES!!! It was an awful experience to play through, but one of the most memorable experiences any of us who went through it have ever had.
   (Side note on my teammates: Of the fourteen people on our team, ten had names beginning with either J or M. Jake, Jed, Jojo, Josh, Maggie, Marshall and Nathan were all on my team, it was neat getting to know them all deeper.)
   Since the rain washed out last night's UVC, that was made up that night after dinner, replacing the first of the Worst/Firsts. In that action, Yellow took Ultimate 15-13 over Red, White topped Blue on the volleyball court 22-20, and Black won cabbage ball(it was still raining, it's hard enough when it's dry!) over Green 14-11 in five innings.

   Wednesday's highlights included Blue and Red playing cabbage ball, Yellow beating 21-3, 21-11 in volleyball, White won the most defensive game of Ultimate ever recorded, we were pounded, something the 5-2 final score doesn't really show all that well. Also, the rain finally stopped, and the sun came out!!! Red and Black played golf, Blue's paddles were flying faster than Yellow's winning sixteen games to their fourteen, and Green won Bible trivia over White by a 7,700-0 final score.
   Talent share practice was held during rest time, so I went down to the tabernacle to work on my song to keep from getting yelled at for talking too much. Jammed around with Daniel on his mandolin and Keely on her viola, that was interesting. The fellowship this year was really great, got along with nearly everyone on my team, and there were a lot of friends on the other teams, too. More last-second practice after dinner, I took advantage of that, since I was going first that night.
   I had the right motivation for singing, to spread God's glory, but I didn't have the skills to back it up and make it good, since I was winging it on the learning guitar thing, just teaching myself, with only a poster listing of chords and the radio to go off of. In other words, I had started to take it seriously and learn and everything, but I had no idea how to actually play. So, I apologize to everyone who had to listen to that version of "In Christ Alone". And I was nervous. Other, much better acts included Tim's juggling, Nathan and Jed each blowing us away with their keyboarding, "Are You Washed in the Blood?" on two fiddles, a cello and piano,  Willa running through the Peanuts theme, bringing smiles to all our faces, and the Davis twins' take on "Who's On First?", which had the audience roaring in laughter. Some interesting comments, though afterward: Miss Kathy said that it was a blessing to have me sing, that she was able to worship from that, and Madelyn stated that "It takes courage to be the first".
   In the cabin that night, Cody was horsing around with Marshall, getting him to show off his tae-kwon-do moves, and although there's some dispute over whether they were punched or kicked, there ended up being holes punched in both the floor and the wall, the wall-hole still hasn't been repaired.

   For general session Thursday morning, a missionary named Trevor Johnson gave a talk about what he was doing in his place of work, Indonesia, and the ways God was working and the challenges that he and his team faced, then later there was a question-and-answer session, which was interesting, finding out exactly what was needed, generally, to go out on the mission field. I have an Indonesian-made bookmark, constructed out of some kind of bark, in my Bible that I picked up on the way out.
   In the UVC, Blue played Yellow in Ultimate, Black and White battled it out on the volleyball court, and Red beat Green in cabbage ball(amid much complaining that we had to play it again, though it was dryer) by a 4-2 score.
   White and Yellow played on the golf course in BPG, Red and Blue measured each other's retention of miniscule and monumental Biblical facts and truths, and Green got a bit of payback towards Black, winning 20-17.
   Jessica and I talked some at lunch about the week's experiences and the differences between life in Oklahoma and life in Wisconsin, her dad had worked to help me become a better ping pong player most of the week. I'd also at various times hung out with Ash, Matt F, Daniel, Daniel F, Jed, Olivia, Cody, Ray, Madelyn, Marshall, and Jake, plus others. I asked Madelyn to the dance again, since I don't much like change, and I felt more comfortable asking her than anybody else. I made it through without stammering this time, and the afternoon went by pretty well. The theme was "Fictional Character", so I went as Peter Parker. I pulled off looking nerdy, but instead of looking cool, somehow it was just dorky-looking. Other characters attending were the Flintstones' Pebbles, a pair of cowboys, a fifties greaser, "National Treasure"'s Riley Poole, Dr. Suess' Thing 2, Ella Enchanted, "Home Improvement"s Al, a Puritan girl, Minnie Mouse, Little Red Riding Hood,  and "The Chronicles of Narnia"s Queen Susan.
   The Virginia Reel was good, that was with Madelyn, then Matt and I again switched partners, people still had trouble mastering the steps of the Gay Gordon, so Ash and I had some time to catch up on life, I'd had a fire, she had new twin sisters. I set out the third to rest, then danced the last time with Lauren. It was a fun night, followed by book signings and laughter.

   It was such a blessed time, overall, and then having gotten on Facebook about a month earlier(another result of Marie's sales pitches), I started adding camp people, and that's been a neat way to keep in contact with everyone.

   Once we got to Tulsa, it was straight to the BOK Center for the American Idols Live tour, with Mom and the Wichita Gang. Scott McIntyre's piano playing was amazing to see in person, I'm still not sure how a blind person can play piano and guitar. Michael Sarver was good, Megan Joy Corkrey's dancing was even more terrible in person, Allison Iraheta did a good job, so did Anoop Desai,  Lil Rounds and Matt Giraud were boring, Danny Gokey did a great job, Adam Lambert put on a good show, I'll say that for him. Kris Allen was a little anticlimatic on the ending, but he did well, it was neat to listen to. It was a really neat experience, especially coming right on the heels of camp. Season 8 was the second-best season of AI that I've seen, only slightly behind Season 7. The one downside? The roof was thirty feet above our heads, and the seating was extremely steep; like, you were afraid to stand up.

                                                                         # # #

(NOTES FROM CAMP BOOK)      

(Counselors)
Terry B - Jed's mom, real nice
Kelsie C - Kelsie's crazy, yet lovable
Rick T - Easy to talk to, good at ping pong and guitar
Tom E - Photographer
Luke N - Neat dude
Mack T - Good preacher
(Campers)
Ash H - Ash is just a good person to talk with
Maggie H - Quieter, but still nice(Green teammate)
Emily N - Like her brothers, real cool
Amanda T - Hilarious
Jessica T - Quiet at first, but really neat once you get to know her(Green teammate)
Lauren W - Good dancer
Cody B - Cody...crazy, yet great to hang with
Jed B - Good pianist, good guy(Green teammate)
Jake B - Cool guy(Green teammate)
Nathan B - Nathan is good to know(Green teammate)
Marshall D - Marshall is cool, kinda like his sister(Green teammate)
Matt F - Matt hasn't really changed. :)
Rich L - Didn't show up
Daniel N - Daniel = good advice

(CAMP BOOK SIGNINGS)

Hey Wesly keep playing that guitar and singing, see you next year. In Crist, Jed Boyer

Hey Wesley, hope you had another great year! Matthew Freeland

Hey, it was great to see you again. :) Great job in the talent show! Come back - Jorgi

Hey buddy. Dude, you make camp so much fun. Can't wait to see you again. Cody Bieber

Hey Mom! You are awesome and you can sing too! See you next year, man! Andrew Ashe

Wesley, It was a blessing to meet you and talk with you at camp. May the Lord God bless over this next year. Bro. Rick Taillefer

Wes, you did a great job on your guitar. Looking forward to seeing you again next year. Jonathan Smith

Hey Wes, glad we were on the same team and hope to see you next year. God bless, Willa Gregg

Wesley - You are definitely one of the bright spots during Bible Challenge! Keep learning - next year you answer them all right! Terry Boyer :)

 Hey Wesley! It was great to finally meet you! Daniel had told me so much about you so I was looking forward to making your acquaintance. Seek God, and the rest will be found. In Christ, Luke N.

(Marshall Davis' signature)

Take care Wesley, JAKE

Hi Wesley! I LOVED Dancin' with you! Your so sweet! Joanna!

Hi Wesley, Glad you got to come to camp again - hope you learned a lot! Kerra

Wesley, it was great to have you at camp again! Thank you for sharing your talent and glorifying the Lord at the talent show. Keep on growing in the knowledge of God! Ana Marie

Thanx for dancing with me. I'll see you next year! - Madelyn Davis

WESLEY! :) Your good at guitar! :) Shari H :)

(Phillipa Wright's signature)

It was very fun being on your team this year. I hope you were encouraged in the Lord. Col. 3:2, in Christ, Maggie

Wesley, Great to see you again brother. I pray God's greatest blessings on you in the days to come. Email me any time you have a question. God bless you, Daniel

It was nice seeing you again this year! It was fun dancing w/you. Will we see you next year? Ash(little flower drawn in here)

Wesley, you are such a sweet guy and you have a kind heart. I loved your outfit as Peter Parker and your talent show. I hope and pray the Lord uses this week to strengthen your love for Him. - Olivia Wilbanks, Pebbles

We did a GREAT job finding our cabin this year. See ya Sunday, Josh Ferguson

hey thanks for the fun dance Lauren

Wesley, Enjoyed your music and letting me take your pic.Tom Ehlers

(Bryce Becker's signature)

Hey Wes, it was great to see you! I wish we talked more, email me, ok? I'll be waiting to see you next year :) Ray

Hey Wesley! It was great to meet you! I really appreciated and enjoyed your performance in the talent show. Keep up your Christian testimony. - Dylan Underwood

Tim Nehrbass, Psalm 1:1-2

(Madelyn Minner's signature)

Nice guitar performance! Had a great time! See ya next year! - Connor J. Smith

CAMP: Part I, 2008

   It all started with a dare, basically.

   One of the biggest tools God's used to shape me so far into who I am now, so much so that it's hard to imagine what life would be like without it, I didn't really want to try at first.

   Okay, let me back up. It's late 2007, early 2008, I'm in eighth grade, and of the few people I'm friends with at our church, Marie and Josh are the closest. We were the young kids, just into the youth group, and scared to death to breathe, pretty much, in there, afraid we'd get made fun of or ridiculed. So we banded together for protection. Well, it comes time for our annual trek to church camp in Missouri, and she's trying to convince us to come along. Like, week-after-week-after-week sales pitches. We finally halfheartedly agree to the plan, a "I-will-if-you-will" sort of thing. (She's very persistent that way.) Turns out she can't come because of a family vacation, so that leaves Josh and I without any backup when it comes to figuring this camp stuff out.
   So we, along with three other guys(who all left the church in the next year, we didn't really know any of them) named Bryce, Noah and Jeremy, hit the road in one van with our pastor, Dennis, driving, while the girls(Adriana, Josh's sister Kerra, and her friend Sprite; all of whom had been before) rode with Ana Marie in her van.
   I knew that if I could just get myself to leave, in a few hours I'd be fine and I'd have the time of my life(how much this was based off Marie's sales pitches, Mom's tales of her times at camp, or just intuition, I'm not sure, but all three of those were factors). Just the only thing was; could I force myself to go? I'd never been that far from home for that long, would I be able to make it without my family nearby? My stomach is really sensitive, highly attuned to my stress level, it was upset. This line from the FFH song "I'll Join the Rocks" kept running through my head: "My ship is sailing now/Into an ocean, I can't tell/What's on the other side/But I know if I don't leave/My heart will never forgive me, and I'll be left behind."
   I finally decide to go through with it, since we're already in Tulsa, and already paid the fee and everything. But still...it was scary. There was five young guys that didn't have a clue what to expect out of this thing, it made for a tense five hours. At least Josh had a little help, in stories of people Kerra knew that she'd met there. Dennis was busy trying to A) Remember how to get to the camp, and B) Trying to resolve a dispute in the church over the raising of hands during worship. (And we were also remodeling the church building, too, but that's kind of a different post. But, like all construction projects, what was supposed to end in March lasted til late October, and til then, we met at first an empty warehouse, and then at the library.)

   We go through Joplin and  past Springfield about 45 minutes, until we get to this cute little town called Conway, and some of the prettiest country I've ever seen. Everywhere you look you want to take pictures, it's just so perfect, kinda like Thomas Kinkade's paintings ran into Norman Rockwell's. There's this ridiculous stretch of hills that we freak out on, being nervous already, unexpected dips and rises aren't very pleasant. When your nerves are shot, you really don't want to have to ride a roller coaster on the way to an adventure you can't predict.

   We found the camp, lying on a dirt road six minutes off the highway, get our name tags, and a guy with a mustache named Kevin points me and Josh "All the way to the right" to drop our stuff off. We take a look around. There's a huge barn that has been converted into a cabin and a chapel, the bathroom, a shed used for storing tools and mowers, and this long building that looks a little like a motel, which is probably a bunkhouse.
   We take another look around. "Farthest over on the right, he said?" "Yep, think so..." "That one over there?" "Looks like it..."
   The two of us make our way over the farthest room in the long building over on the right, and look around. Four sets of bunk beds, everything looks very white and clean. "Looks kinda empty." "Yeah...I bet the other people will be here in a minute." We set our stuff out, then hurry over to the dining hall for lunch. It was an interesting experience. About the length of a football field, concrete floor, with four rows of wooden tables and benches, a stainless-steel serving table acting as a divider, and then four ping pong tables on faded blue-and-white checkered linoleum, there's an air-hockey table, too, and then the snack bar. We ate barbeque sandwiches, baked beans and chips, then listened to the orientation speech by the director, a guy named Tim. (The key points: 1; Guys, don't go in the girls' cabins. Ladies, vice versa. 2; Follow the rules, or get sent home. 3; Do not go near the buffaloes in the pasture over there. 4; At cheer camp, you cheer. At golf camp, you golf. At band camp, you play music. At church camp, you study the Bible. That comes first, remember that. One of the most fun things is making new friends and hanging out with people you know, but that's not why we're here.)

   After that, we then had group sessions(grouped by age of campers), and sing/swim time. The girls swam first, so us guys walked down a river-gravel path to a building called the "tabernacle", which was mentioned in some of Mom's stories. (She'd been to the same campground when she was a teenager, though it wasn't run by the same people. One of the stories was about how the tabernacle didn't have any air conditioning, so it got really hot in there. But it's July in the Ozarks, it's always hot. Anyway, it didn't have A/C, so everyone was sweating like crazy(we still do). This one preacher, he always wore a dress shirt with a tie, and you could always tell how much longer his sermon would last by watching his tie; when he was nearly finished, the entire thing would be soaked through and dripping sweat onto the floor.)
   Well, now, it had air-conditioning. A good-sized building, empty save a bunch of chairs and a few tables, has some of the best acoustics I've ever heard. The singing there...it's indescribable. I love the people I've met there)some of my best friends), and the whole experience in general(ask my pals), but I think if I had to pick one favorite activity, it would be the singing. It was led by Tim, with a guy named Jed on the keyboard.

   (Interruption here to note the schedule: Everything from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. is arranged, and you're supposed to move from one place to the next when it's time. Some people hate it at first. Me? I love it. I like knowing what's what, and when and where the next few things are going to be. I like organization.)

   Next was the girls' turn to sing, which means we could swim(or, if we didn't want to swim, throw a ball around, or whatever. Only hour of free time laid out during the day), so it was time to check out the pool. About ordinary size, I suppose, nothing extraordinary about it. Not being much on water, I went in for about twenty minutes, and have never stepped foot inside it again. So I was wandering around, watching people. Some guys were kicking a soccer ball around, a few others were playing catch. There was this one kid, he was just standing there, tossing a Frisbee and then walking over to pick it back up, then throwing it again.
   "Can I play?"
   He looks up at me, not knowing there was anybody there. "Yeah," he shrugs. So the disc comes sailing in towards me, I try to grab it, and miss. I then throw it back, it hooks in a crazy spin and lands thirty feet away from my intended target of the other guy. Repeat five or six times. "You might want to try throwing it like this..." He demonstrates, snapping his wrist like it was holding a skipping rock. "Okay...I'll try that." "And to catch it, you kinda use both hands to slap it, like this." "Uh-huh....thanks." "Sure." "My name's Wesley." "I'm Matt."
   Soon enough it was dinnertime, of spaghetti, garlic bread, and chocolate cake. At mealtimes, in order to feed about sixty to ninety people at once, they go in shifts. The way these shifts are selected is by a series of basic questions, e.g. "If you're wearing a blue shirt, go ahead." "If this is your first time to be here, come on up. " "If you are from...Mississippi, it's your turn!"
 
   Next, it was time for the Tournament Challenge. Now, that's the "Fun and Games" part of it, consisting of archery, Bible trivia,  cabbage ball(which will be explained later), mini golf, ping pong, Ultimate Frisbee, and volleyball, each team(there's six) plays each sport once, and two Worst-to-First wild card sports. Your team is awarded one point for each victory, and the team with the most points at the end of the week wins the prize, which isn't anything much, just a Mad Libs book or two, or a free run through the snack bar, but the winners also get bragging rights, which are must longer-lasting and fun to tease others with. The Worst/First challenges work like this: The team in last place gets to challenge any team they want, in any of the UVC sports they want, and then the next-to-last team gets to pick one of the other teams in one of the other two choices, and then the two remaining teams play each other in whatever sport hasn't been selected yet.
    Up first for the Red team was Ultimate Frisbee against Yellow. Ultimate is pretty much hockey, basketball, soccer, and football thrown together in a blender, it's insane to play, but once you play once, you become addicted. You play with from five to eight players per team, and the object is to score more points than the opponents. There's two end zones, and no end lines, so anything past the goal line is fair play and a touchdown, as long as it's within the sidelines, too. TDs are worth one point each. The Frisbee can only be moved by throwing, you can't move with the disc, but you are allowed one step, or a pivot, or, if receiving, however many reasonable steps needed to slow your momentum. You have to get rid of the Frisbee within ten seconds of receiving it, play switches hands after a touchdown, throw out-of-bounds, interception, or imcompletion.
    Using the newly-gained insights from Matt, I found myself enjoying this game, and the fact that we had two guys(Cody and Daniel) over 6'2" helped a lot, we could just fling it as hard as we could about eight feet off the ground towards the end zone, and one or the other of them'd leap up and snatch it. Easy scores. Maggie kept up a steady stream of encouragement, both on and off the field for her teammates, it helped. And also the fact that Patrick the counselor, an ex-Marine, current cop and all-around good guy, hadn't ever been overseeing a UF game before and wasn't for sure on some of the rules, that didn't hurt either. We got to be the guinea pigs. And we sure did the right amount of squealing and scurrying, the final score ended up being Red 20, Yellow 18, earning us one mark on the dining-hall scoreboard, and setting up the interesting task of forming a mix of friends and strangers into a better understanding of siblings in Christ. That was the highest-ever scoring game of Ultimate played in the last five years that's been recorded, and since I'm kind of a walking encyclopedia of camp facts(those same pals both love and hate me for it), noting every miniscule detail from each separate day, including menu of meals, average miles walked, and most of the Tourney Challenge scores, I'm happy to have taken part in it, and doubt anyone else will ever care. Or they'll just laugh and roll their eyes at my retention of memories. Blue won volleyball 14-7, 2-15, 15-10 over Yellow, Green beat Black 16-15 in cabbage ball, a girl named Haley had her toe broken when someone stepped on her foot.
   Josh and I talked for about an hour that night after heading into the cabin for the night, about  just about everything, it seemed like, and listening to the crickets chirping very loudly.

   Tuesday morning started with devotions at seven, then breakfast at eight, general session of preaching at nine, and then Tourney Challenge. Black beat Blue in cabbage ball 9-7, Red won over Green in volleyball 15-5, 8-4, it was interesting to learn how to play. Yellow beat White in cabbage ball. Then in the BPG section, Blue topped Green in both golf and ping pong, Yellow won Bible trivia 10,000-8,500 over Black, and Red was facing White in archery. It started raining slightly, and since only half of each team could shoot at once, the rest of us watched and talked to each other. I got to chatting with Daniel and Ray, two of my first friends from camp. Never having shot a bow before, it didn't go that well, launching three arrows into the dirt, from two feet, four feet, and seventeen feet away from where I was standing. White won 214-183, I noticed this girl on the other team, she had brown hair and a tan, she reminded me of someone. (Okay, well, actually, nearly everyone I meet reminds me of someone else I know, because as Miss Marple says, "Human nature is much the same everywhere.") She looked kind of like a girl I liked named Maddie, who had just moved two months before. During reading and rest time, right after lunch, I looked her up in my camp book, and found out a few interesting things: This girl was from Mississippi, she had a twin brother also at the camp, her and Maddie's birthdays were a day apart, and they even shared the same name, though it was spelled differently. Her name was Madelyn, it said.

   About three o'clock, I was putting my stuff away in my cabin and walking out, when I heard a voice say sternly, "What are you doing in there?" "Um...I'm putting my stuff away?.." "Well, I could see that. Why are you putting your things in there?" "Because that's where I'm staying, me and a friend-my friend Josh and I, we were told to go there." I stammer, quaking in fear and confusion at apparently breaking some rule that I didn't know of. "By who?" "Uhh....I don't know his name...a big guy, with black hair and a mustache. He said for us to go all the way to the right, so we did." The man nods, thinking. "That must have been Kevin. Let's go over here, we'll get this straightened out." I follow the man, who I find out later everyone calls Brother Larry. Apparently some signals had gotten mixed up, and we were placed in the wrong cabins by mistake. But what was really amazing was that nobody had noticed until then! Of course, we had never been there before, so no one knew us, but still...our new, right, cabin was on the outer left wing, Jed the pianist was in there, so were guys named Nathan and Taylor, and Cody and Taylor's brother Andrew, who were two of my teammates. "We were wondering who those two guys were..." Cody remarked, seeing my stuff being moved into one of the few empty beds.
   After that, I scooted into the dining hall, where I first began to understand one of the passions that wrapped itself around the fabric of these people: Ping Pong. It had always seemed like a game that cool teenagers played, and my aunt loved the game, but I'd never really played it all that much. These guys were amazing! They treated it as an art form, almost; customizing paddles with neat drawings, and then to watch them go at it - Your jaw dropped at their skill. They were moving that ball so fast, hitting it so hard, and spinning it just along the corners of the tables, with as much effort being put in as if they were playing basketball or something. Tim was spectacular, Jason, Jed, Nathan, Rich, Matt, Daniel F. and Jake were terrific. Once every meal was complete, there'd be a stampede for the tables, and then more battles would commence. Jed's mom Terry was even better than he was, also a girl named Lauren was great. I studied them, and made it a goal to beat at least one of them next year, or if I couldn't, to at least stay within about ten points.
   The first of the Worst/Firsts was that night, Green beat Yellow in Ultimate 12-6, White beat Black in volleyball, and Red won over Blue in cabbage ball, 13-9 in five innings. A cabbage ball is technically known as a 16-inch softball, it's slowpitch rules, without gloves. My first thought when we played? "This is so camp..." And it is. What that means, I'm not sure, but it was interesting, even though I was terrible at it. Around 10:05 or so that night, Cody and a few other guys were playing catch with a football, somebody threw it just a touch too high, it skimmed the ceiling, and then destroyed a light bulb. I've never seen anything shatter like that before. From an ordinary light bulb, it went to a hole in the ceiling, with the wires gone and everything. Shards sprayed everywhere, it took a while for them to get that cleaned up.

   Same routine Wednesday morning, there had been some talk about "Who you gonna ask to the dance?" here and there. Matt was like "Go ahead and ask her! Worst she can do is say no thanks, you know? Now, get going!" So after general session Thursday I wander over to where Madelyn is sitting. "Um....Madelyn...could I ask you something?" "Yeah, I guess so." "I was wondering....umm....ahh....well.....if you would.....uhh....." "Yes?"  "If you would - ah, if you would go with me tomorrow night. To the dance. Over there." (I point to the grassy area near the ampitheatre unnecessarily.) Somehow, she's managed to keep a straight face and not laugh me into a hole in the ground. "That sounds great, I'd love to."  I go flying to the cabbage ball field,where Blue beat us 9-7 in three innings the day before, Yellow wins over Black 25 points to 22, and Green wins over White 8-3 in Ultimate Frisbee. Red and Black split golf and ping pong, Yellow tops Blue in archery, 260-160, and Green wins 16,000-15,700 in Bible trivia.
   That day, Tim says "If you want to do something in the talent share, come see me about signing up." I figure, "Well, I'm here, this is already an adventure, I may as well do something else wild and crazy, go sing in front of strangers, to see if I can do it." I sang "Amazing Grace" that night, somewhere between Todd Agnew's version and Billy Ray Cyrus. I wouldn't know whether it was any good or not, but people seemed to enjoy it. A girl named Olivia told me the next morning that all the girls loved it, which was odd to hear, but kind of neat.

The second Worst/First was first thing Thursday morning in Tournament Challenge, Yellow won over Black in Ultimate 8-2, White overcame Black on the volleyball court 15-4, 15-6, and playing cabbage ball for the third time in three days, Red was hammered by Green, losing 12-2.  In golf and ping pong, Yellow swept White, Black squeaked out a one-point win over Green 201-200, and Red won in Bible trivia over Blue 18,500-16,600.
   It's played like Jeopardy, with the questions in the form of answers, and answers in the form of questions. All these obscure facts from the Old Testament and memory verse-related questions, somehow I knew most of the answers when I had a chance to answer. It was fun, and it felt good to actually be able to help my team in something.
   There was this voting for Most Valuable Person on each team, I missed our vote by hurrying out of the dining hall too fast, not wanting to get in trouble for being in the wrong place again. My teammates picked me, for some reason that I still don't understand. That was neat, though, and I was able to get something from the snack bar for free that night.

   The square dance was right between dinner and the general session, it was interesting. I'd never tried square dancing in my life, but Madelyn knew the Virginia Reel, and she was able to help me learn it without too much trouble. Once that was over, it was time for a new dance called the Gay Gordon, where everyone got in a circle and partners were exchanged all throughout. We had to pick somebody new to dance with, so I watched everybody else, to see how they were doing this. Matt asked Madelyn, so I asked the girl he had been dancing with, a glasses-wearing blonde named Ash. She'd seemed like a friendly kind of person, from what I'd seen over the week, kind of quiet. It took awhile for everyone to get in their right places, and even longer to get the steps down right, so there was a lot of time to talk. She was also the oldest child, she had three siblings to my four, and we both enjoyed sports and reading, and wore glasses. I had an idea that she'd show up later in my life, somehow, probably at camp, but I couldn't have guessed what a friend she'd become, one of the five or six camp people I'm closest to. Despite some guy stepping on my foot and causing me to trip, the dance went smoothly, I sat out the next one, it was hot and humid, I was tired, and it looked complicated.
    Then there was the book signing, which was a crazy experience that was really fun. I'd always enjoyed reading through my mom's old scrapbooks, full of memories and pictures of her and her friends in high school, and her yearbooks were neat to pore over, too. I'd always wondered what it'd be like to have something like that, to sign and have your own book signed, to be able to look back and relive the memories. I kind of found out.

   For breakfast Friday morning we had the most gigantic, best-tasting cinnamon roll I've ever had, then the last general session, and then after we packed up we could do whatever we wanted. So I went back to the volleyball court, since that was really fun and I wanted to get better at it. What happened was I ended up drilling Ash about four times trying to serve the ball over the net, she returned the favor a few times, also unintentionally.

 My goal was to try to survive the week. I did that, but more than that, I had the time of my life. I knew even before I left that I wanted to come back next year. And I learned a ton of great new songs.

                                                    # # #
                                          (CAMP BOOK NOTES)

(Notes on counselors)
Elisabeth C - Patrick's wife.
Michele M - Camp nurse, real nice lady
Kevin B - Jed's dad, stuck me and Josh in wrong cabin by mistake
Patrick C - Neat guy, ex-Marine
Larry D - Kept score during cabbage ball
Tom E - Camp photographer
Tim N - Funny, amazing ping pong player, can juggle

(Notes on campers)

Sprite A - That's her real name! One of Kerra's friends, nice
Ashton B - Great pitcher (She was a Red teammate)
Madelyn D - Looks like Maddie's twin, she's Marshall's. Really good singer, nice archer, great dancer, awesome personality (Yeah, I totally went overboard. But that's what I wrote in the margins back then)
Haley D - Broke her toe playing cabbage ball, good dancer
Brittany G - Good athlete, model pretty (Red teammate)
Ash H - Real good dancer, good personality
Maggie H - Very positive, good at encouraging us Red team
Ray P - Ray's going to fashion school soon (She never did, I don't think, just was hoping to)
Kathy S - Nonstop talker, pretty neat, though
Andrew A - Neat guy (Red teammate)
Taylor A - Neat guy
Cody B - Sort of crazy, good with girls and sports (Red teammate)
Jed B - Unbelievable pianist!
Jake B - Can't miss his sideburns.
Kurt C - Fell out of bed and didn't wake up
Marshall D - Madelyn's twin, showed how to kill somebody with tae-kwon-do moves(in talent share)
Matt F - Really cool guy, showed me how to throw a Frisbee better, sister Hannah's writing almost identical to his
Tommy H -Something wrong with him, can't figure out what
Tanner J - Pretty neat guy
Rich L - Really good ping pong player
Daniel N - 6'6" of niceness
Joe P - Annoying
Caleb R - Dressed up as part of the "Hawaiian Mafia", oh brother! (The theme night was Hawaiian stuff. Trench coats are not Hawaiian.)
Matt W - Likes Adriana a LOT (That was freaky, I tried to stay away from them both when I could.)

(CAMP BOOK SIGNINGS)

Wesley - You are a super nice guy! No matter what anyone says, you're great and so was your singing! Hope to see you next year! - Kathy

Wesley, I had a great time with you on my team!  - Hannah Freeland

Wesley, Hey man...you did really GREAT in the talent show. HopeToSeeYouNextYear! Macy

Hey MVP! Glad seein' you this year. It was great roomin' w/you. I'll see you next year. Taylor

Wesley, I'm so glad you came! You are truly an exemplary guy and I think very highly of you. I also got to know you better here, too. - Pastor Dennis

Wesley - You're so great - and loved by all you're around. Thanks for coming! I hope you had a refreshing and wonderful week. In Christ, Kerra F.

WESLEY, You DOMINATED  the talent show! Hope to see you next year! :) leah

Hi Wesley! - Jeremy

Hey dude thanx for making this an awesome year! Mr. MVP, Cody Bieber

Hey MVP, See you nxt year Tommy Henry

Hey Wesley have a rocking summer - Andrew

(Indechipherable scribble that Josh swears is his signature)

Hey, it was really cool getting to know you! Good luck! Ray

Wesley -It was great getting to meet you this year! Hope you come back next time! God bless - Rose

Wesley, so sorry about the cabin thing. Come back anyway. Kevin

Wesley, I hope God has blessed you this week. It was great getting to know you. God bless you in the days to come. Daniel

Wesley - It was so nice having you on our team! Go red!! I hope to see you next year. In Christ, Maggie

Hi! I'm gonna see you this Sunday! - Noah Collins

Read your entire Bible! - Mr Tim  Thanks for camping with us.

Hey Wesley! You are so talented and can sing so well! It has been great getting to know you! Be very blessed! - Sprite Always :) James 4:8

Wesley, it was great that you were on the awesome Red team. You did good. Ashton Brown

You were a great outfielder in cabbage ball. Matthew Freeland

Hey! I had fun at camp with you! Hope to see you next year! Always, Melanie Rucker

This was an interesting first year - bryce

C ya next year Connor Gillo

You dance realy well! See ya! Ash

hey you are amazing at bible trivia - Brittany

Hey Wes! Hope you had a great year! Nice playing ping-pong w/u! Rich Lange

You did great in the talant share Jorgi Henry

hey! I had so much fun at camp with you! hope to see you next year!!! Shelby Henry

Marshall Davis wuz here -> (Squiggly mark)

You were a great dancer! See you next year! Madelyn D. :)

Hey wats up nice meeting can't wait to come back Tanner Juch

Hope you had an awesome week! Nathan Brown

Hey, hope you had a great year. Daniel Freeland

Wesley! It was great to meet you and I love how you did amazing grace! Keep on glorifying God! - Olivia Wilbanks

Westley, It was so nice to meet you! You did wonderful when you sang Amazing Grace!  - Lizzie

(Joe Paxton's signature)

Wesley, you are an incredible guy! Hope to see you next year. Mrs Minner

Hey Wesley! I really enjoyed your singing! Keep up the good work, and remember to give God the glory that He is due! Kelsie C

Spider-Man

     "Who am I? You sure you want to know? My story is not for the faint of heart..."

     That's how the greatest trilogy in cinematic history(arguably, right up there with both sets of Star Wars movies, Back to the Future, and Toy Story, some people would most likely include Indiana Jones and Rocky to that list) opens.

     This story, whose narrator warns us by those intriguing words, begins about forty years before, with a guy named Stan. He was one of those group of people who are born storytellers, and who work at it, too, so that they can improve their stories and engage and please their audience. The audience he worked to wanted tales about heroes(but who doesn't?). In particular, heroes that were teenagers. Stan was a writer in the comic-book industry, and the people buying Marvel comics had spoken. So he got together with a guy he worked with named Steve, and they bounced idea off one another until somebody thought of creating a superhero with the powers of a fly - To crawl up walls, mainly, and be able to move really fast. "A fly? That's...um..." "Kinda dumb?" "Yeeahh." "I guess you've sort of got a point...isn't really that sexy. But I like the idea." "Yeah, just NOT a fly. What about...." (Long list of insects and other creepy crawly things) "...a spider!" "Yeah!!! But what about the alter ego?" "Hmm..."
     The character Stan Lee and Steve Ditka came up with that day was revolutionary to the world of superheroes, and the entertainment world at large: The tale of Peter Parker, a bright but nerdy high school student, skilled at science and physics, who was bitten by a radioactive spider, which injected some of its' DNA into his bloodstream, giving the teen arachnid-like abilities. That wasn't really the incredible part, though. What was, was the fact of who Peter was: A perfectly ordinary person, complete with anxieties and doubts, troubles with zits, girls, his aunt, and paying next month's rent.

     He started out in entertainment, wrestling and TV stunts and such, until his Uncle Ben was killed by a car thief, which began his trajectory into the world's most well-loved superhero. Motivated by vengeance at first, to track down his uncle's killer, but gradually he came to understand something that he'd been told just before the accident, that "With great power, comes great responsibility. I want you to remember that, Pete."

     Over time, throughout the comics(which I have never read), he went to college, got a work-study job in the science department at Empire State University and as a freelancing photographer for the The Daily Bugle newspaper, dealing with his cranky boss J. Jonah Jameson, always ranting against Spidey's protection; dating, first Gwen Stacy and then Mary Jane Watson, dealing with the aftermath of Gwen's death and his best friend Harry Osborn's drug addiction. And then the arsenal of supervillians that have come along over the years: the Green Goblin, the Lizard, Doc Ock, Sandman, Venom, the Rhino, Carnage, the Hobgoblin, many, many others...

     Over nearly fifty years, with who knows how many people writing the stories, a lot of details don't really match up, or sometimes outright contradict each other, so it's hard to tell exactly how the story goes. But for most of us teens and twentysomethings now, we were lured into Spidey's web by the 2002 movie directed by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst. I was twelve or thirteen when I saw it for the first time, and I loved it. Such a well-told story, Pete is so relateable(is that a word?), you know exactly what he's going through. That scene where Pete's taking the trash out, and he has that talk with MJ, we know exactly what that being afraid, yet hopeful for the future, is like. I mean, I ever put some of that scene into my graduation speech, that's how good it is. The nerdiness, it's perfect, like when he's trying to figure out how to use his webs, that quick little montage of fourteen different ways that don't shoot, with the sound effects and grunts and everything. One of the things that really made an impact om me was the scene in front of the library, when Uncle Ben delivers the "With great power comes great responsibility" line, before that, he says: "These are the years a man changes into what he's going to become for the rest of his life. Be careful who you change into." As a young teen, that really stuck, I've tried to heed that advice. The last scene, in the cemetery, was not written well, at all, way too over-dramatic and sappy. But we understand what's going on in his mind, the pain he's facing: "No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, the ones I love will always be the ones who pay." That's why he tells MJ that "I will always be there for you, I will always keep you safe. I will always...be your friend." "Only a friend?" "...That's all I have to give." It tears us apart inside, to hear that she loves him, to know that he's loved her since he was six, but yet he can't say it, can't act on it. But, really...isn't that part of really being a hero, really loving someone? To keep them safe and happy, out of danger and trouble as much as possible, even if it rips us apart to do that? Because it's better for them? And, in an odd way, even Norman Osborn knows that, telling Peter not to tell Harry about his past as the Green Goblin.

     And then it continues two years later, both in the story's timeline and literally, with the second movie of the trilogy. Pete's just been fired from his pizza delivery job, JJJ is bashing Spidey every chance he gets, Aunt May is being evicted from her house, Harry won't hardly talk to him, and MJ just started tentatively making something out on Broadway and as a model...which means her face plastered up on billboards everywhere throughout the city. College isn't going all that well, not having that much time to study, things aren't looking very good. And Mary Jane has just gotten engaged to this hotshot astronaut, who just happens to be Jameson's son. That night Peter has dinner with Otto Octavious and his wife Rosie, they talk about poetry, how they met, about science, and the nuclear fission device the doctor is working on. Rosie asks if Pete has a girlfriend, he says "Um...I don't really know..." Doc kinda laughs at him, but isn't that how a lot of us guys feel sometimes? Then, of course, the reactor explodes, tearing everything apart, shredding Rosie by flying glass shards, and melting the inhibitor chip, which lets the tentacles take over and drives Doc Ock insane. Pete has a lot on his plate, he loses sight of what he's supposed to do, he even loses his powers there for a while. Aunt May reminds him, while packing for her move, that there's a little bit of a hero inside all of us, that sometimes we just need an extra-special hero to give us that spark of courage to go about our everyday lives. In the climatic fight at the end of the film, the reactor is proving too powerful, it has to be destroyed. Peter reminds Doctor Octavious that intelligence is a privilege, and should be treated as such, to use for good, and not for evil. "And...sometimes...we have to be steady, let our dreams go, in order to do what's right, even if it means giving up what we want most." Don't we need to be reminded of that? He realizes what the tentacles have done to him, blinded him into thinking he was serving the greater good, when really it was too powerful a creation, too destructive, too harmful. So he drowns the reactor, and in so doing also drowns himself. Kind of a parallel to what Christ did on the cross, not a perfect one, but the similarities can easily be drawn.

     Two years after that in the storyline, and three years in reality, Peter and MJ are finally together, Harry's figured out that Pete is Spider-Man, and everyone loves him while MJ's career is falling apart. Vanity can get to you, and for him, it does. He becomes a jerk, basically, angering Mary Jane by never taking the time to actually listen to what her problems are, always leaping ahead to Spider-Man this, Spidey that. And the fact that Harry discovered his father's stash of Oscorp goodies at the end of the second movie just sets up perfectly. So now not only does Harry have the malice behind him to crush that little bug, he now has the tools, too. During a long, bewildering fight as Pete's on his way to ask Mary Jane to marry him, Harry is tripped and knocked unconscious, getting amnesia, and the last thing he remember's the three of them are all still starting college, and none of these webs and criss-crosses that happened, they're all still friends. That throws a new wrinkle in things, proves to be a pretty big storyline. And this escaped convict, Flint Marko, he gets loose, to see his daughter Penny, stricken with cancer. He didn't have the money or anything to pay for treatment, so he tried to raise some cash the fastest way he could find: By holding up some people. That didn't go as planned, and he inadvertly shot Uncle Ben. He was later arrested, and in his escape from the police, crossed into a particle reactor test, becoming...well, sand. With rage at that, at his inablilty to help his daughter, his anger at Spider-Man, and generally the world, he goes on a rampage. Also, there's this otherworldly symbiote that attaches itself to Peter, bringing up his levels of aggression and confidence, he realizes eventually it's turned him into something he's not, in a fierce struggle on a Catholic church roof, he separates himself from the symbiote, which then bonds with a recently fired Daily Bugle photographer named Eddie Brock, who hates Parker for exposing the fact that he cheated, he becomes Venom. (Wow...these plots are crazy to explain. Of course, I've never been good at summarizing books or movies, I study them too in-depth, but still...Trust me: they make sense when you watch them!! Wonderful movies.) Anyway, before proposing to MJ, he talks with Aunt May about it. She gives him some good advice about how to treat your wife, how that a man has to put the woman he wants before himself, and his wants and desires. That you should take your time, plan carefully, not rush into something as big as that.
     Well, over time, Harry regains his memory, remembers his vow to kill Spider-Man, there's a mini-fight there. Peter pleads with his best friend, that Mary Jane's in trouble. They need to put aside their differences and work together to save her. During that ultimate fight, Venom and Sandman have teamed up to eradicate Spider-Man, Harry(as the New Goblin) comes to his aid just when he needs it most. During the course of the battle, Eddie is separated from the symbiote, Pete's telling him that "I know what it does to you, what it feels like. It isn't safe, it's dangerous." One of Harry's pumpkin bombs blows it up, but not before Eddie leaps desperately back towards the symbiote, not willing to give up his newfound power, and thus dying in the process. Harry was mortally wounded, but working together they manage to save Mary Jane and thwart Venom, Eddie dies in the explosion, daylight comes, and Harry lies there dying, with MJ and Pete beside him, with nothing they can do.
     Flint Marko states quietly, gesturing at the destruction and debris, "I didn't want this, but I had no choice." "We always have a choice. You had a choice when you killed my uncle." "My daughter was dying, I needed money. I was scared...I told your uncle all I wanted was the car, he said to me..'Why don't you just put the gun down, and go home?' I know now he was just tryin' to help me. Then I saw my partner running over with the cash...and the gun was in my hand. Did a terrible thing to you, I spent a lot of nights wishin' I could take it back. Not asking you to forgive me, I just want you to understand." Peter swallows. "I've done terrible things, too." "I didn't choose to be this...the only thing left to me now, is my daughter." Peter stares at him, dealing with some long-held emotion. "I forgive you." Marko nods, then floats away, leaving Peter to go back to Harry.
     "I'm sorry I hurt you, said those things..." "None of that matters, Peter. I'm your friend." He nods, "Best friend." he whispers. And then...he's gone, leaving a gaping hole in both his best friend's lives. As the credits start to come in, this is Peter's final monolgue: "Whatever comes out way, whatever battle we have raging inside us, we'll always have a choice. My friend Harry taught me that. He chose to be the best in himself...it's our choices that make us who we are, and we can always choose to do what's right."

     I've made the movies sound like they're just one big love story, which in a way, they are...but they're so much more than that. All the action(they are action movies, after all), can't really be described all that well. And they definitely have elements of comedy, too; all the pathos of how perfectly awful things in Peter's life are going, the witticisms and barbs thrown back and forth during battles, Mr Dinkovich the landlord and his daughter Ursula. They're all well-edited, the way it cuts quickly, leaves you spinning for a second with an unexpected cut, implying action so well. And they way all three movies tie together so well, the little things you don't notice until you've come to know the characters, what they're going through, what each inside joke or uncomfortable pause means.
     And they're so...inspiring, somehow. They make you think, they make you laugh, they make you cry, they're good pictures, to paraphrase Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Edsel Adams. You want to strive to be more heroic, to fulfill your little mundane everyday tasks well, even the ones that people don't really notice if they're done or not. That's what Spidey's whole job is, most of the time; and compared to him, what do we have to complain about? Sure, our problems are numerous and ever-expanding, it seems like, but we don't have supervillians on our tail, besides all that. We might be having trouble talking with a friend or something, but he's not scheming to kill us. Our personal problems and relationships might be chaotic, but not anywhere near as messy as what Pete, MJ and Harry are going through. When life gets tough and God throws a new disaster into our lives to grow us, well, hang on and fight through it, we'll get whatever help we need at exactly the right time(By the way, witty comebacks towards the direction of the problem don't hurt, either).  The advice given and wisdom shared that we get to understand, is invaluable. These are just some of the reasons why I love these movies, and why the web-slinger is my favorite superhero.

     (Postscript, occurring five years after the conclusion of the trilogy.)
     They had planed on making a third sequel, a fourth movie, to come out in 2010, but somewhere along in production, that plan fell through. With Sony having to use the character within a certain amount of time to avoid having the rights return to Marvel penalty-free, they had to whip something up in a hurry. Meanwhile, all of us fans were curious to see when the wall-crawler would return, and what story would be spun around him this time. We weren't exactly expecting the one we got. It was completely recast, with a new director and everything, a total reboot of the franchise, which took two years more than anticipated to hit the big screen.
     Anyway, with heading off to college soon and everything, I needed a change to get myself ready for whatever is thrown my way here in a couple weeks. I was kind of stuck in a rut, doing the same type of things day after day, etc. So I think about what might be labeled an adventure, what was totally out of the ordinary, but still realistically feasible. What I came up with was going to a movie, specifically, The Amazing Spider-Man. Adventure picked. Now who to go with...so I asked around, Sam loved the idea, and it's been forever since we hung out, Josh wanted to come, too. From there it was more like a construction project to plan, once we got when to see it down, then there was the "I wanna come! No, wait, I can't...No, I'll be there!"s to deal with, and then the where-are-we-going-to-see-this problem, which was quite interesting to solve. And, of course, the transportation tangle of getting from the church to the theater and back home. But, anyway, Sam and I got all those details figured out, and we set out after church last Sunday to go see the movie. There was me, Sam, and Marie(the Seniors); Josh and Suzanna; my sister Courtney; writing buddy Cassie; Bennett, the oh-so-fun-to-tease; Katie and Lilya. Lunch had its...interesting moments, which won't be revealed on here, but caused frowns, groans, and hysterical laughter(but then, it's most of our youth group, that 's kinda to be expected, haha). We made a wrong turn coming out of the mall, ended up walking around the whole entire place like it's Jericho or something, til we finally get on the right track, and then it's a race against time to get to the theater before the show starts.
     We make it - barely - endure the waiting-for-those-ordering-popcorn, find our seats as the previews are starting. They went for twenty solid minutes!!! Once the movie got rolling...you could feel the difference right from the title opening. It had a slow, meandering pace, interspersed with authentic-looking violence, and the camera didn't cut away, it just showed everything. The actors playing Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy(some British dude named Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone) seemed way too old for their roles, there was a lot of mumbling. It took some getting used to, Aunt May and Uncle Ben were much younger, he was killed in a different way, and the spider bite was much different.  We knew that coming in, but it's hard to tie together with all the memories of the trilogy, to reconcile those contradictions and stuff that I mentioned earlier. Peter rides a skateboard? And his hair was too cool-looking to be a nerd, that was distracting. The writing felt like it was patched together in a hurry(it no doubt was), but then do you have to over-act it, too? The only character I believed was Curt Connors, everyone else seemed too forced.
     The plot: Peter's parents disappear when he's four years old, leaving him with Uncle Ben and Aunt May, who raise him. He grow into kind of a jerk, really; when the basement floods, he finds a briefcase that had belonged to his dad while saving stuff from water damage, and looks into it. He finds...well, not much. A few scraps of things his father used in his work, a lead in the form of an old newspaper clipping. So begins Peter's quest to find out what exactly happened to his parents. He accidentally gets bitten by a radioactive spider and unintentionally turns Dr Connors into the Lizard, and only reluctantly goes into the superoing business, after numerous vigilante attacks on muggers who might have killed his uncle. It's a more subtle film, I guess you could say, than the others, supposedly more in line with the way he got started in the comics. Jonah's always railing against this masked menace called Spider-Man, well, maybe he has a point. There was still some entertaining moments, Stan Lee's cameo was the best yet, the way he yanks the keys off his laptop while researching spider bites, that sort of thing, which was interesting. And a few good one-liners, like when he comes to Gwen's apartment for dinner one night, knocking on her window. "How'd you get up here?" "Fire escape. You have a very intimidating doorman." The little things like bringing Aunt May a carton of eggs after a long night out, or wolfing down her meatloaf. "Something's wrong, Ben..." "I'll say....nobody likes your meatloaf." "....They don't? Why didn't you tell me that thirty-seven years ago? Do you know how many times I've made that?" The scene where Peter asks Gwen out was good, seemed like it could happen easily. (There were about twenty people in the theater, counting our ten. I probably heard fifteen laugh out loud there.) It was interesting. Didn't have much of a plot, and what there was was tangled up in a cobweb, but since this is the beginning of a new trilogy, holds some promise. Compared to the trilogy, it was far inferior, compared to the story of the first movie, it's lacking, but I think as a movie, it might be about equal. I'll definitely need to see it again. It's another side of Spidey, one that's darker, but that needs to be examined, in order to better understand who he is.

Fourth of July and Andy Griffith

   It's July already? How'd it get here so fast, and where's the year gotten to, with its' being half gone and all? Well, since I haven't posted anything in about three or four weeks, here's what happened: Oklahoma City lost in Game 5 of the 2012 NBA Finals to Miami, I never got around to writing a post for that. My dad had surgery a few weeks ago, so been taking care of him, the Internet was out, and nothing much worth blogging about presented itself.

   The Fourth of July was Wednesday, in case anybody didn't notice. It was a typical holiday for us - in other words, just another day, with no special things planned or anything. My little brothers set off fireworks, the annual army man battle where there's loads of multcolored smoke balls, melted plastic, and firecracker shells scattered all over the sidewalk and driveway. I poked my head out long enough to see how strong the smoke smelled; it was fireworks, all right. I then ducked back into my safe hideyhole and tried to ignore all sights and smells of flames existing for no useful purpose.
   So it was a good time to think about how this country got started, what it took for us to have this country we live in today. The Founding Fathers, they were pretty well-off, the famous ones everyone remembers. Yet they believed in the cause of liberty so strongly that they were willing to risk not only their monetary fortunes, but also the friendly ties/perks they might have had with the English overlords, and whatever comforts and safeties those provided. They went so far as to risk their lives for what they thought was right. And many of them had families to support, and this decision would have impacted them, as well.
   Would we have the same courage, the unshakable strength and endurance to do the same? I don't think we would, much as we might say so, or wish so. As society has moved farther and farther away from the Christian roots and values we started with, something of that courage was lost, somehow. Not that large a percentage of people want to grow up to be soldiers(though I can think of a handful of people I know who chose that path off the top of my head), because it's dangerous. We might die or be seriously injured. No matter how tame the service time is, you will be forever changed. And is this country really worth defending, anyway? Rarely do you see people who believe it is, and who'll do what they can to try to keep us on the right track.
   Paul Revere went galloping through, warning us of the British attack on the way. George Washington led the army, through unimaginable stress and difficulties. Lafayette was aiding a country he didn't even belong to; how much firmer a belief can you get than that? Ben Franklin used his pen, mouth, wit and brains to lay the framework for the Revolution, and a ton of opinionated men fought and quarreled and haggled their way into setting aside most of their personal issues with each other to agree to take an enormous plunge into the unknown; Breaking off from England and declaring independence as a new sovereign nation. Once they finally agreed to that, somebody had to write out the announcement, and had to choose just the right phrasing and make certain points and truths stand out. And he had to turn this document in for editing in two days. No pressure or anything. The man chosen for this endeavor was a man by the name of Thomas Jefferson. So he began writing. And thinking, and wrestling with his thoughts, trying to make the words untangle themselves into straight lines of clear thought. There was a war on, of course, so imports of British products were scarce and expensive. Jefferson used what he had to write with; and set to work using the backside of a spare sheet of wallpaper he had laying around the house. (Funny thing about Jefferson, he was a man of many talents; one of which was home construction. Always working on something or other.) He kept at it well into the middle of the night, and what my grandpa(sixteen generations  removed, on my mom's side) wrote became one of the most famous documents in the history of mankind: The Declaration of Independence.

   Fast forward about a hundred and fifty years, to a small town called Mount Airy, right in the heart of North Carolina, where a little boy named Andrew was born to the Griffiths. Andy, he fell in love with music(girls weren't for him, he never knew how to act around 'em), and once he got done with his schooling became a high school music teacher. Well, he was one of those fellas that ya call a quick wit, and people thought he was pretty good at makin' jokes and such, and by golly, he should go up and try to see what happened by using those! So off he goes to New York as a comedian, and he's doing pretty well at it. He has a monologue called "What It Was, Was Football" that gets featured on the Ed Sullivan Show, and that kickstarts his career in the entertainment industry.
   So after five or six years of being a pretty successful comedian, who can sing, too, one of these Broadway plays asks him to try out for a part. Well, he does, he auditions for the part, and what do you know, but he gets it. That play does pretty well, and he gets a part in another, and another, including one called No Time For Seargeants  That was turned into a movie by those people out in Hollywood, and they see if he can be in the movie, too, since the play went so well. He goes to California, stars in the picture, and it does pretty well, leading to another film, A Face in the Crowd. That does pretty well, too, and so by and by it comes that CBS is trying to pitch a new show, a comedy, and they want Andy Griffith to star in it. They shoot the pilot, which was in reality an episode of another show they had, starring a guy named Danny Thomas, and it goes okay, some people liked it. This other comedian, named Don Knotts, he calls up Andy and says "Don't you need a deputy on that new show you're gonna be in?" Andy and the producer, Sheldon Leonard, look at each other a minute. "Well, yeah...I guess we could use one." "Great! Can I be him?" Well, they figure it up that Andy is a single father, as well as the town sheriff and justice of the peace, his wife died years ago, and he has a little boy, around six years old. They cast a little redhead named Ronny Howard as Andy's son Opie, and well, someone needs to look after these characters, they cain't just be tromping along all by themselves! People'd start to talk, y'see, and they'd get to wonderin' why this, and why that, and who's looking after these folks? Ain't there no women in this town? They find a lady named Francis Bavier, a classically trained actress, huge on Broadway thirty years ago, and slightly cantankerous and hard to deal with, but she fit the role well, and so became Andy's aunt and housekeeper. The show that followed, of course, was The Andy Griffith Show; for most of the nine-season run viewers across America grew to love  Andy's taking care of the scrapes that Barney or Opie get into, listen in on the party line with Aunt Bee and Clara gossiping, and groan in anticipation of the mayhem from the mountain folk on their infrequent visits to town. And Mayberry itself was just so likable!
   After "TAGS" went off the air, and several moderately successful at best TV movies and advertising spots later, Andy became the star of a new CBS series, as a friendly and shrewd lawyer named Matlock. That show also did well, and he retired from acting due to burnout and old age catching up to him, leaving him time to (finally) focus on music. He did several albums, and Brad Paisley asked him to help with a song he'd written, called "Waitin' On A Woman." While another fantastic song from Brad, the video made for it was even better.
   Andy Griffith was a great actor, a hilarious storyteller, and a good man. He passed away in his Mount Airy home Tuesday morning at the age of eighty-six, he will be greatly missed. While sad, we know that we all have to go sometime, and this includes famous people we've come to love like family, and his work will continue to be cherished and loved by untold counts of people. A fine example of a life well spent, much like the Founding Fathers hoped their descendants would live.