Entries this day: SWUUSI SWUUSI_by_Dane_Dormio

SWUUSI

1997 SWUUSI review by Rob

SWUUSI 1997 by Rob

26 July 1997

Drove up here after Bobby, Erika, and Nathan drove to Houston and spent the night at our apartment. Altogether we had Me, Jason Fricke, Mike Noyse, Bobby Hall, Erika Hewitt, and Nathan Ryan.

Stopped a couple times along the way and Nathan needed a white t-shirt, so we stopped in at Albertson's in Denton. Found a package that was open, so we got two shirts for two bucks. Cool.

Drove drove drove and then over a hill and wow- beautiful Lake Texoma longer wide than we could see. It has been 10 years since I crossed this bridge to get to SWUUSI back in my halcyon days of YRUUdom. 10 years! And the memories flooded back. I have to totally go see where we used to hang out.. The Point, where Karina and I made a pile of rocks using only our feet until it was tall enough to reach out of the shallow water. Bayview Lodge, where we piled everyone into 2 beds, made potato print t-shirts, .. everything.

But not this year. This year our biological nature station thing is nestled beautifully in the trees overlooking the lake. Breathtaking!!! We need to get a poet up here!

We fell out of the cars like puppies, excited to greet our new home for a week. We hugged Andy Andrews, Amanda Hovland, Daniel Polk. Wow wow wow!!!! First thing we went for a walk down the asphalt drive down to the boat docks. First thing I noticed on the way down is that the asphalt was HOT. Hot hot hot hot hot. Amanda pointed out that I wasn't wearing shoes. Hmmmm.

I went out the rocky peninsula as the rest of em went into the covered boat dock area. We tossed the frisbee back and forth between me and them, taunting the wind to blow the frisbee into the water. Close- but we were able to get it out with a stick.

And then up to the rooms!! Amazing with couches and desks and bunk beds and air conditioning and separate fridge and a door to the patio out back!!

We just had the SWUUSI planning meeting. Wonderful to watch the youth deliberate and determine the rules that were appropriate, allowing freedom for fun, safety from danger and stuff.

I grabbed my pizza colored dogbone pillow as I lay on the floor looking at many pictures taken by Arlene Dormio from the New Orleans Rally. Lots of fun memories from there.

Now it's dinnertime.

After a wonderful dinner (where I had to wear shoes) we decided to swim. I got my trunks on, and went running with frisbee toward the lake. I threw it into the wind and caught it a couple of times and then I realized I had lost my toe ring! Doh!!
So I walked carefully searching the ground for where I had been running and did not find it. Jason, Andy and Dane helped. After not too long, Dane found it. Yay Dane!! It had split at the seam; I'll have to get it re-soldered when we get back.

Walked toward the beach and OW!! big cockleburs had stabbed deeply into my foot. Dang dang dangit!! Dane helped me pull them out, and then carried me on his back to the lake. Then, much to my (almost) surprise, ran straight into the water without regard to his jeans or shirt or wallet (or my shirt).. The water is orgasmically fabulously, astonishingly wonderfully warm. Awww yeah warmer than a bath! Well, as warm as a bath. Incredible.

In our warm wonderful bath, we splashed around, played mar
c
o polo, had chicken fights, had non-chicken fights, waved to a jet skiier, and just had a great time. The best silly fun for me was when we found some tires half buried in the bottom of the lake and Jason and I played King of the Tire. That was cool. Bryan Beck and Dane Dormio joined after we played for a while and we goofed around, pushing each other off the tires, while trying to stay balanced.

The sun went down, and we decided to get out. I left my shirt spread out over the rocky shore, hoping it will be dry when I get it tomorrow.

Mike Noyse walked up to me and was all, "check this out. Here hold this in your left hand near your chest." He handed me an orange. "Okay hold out your right arm." I did this and he pushed down on my right arm. It didn't go down very far. "Okay, now hold this in your left hand near your chest." He handed me a cigarette. Ewww! Then he pushed down on my right arm and it went way far down. Well that's just cause I was grossed out by the cigarette. Or was it?

I went outside to find the other advisors and show them this new experiment. They were already doing it. We attempted to make it more scientific by making the item holder close his or her eyes and having them hold items of equal feel but different healthy-factors. Nothing was proven, but it's certainly an interesting concept.

We are practically out in the middle of nowhere. This is incredible.

It's now 2:00am Sunday..

We had our YAC meeting, our first one as the "new" YAC. We planned to plan our budget, planned some of our plans for the year, and it was generally a productive meeting.

I'm looking forward to Wednesday morning, when I'll present the bead workshop. That will rule. And then Thursday morning when we discuss the most important thing in the world.

So- right now we're planning our budget. And just now I had some fun 2am humor:

Arlene: "Where should we have our YAC retreat?"
Rob: "What would really be cool is we could go camping set up the tent, be cookin' some beans over the fire.."
Arlene:"I think we would spend more time camping than meeting- just trying to survive."
Rob:"'Ohmygod there's a bear! I move that we adjourn the meeting!' ' I second!!' 'All in favor??' Aaaiiiiieeeeee!!!!

After we were done budget planning, Bryan Beck, Melissa Cain and I walked outside just to see what we could see. The sky was not as spectacularly starry as we had expected, but it was still beautiful. As our eyes got more adjusted to the dark, we could see the arm of the Milky Way stretching over us. Awesome. Awesome enough that I ran and got my sleeping bag and we spent a couple hours talking and stargazing. Before it began to get light, I was falling asleep and they kept on talkin'. As it began to get light, I was fully asleep and they decided to continue their conversation elsewhere. I woke up this morning at like 7am.

Slept from 7:20 till breakfast, ate breakfast and then we were on the scramble to get the YAC response to a letter sent to the district board about the YAC. Bryan typed the thing on my computer, then I realized I didn't have a floppy drive on my machine. So he retyped it on Arlene's computer and we copied it to disk, drove to the main camp, but had no printer with which to print it. We helped Connie Nolen set up her computer, but she didn't have software that could read the format. We finally found Ann Jacobson's computer and set it up and YAY!! And we printed it and found an extra copy of the bylaws and got everything signed and copied and at exactly 3pm and had to borrow the stapler from the front desk and Tia and Jeremy zipped up to Room 229 and wow. Done. At least my end was done.

Bryan Beck, Kristian Captain Shallin Kazoo Kris Scott, and I drove back to the Biological Research Center and here we are! Youth are arriving and the energy level is spiraling up and up.

John Thompson from Fatetteville and I decided to go swimming. We asked if anyone else wanted to go, and soon ended up with a group of about 10 people to go swim. Swimming were (I don't know last names yet) Abe from California, Emily, Lindsey, Nicole Catrette, Mike Moren, Rob Nugen (me), Scott, John, Maggie, and one other dude whose name I have forgotten.

When I got to the beach, I was thrilled to see rocks carefully placed on my shirt, which I had left to dry the previous night. They spelled, "HI Rob" and then had a smiley face at the bottom. The people here are so wonderful!!

Everyone slowly made it into the water and we mostly kinda floated around until we did a couple chicken fights, then tried a couple of rounds of the knot game. The freakiest thing was that minnows started to nibble nibble nibble our backs and it was tickly to me but unbearable to some. Pretty funny, I thought.

Then we played marco polo. We played until several people got bored and got out and then everyone else got out until it was just me standing in ankle deep water leading Mike "Marco Forever" Moren out of the lake.

I chilled on the beach for a second to relax and then went to pick up my shirt. I didn't think to take a picture of the "HI Rob," but I will always remember it in my heart. Thank you.

Dinner was dynamic now with 70 crazy bodies instead of only 10. And then the first timers meeting full of jokes about "Debe's gonna take you down!" and "Debe couldn't take an elevator down!!"

Then Opening circle, which went quite well, outside on the basketball court by the pavilion.

Then touch groups. I'm in Aaron Ivener's group, along with Keith Lawlor, who recently went to the Pavement concert, Riley from Arkansas, whose town is smaller in population than this conference, Frank Roesler from OKC, who I don't remember what, and Eric Morrow, also from OKC, who just got a car and drove to SWUUSI this year (and got lost).

After touch groups, Dane and Bryan were walkin' down the hall with clippers, planning to cut Bryan's hair.

Hmmmm. I buzzed my hair using the 1/8" guard on Friday before SWUUSI. I buzzed my hair using no guard tonight. It is short. Feels like velvet. I love it.

Now it's 10:30pm and I'll be an Awake, Aware Alert Advisor until 5am.

Wow- so my hair has been growing for 6.5 hours now.. The coolest things I did were laying out in the field with several youths, watching the stars, and the other was listening to Kris, Aaron, Daniel, and Susanne all play guitar. What a fabulous source of love and positive joyful energy!!!

I just now walked in from outside and nine inch nails "burn" was on the CD player. I cranked it up and let the music grind into my skull for the last 5 minutes of my AAAA duty.

Peace out, G. It's 5am Monday. I'm going to sleep or going to shave my head all the way. Don't know which.

2:40pm Monday. I shaved my head all the way. Bald. I did it myself with Bobby's disposable razor. It's quite an interesting experience. It doesn't look all that different, but it sure feels different. I totally loved it, though I don't know if I'd be comfortable like this all the time. I got a couple pictures taken of me last night then I slept for a few hours and then had breakfast.

During breakfast, a memorandum was passed out to the various tables. Full of grammatical errors, it reminded us that foul language is not appropriate, "specifically the m.f. word overheard last night"

Hilarious in some ways, the letter made it into the Big White Rally Book. However, we want greatly to respect the facilities and their rules, so we'll watch our language..

Then was Jenny Weils' time to speak as our theme speaker on spirituality and some other stuff. It was wonderful. We did a couple of exercises, including a check in, where you tell your name and then give yourself a more immediately appropriate name. Another exercise we did was get into pairs of people and one person says, "I " and the other person after each sentence says simply, "thank you." This exercise went for about 3 minutes. It's really hard to tell someone about only yourself for that long!

I mentioned something about how people like to talk "about themselves" but it's not really about themselves, as this exercise required.

Jenny said, "yes- people like to talk about things that are right beside themselves."

Then we kinda talked about what we'll discuss for the rest of the week.

After the spirituality workshop, we molded Fimo, various colors of claylike stuff that you can bake so it retains its shape. I made a flaming chalice shape with peace symbol colors.

We played with the Ballzak at the swimming beach thing a couple of times. That's pretty fun. Mostly we tried to just volley it and keep it from hitting the water. Erika and I found that it will skip across the water quite nicely if you bounce it with just the right amount of backwards spin.

After dinner, I was walkin' around taking pictures. The funniest ones were of Tiffany, Suzanne, Sarah, and Maggie catching soap bubbles on their tongues. Then they played a game of improv tag, which I joined for a bit until it was time for the special event. At one point, one of them was on the ground, so I froze it and took her place. I re-did a scene from Houston Rally 1986, which Shawn McDaniel did with me. I said, "mom, I want to get a job as a speed bump." She wouldn't let me, so I complained, "you never let me do what I want! You always said I should get a job doing something I love, and I love to lie down!"

She proceeded to show me what it would be like and tried to drive over me. I was laying there yelling, when the scene got frozen again. Sarah took her place and now suddenly I was birthing a baby! I kept yelling and she reminded me to breathe so I did my Lamaz breathing and couldn't take the pain, so I (gently) grabbed her hair and yelled, "I want morphine!!" She gave me an injection to the skull and I began to float around, gently cooing and singing.. We were frozen, and someone took my place and turned it into a ballet. Soon, one of them missed a cue and fell to the ground or something, so I became the director, yelling, "cut! Cut! It's time for the special event!!"

The special event was Casino Night! This time with pixie sticks as currency, there was the roulette wheel used at Houston Rally 1997, two craps tables and two poker tables. I quickly lost all my money at roulette and craps, and I even laundered some empty pixie sticks.

I took several pictures, and then was asked to run a craps table. I was a bit overwhelmed by all the bets that were being placed, "$100 on odd!" "200 on even!" "She'll roll an eight!" "Odd!" so I just started calling, "if you lose, slide 'em in, hold 'em up if you win!" That seemed to work just fine.

My bank had great fluctuations in value, but ended up with lots of cash. The betting was ended and the auction began! I embezzled the bank I had been working, and waited until Jason held up the gumball machine. "$1000!" "$1500!" "$3000!" "$5000!!" Then I called, "Sixty Nine Thousand Dollars!!!" Jason hollered something like, "Rob!! You stole that!" So I ran up toward the booth and then out the door, just being silly. I walked back in after a second and turned in my loot. The rest of the auctioning was full of excitement and fun. I enjoyed watching everyone have a great time. At the end, all the pixie sticks were thrown into the crowd. Yay!!!

My hair feels like 80 grit sandpaper.

Now I am at home. Today is Sunday, a couple of days after SWUUSI, and all I have are a few sparse notes and wonderful memories.

I attended the Worship Workshop, where we designed the worship for Wednesday night, I believe. Most of the ideas we used were given by Tiffany Schneider. I gave essentially zero ideas, but just pointed out a couple of possible problems that they may encounter.

Outside, I took my frisbee and began to toss it way into the air and catch it myself. Soon a few youth joined me and we played catch for a while. I got to give a few pointers on how to throw. At some point, I got to make several throws to John Thompson and Chris Cusak. These were fun throws because John and Chris wanted me to throw as far and as hard as possible so they could practice running, catching and everything. They did quite well.

The Young Adults came that afternoon while several of us were in a great game of Ultimate (frisbee). It's one of my favorite games in the whole world! Paul, who had just arrived with the young adults, joined us.

Everyone played hard and had a great time. At the end, we were all *totally* sweaty and tired. Unfortunately, there were 3 injuries during the game. Frank Roesler re-injured a bruised bone in his foot (I think), I twisted my right ankle, and Scott Burrington twisted his left ankle.

Despite my ankle, I went swimming, wanting the warm buoyancy to keep me off my foot.

We swam until it began to get dark, pushing the limits of, "it's not dark yet!" until it really was pretty dark and I realized one of the balls was floating I swam after it and finally caught it. By the time I got back toward shore, it was totally dark. But I had recovered the ball. Yay!

The worship that night ruled. This is the one that I watched in the planning stages. The worship the previous night hadn't been as great as it coulda been since people kept talking. So we set the mood of this worship from the very beginning. Everyone lined up in the hallway and were led toward the library in which all the lights were off except for a few candles. As each individual entered, they were greeted with a hug and a piece of gum was placed into their mouth. Everyone sat quietly in a circle until everyone else had entered and been seated. The candles around the perimeter of the room were extinguished, and a chalice was lit in the center of the circle. Tiffany read a wonderful poem she had written, describing matches and candles, and then the next portion of the ceremony was presented.

Each person approached the chalice and lit a small candle for someone (who may or may not be at SWUUSI), and placed the candle in the sand around the chalice. Then put their gum on a small plate beside the sand. (Actually the plate was a lid to a peanut butter jar) This process took way longer than expected. However, everyone was silent during the entire ceremony. Silent! (oops i mean silent) It was incredible. After everyone had lit their candle and placed their gum (except for myself who forgot to place my gum and swallowed it instead) a last candle was lit and stuck into the pile of gum, representing the entire community working together.

Emotions were incredibly high. As the worship ended, tears and hugs were everywhere. About 15 people stayed and we endlessly sang "we are a circle within a circle, with no beginning and never ending," arm in arm around the chalice, watching the candles burn. A few people were there until every candle had burned completely out. I understand the experience was unlike any other.

That night I slept with ice on my ankle for several hours on a couch in the front room.

The next morning, Jenny Weils 1.5 year old son joined us during the spirituality workshop. If I remember correctly, Maggie, Sarah, Jordan and Amber took care of him during this time. The workshop this day included a discussion on prayer. What is prayer? How is it different than meditation? To who/what are we actually praying? Does it matter who/what? Does prayer actually work?

At noon that day I led the bead workshop. We had about a million beads and about 10 youth and plenty of creativity. I showed them how to make a simple daisy and then gave it to the first one who held out their hand (I think Jordan). All variety of bead necklaces, bracelets, rings, etc were created mostly in silence. It turned out to be a pretty good type of meditation for most.

Soon, I had to leave with 4 youth members of YAC for a meeting with district boards members at the main lodge. The meeting started as a get-to-know-ya meeting, but quickly turned into a let's-all-meet-and-rewrite-the-yruu-bylaws meeting. The logic behind this is to keep the YAC from being turned down year after year by the SWUUC board. If bylaws are designed by everyone who must approve them, then the approval should be much easier. This seemed to be a good idea to most, and I was happy with it because the entire YAC is invited to this Summit. The YAC Summit will be held in Austin 10-12 October 1997. If you would like us to present any ideas, let YAC know by 12 September 1997.

That night was the Lammas ceremony. The coolest thing-as we were driving up to the site, I saw my mom walkin' toward it! "That's my mom! Let me out!" So I hopped out of the car and walked with her to the site. We briefly exchanged stories and ideas until the ceremony began. I highly enjoyed talking to her as an what an interesting experience!

Karen Rinehart-Morgan, now in the young adults group joined us in the circle. She and I hung out and sang out throughout the entire ceremony. The circle was cast, and the entire group requested the power of the four directions/elements in turn. We were nourished with bread and then performed the round and round wiggly crazy spiral dance hand in hand while endlessly chanting/singing "we all come from the Goddess, and to her we shall return like a drop of rain, flowing to the ocean" and "hoof and horn hoof and horn, all that dies shall be reborn, corn and grain corn and grain, all that falls shall rise again." Then we thanked all four directions/elements and the circle was opened but not broken and everyone laughed and hugged and talked and it was beautiful.

A small fiasco was required to get all the youth into the vans/cars so we could go to our customary pancake place for wild and crazy pancake night!

We entirely filled the pancake place. Shortly after we arrived, I noted that some of my old rally buds were there! I had just seen Shawn McDaniel at Ft Worth, so he wasn't too hard to recognize. I remembered Joe Kast's name, but I couldn't think of Gail Keen's. But isn't that amazing??? 10 years ago we used to play!!!

The waitstaff handled us fabulously well; youth were almost bouncing off the walls after such an energy boost as Lammas. I was equally nutty, and I mostly remember myself, Bryan Beck, Austin Roth, and maybe someone else going crazy beat boxing out in the parking lot. Bryan said that last year they got in trouble for being so loud. We didn't have that problem this year.

I stayed up all night , high on sugar and love and happiness. Soon after we got back, I put on Beastie Boys on the CD player in the main living room area. Several youth were alert but crashed on the couches, while some others were buzzing alert playing cards. I danced my brains out to Beastie Boys and then put on much slower gentler Tori Amos and lay down to listen to her.

Once I had recovered, I played the "Set" game, owned by Melissa Cain. It's a pretty interesting/almost complex pattern matching game played with cards. Once I figured out how to play (although not as well as the youth), I joined Charlotte Benbenek-Price, Marie Shallin, and Marsha Murphy (I think) in a long game of Egyptian Rat Screw. We were silly!! Actually, it was mostly Marie who was quite the silliest. Charlotte and I shook our heads in amazement, while Marsha, being at her first YRUU anything, just kinda let it slide.

During this game, I kept on saying "Whassup Dog?" or "go, dog!" or whatever, using the pronoun "dog." Charolette would reply, "Cat?" and then we'd both say, "Swordfish? Trilobite!!!" with all the intensity that 5am humor can bring. I can't begin to tell you how funny that was at 5am.

At about 6 or 7am I went to bed for about 1.5 hours.

This day, Thursday, after the final spirituality workshop with Jenny Weil, I went into the main room looking for anyone who wanted to participate in the discussion on The Most Important Thing in the World. Dane Dormio, Tiffany Bush, and I think Laura Andrews and then Erika Hewitt, another advisor joined us. More precisely, this was a discussion on "What is the most important thing for humans to do in the world?" We wondered at first if there could in fact be a most important thing to do in the world. Assuming there was, we determined it is something like being nice to people and having fun in life. What I remember most is that Dane and I have almost exactly the same view of the universe, briefly, that each person is an aspect of God, learning about God's self. As Dane was describing his view, I was amazed at how well it matched mine. The next most memorable thing was how astonished Erika became as I told her my version of Joe McMoneagle's near death experience. Then after reading a portion of his book, Mind Trek,she was really amazed! If you're interested, read the whole book; it's quite good.

That night was the wild wacky wild crazy nutty zany talent show! It started out tamely enough, with Adam Lock telling a really bad martian joke, and then me not telling the joke that begins, "One day there was this . And he really loved clowns." Instead, ck_scott and Aaron Ivener played some guitar song and then Dorthea Micklea danced with them to a cover of "Groove is in the Heart" by Deee Light. Then something else and then the great Spam eating performance, and another something else and about the time that Frank Roesler did an improv version of some song, and Bryan Beck and I performed our cover of "Havin' a Roni" by Vanilla Ice, the Groovy Juice kicked in and the whole place got crazy. Next thing I remember is Willy Wagner, Daniel Kaminsky and Nathan Sexton performing as the 3 Headed Wonder, and then I think that's when Jason Fricke and Austin Roth(?) carried Bryan Beck, giggling uncontrollably, and dumped him on the stage. Then Jason Fricke, Jeremy Loomis-Norris(?) and I each drank a third of a 2 liter of Surge and it was great. Just as everyone thought the show was over, we advisors called them all back for the last performance, our version of "Yogi Bear" Instead of each verse describing Yogi or one of his friends, each verse described one of the advisors! Mine went something like, "Rob thinks he's an adult, . Yeah, right" We had great fun.

Then the YAC had a meeting, which proved somewhat difficult for our concentration, so we discussed a few issues and decided to move the rest to our next meeting.

Then the last and most beautiful worship. We started with an Angel Wash, where each person walks between two rows of people who use their hands and brush over the aura of the person walking through the line. Then we sat in a circle and offered thoughts about the week. I cried, listening to the incredible level of emotional sharing between the youth. I was not alone; I could hear many sniffles throughout the room. It was beautiful.

Afterwards, many people stayed and hugged forever. After probably 20 minutes of hugs all around, the several remaining people agreed that now would be a great time for a dance!

Beastie Boys, that crazy Seasamee Street song (twice!) and tons of stuff until we were just soaked with sweat. Then it was declared to be a great time to watch the videos John Thompson had candidly recorded during the week. Most hilarious was stuff from the talent show.

The movies began to get kinda long and not quite so entertaining, so I went to sleep. It was probably 4:30 in the am. I slept until about 7:30, ignoring the insanity that began at 6:30, starring Debe running through the hallways, banging a pot or something, "it's time to get up!! Wake up and get your stuff packed! We gotta have this place clean in 2 hours!!"

I meditated as I packed, remembering all the greatness of the week, making certain I packed everything I had brought. I woulda forgotten my copy of Mind Trek, but it ended up on the lost and found ping-pong table. I had given up on finding my SWUUSI shirt, but I got it back because when I first got it, I had immediately written my name on the tag.

Many many many hugs were given all over the place. We had a surprise for Julie Sexton when she came to pick up her son Nathan. Everyone crowded between her and him, and we told her we had a surprise. She told us to "part like the Red Sea" which is pretty ironic because, surprise! Nathan not only had magenta hair, his whole torso was practically red. This was a result of the tie dye workshop, through which I had slept.

While we were waiting for parental units to arrive, someone called me over. "Hey, Rob- who is your step sister?" I hugged Alicia Montgomery, much to their surprise. It's true!! The craziest part is that my dear rally friend Karina Montgomery (Alicia's half sister) and I knew each other way before our respective parents met and got married.

I waited until Alicia was picked up by her dad, and then Jason Fricke and I cruised.

On the way home, Jason and I worked on YAC stuff. We essentially proved that youth from the various churches must design the rallies, and Jason sketched out a structure of responsibility from YRUU up through YAC to the district board. I think the idea will work wonderfully; it's quite ingenious.

Also on the way home, we each ate about 30 pixie sticks. Maybe more. And when we stopped at Dairy Queen, I ate a medium M&M Blizzard. Lots of people were staring at us- buzz haircut, belt with studs, and white tank top.

We both stayed awake the rest of the way home. I had Jason teach me some lyrics to his favorite songs, and he taught me the difference between punk, ska and oi, his favorite musical genres.

What an incredible trip.

Until San Antonio,

With Love
- Rob

permalink

SWUUSI by Dane Dormio

1997 SWUUSI review by Dane Dormio

Saturday
7/26/96
10:06 pm

SWUUSI hasn't even started, but I've already had a lot of fun. After a relatively short trip, I got here at about 4:00 pm. I came early because my mom's on staff. There was a staff meeting going on when we arrived, but I passed the time talking with Nathan Ryan, who was in the same predicament as me. In what seemed like no time at all the meeting was over, and the few of us who were here already went walking after a short lunch of roast beef, mashed potatoes and gravy, peas and corn. (otherwise known as "the first clash with the lunch ladies") Rob and Jason threw a frisbee back and forth across a small part of the lake that juts in, and of course it ended up in the water, so Rob swam in to get it. Later Rob lost his toe ring while running across some grass, and I saw him and Jason walking around looking for it. I went to help, and following my instincts I found it in about two minutes. Coincidence? Then I piggy-backed bare-footed Rob across the burr-filled grass to save his feet, and dumped him and myself into beautiful lake Texoma. I probably should have remembered to take my wallet and everything else out of my pockets before I jumped in fully clothed and shod.

The water was body temperature, perfect for an evening swim. The lake is great, only two stone's-throws from the main building, but it seems longer if you happen to be carrying Jason Fricke on your back. And the main building is nice, too, although the game room has an annoying smell. The grounds are nice, large and sprawling, or they seem that way to me, although I'm sure they will be cut down when the boundaries are enforced tomorrow. We're in a nice, secluded spot, with lots of trees where I can hang my hammock.

Several of us stayed in the water for a couple of hours, playing Marco Polo and Chicken and King of the Tire (a frustrating game), and waving and yelling at passing pontoons. We all went in before it got dark and I have just been hanging out since then. There's a YAC meeting going on right now, tying up most of the people, and I am in the oddly-scented room writing this. Nancy Mauldin, Julie Sexton, Debe Barnes, and Emily Sessions are discussing plans and food, with occasional helpful comments from Nathan Ryan.

Speaking of food, I think we'll have to be careful in the cafeteria as best we can, because the cafeteria ladies were a little, um, disturbed today at lunch. One of them asked one of the advisors if we were "troubled teens". Isn't that a bit redundant? Yes, of course.

Chillin,
Dane & Dave

Monday
7/28/97
4:54 pm

I just got done attending Debe's mud workshop, but I have no idea what went on because the air conditioner was so loud that I couldn't hear.

Last night kicked a lot of ass, but I should start writing where I left off last time. Most of Saturday night and Sunday morning was spent in preparation, doing business stuff. I waited around impatiently most of the time while everybody else worked, since I'm not on staff. The first person to show up was Joanna Hessel, forty minutes early, and they flowed in pretty steadily after that, until everybody was here a couple of hours later. The last one to arrive was Santiago Webber. He got here earlier today. This is pretty small for a group camp. There are a total of around seventy people, I think seventy-three to be exact, including the advisors and Bryan and Tia, the co-deans.

The mood last night was joyous, and the activity didn't stop all night. The main event started when Bryan wanted to shave his head, and when we started to do that about six other people decided to do the same thing, so it turned into a grand fiasco. Rob's hair had been freshly cut down to 1/8th of an inch, but I cut it even shorter with my clippers. When everyone was finished we were left with some thermally-enhanced clippers and a mess of hair on the floor which had to be swept up. We finished with Maia Cudhea being bald (she was the first one earlier that evening), and also Rob, Bryan Beck, Keith Lawlor, and Frank Roestler had a mowhawk, Adam Lock and Alex Riefenstahl had new undercuts, and Tia Lawlor had the back of her hair shaved underneath.

After that things calmed down a bit and rolled on steadily until morning. Writing this, I have a feeling like I'm leaving out something important but I can't think of what it is.

This morning when I was going to breakfast I noticed that Rob's head looked a little funny, so I felt it and realized that he had shaved it all the way down to the skin with Bobby's razor.

Um, that's all the important stuff I can think of, and I'm tired of writing now. Signing off.

In a good mood,
Dane & Dave

Wednesday
7/30/97
2:42 am

The fimo workshop was yesterday, as well as the mud workshop. The special event was casino night, with pixi stik wannabes used for money. I'm sure it was a lot of fun, but I didn't go. Worship was in the library after it, but I didn't go to that either. I started to, but for some reason I just wasn't up to it. I was in that restless mindset where nothing I do feels comfortable. I feel that way a bit now. All the emotional energy from worship tonight built up and then dropped. I don't think I'll skip worship anymore, though. Tonight's service reminded me how good they can be.

The body painting workshop was this morning, and worship planning and lamas and candle decorating were later. I didn't go to any workshops today, mostly I just hung out in a lazy fashion. The special event this evening was the visitation by the young adults. That was really cool. I almost went to sleep before worship, but as soon as I got into the library I woke up. For the ceremony, everyone was silent while we went around in a circle, each person walking to the middle and lighting one of many small candles from the big flame in the middle, and discarding the gum we had been given on the way in on a saucer representing the community. Then afterwards we got emotional and did lots of hugging and took a picture of all the candles melted in the sand. It turned out that there were exactly the right amount of candles for everybody.

After worship I tried to do some meditation guided by our chaplain Peggy Cheney, but things went wrong and it didn't work. Maybe next time.

I know people complain about the whole cafeteria situation, i.e. wearing shoes and a shirt, and no swearing, , but for all the good it will do here are my thoughts on the subject. The cafeteria rules are a blessing in disguise. If everything went smoothly then group camp would be a lot less exciting. Variety is the spice of life and our problems are a subtle form of variety. The situation we've been put in has sparked a lot of useful creativity. It's not very hard on us at all, but instead is challenging and very entertaining. I have enjoyed all the jokes and pranks that have been a result of the lunch ladie's stinginess. So give them a bow. They deserve it for making group camp more entertaining and memorable.

In a lighter mood now,
Dane

Friday
8-1-97
3:00 am

I skipped writing for two whole days this time, so I have some catching up to do. Workshops yesterday were beads and dream catchers, and later, in the afternoon, Andy took Debe, Erika, John Thompson, Nathan Ryan, Sean Murray, Ben Muller, and me on a geology workshop. We went to the old group camp and learned about fossils. Going back to the sight of my first SWUUSI was so wonderful, it brought back lots of happy memories of that week two years ago. I saved some big pieces of driftwood for some of my friends who had also been there.

After that, at 8:30, we took everybody to the lodge in a couple of vans for the lamas circle. Everybody was smudged as he or she arrived, and when the circles were formed and the bread was eaten and the dance was danced and the friendly, familiar chants were done, I felt uplifted, but I didn't get into it as much as last year. It all wasn't as spectacular as the first time.

Then we zipped off to the Waffle Shoppe for a midnight snack. Surprisingly, they didn't remember us from last year. I didn't order anything, because I wasn't hungry and I wanted to save my money.

After I got back to the bio station I settled down and went to sleep. I woke up for spirit circle and breakfast, then right after I finished eating I sat on a couch in the main room with Tiffany Bush and Amber Foreman for 5 straight hours, a new personal record. I was asleep for an hour, and for the last two hours, right before lunch, I talked with Rob and Erika. It started out as an improvised version of Rob's Most Important Thing in the World workshop, but was mostly a conversation about the nature of god. I'm not quite sure, so don't quote me, but I think we agreed that there is no single most important thing to do in life, because if there were it would mean that there is only one thing that every person is supposed to be doing. In case you were wondering.

This evening we watched a couple of videos that John Thompson had shot of people doing wacky things. They were hilarious and put together excellently. I'm not sure if that was before or after the coffeehouse.

The coffeehouse was the main event tonight. I finally got a taste of some excellent and enlightening groovy juice (for you, Anna) made by Jeremy Loomis-Norris, who, by the way, decided to follow the trend and have his head shaved tonight before worship. The talent show was excellent and went right along with the coffeehouse. There was a lot of singing and playing, and the adult staff's descriptions of themselves set to the tune of "Yogi Bear", and I personally formed 1/3 of the three-headed wonder, aided by Willy Wagner and Nathan Sexton.

The worship tonight was late, 1:00, but it was ten times better than anything I had ever been to. I don't know which was more plentiful; the crying, or the laughing. I didn't cry myself, but there was lots of it going on around me. I don't know why, but for some reason I wasn't totally into the worship. Sure I was emotional, but not as much as everyone else was.

It ended eventually, then the library was used for a dance, and now they are watching videos in there.

Wakeup tomorrow is at 6:30, and I'll write all about the morning on the way home.

Yo, G'night,

Dane
&
Dave

Monday
8/4/97
8:31 am

I lied, I didn't write on the way home, it is now three days later and I am at home. Reflecting, SWUUSI seems so close, yet so far away.

Wake up was at 6:30,Friday morning and I stayed up until about fifty minutes before that before I finally succumbed and fell asleep on a couch in the main room. According to later reports of eye-witnesses, while I was asleep I called out for Dave and my sticks and asked Marie Shallin to sit beside me.

The first thing I saw when I woke up was Drill Sergeant Debbie yelling at me to wake up, then running around screaming randomly and abusing Dave, using him to hit things and make noise. I hadn't been asleep for very long so I woke right up and quickly packed the few things I had taken out back into my bags and carried them out front and set them down. As it turned out, I had a bunch of various belongings scattered about, and every time I turned around I thought of another one I had to find and pack.

Debbie told me to get the pit empty, so I went upstairs and spread the word, then Tia called the touch group leaders and gave them their choices of cleanup patrols. I took the pavilion and the beach, so while three guys policed the pavilion, Willy Wagner, Nathan Sexton, and I combed the beach for the occasional bit of trash that had been dropped in the past week. Fairly simple. Our group hadn't left much trash, but the beach was already littered with every sort of junk you can think of: motor oil and anti-freeze containers, soda cans, beer bottles and cans, food wrappers, bleach and milk jugs, trot lines, and huge mostly-rotten skeletons of catfish and gar. The three of us shared thoughts about how disheartening it was to look at the beautiful beach junked up so badly.

We went back to the main building and things were coming along. The pit was empty of people and bags so I picked up all the trash I could find in it. After what seemed like a very long time all the cleaning was finally finished and we went to the pavilion for closing circle. We sang the buzzard song, and yogi bear, and passed a hug, and described the week by naming it an adjective, and played the knot game, and did the big lap sit thing, and finally the new seniors got in a circle in the center and led a round of good friends and while it was going suddenly broke out with Bish-Bish.

Then we went out front to wait and say our goodbyes there. It was no fun saying goodbye, and it seemed even worse because it was so dragged out. It's a lot easier to say goodbye in twenty minutes than it is over two hours. My mom finally got back with the mug books, not quite in time to catch everybody, and the mugbooks were received in the cafeteria, some assembly required. Outside, everyone was all, "Seeya in San Antonio, right?" "Yeah, you bet." It seemed like forever until most of the youths were finally gone, and it was my turn to leave. There were just a few people who stayed after me, and I said goodbye to them one last time. Aaron Ivener rode to the lodge with us, so his parents could pick him up, and with our stuff and his stuff, including a guitar and sleeping bag and everything else, the entire trunk and every available inch of airspace in the car was filled.

We got to the lodge and Aaron got in his parent's truck, and we caravaned back with them and another guy, Chuck, from Jonesboro, who had walkie talkies that the adults played with, and we followed them all the way to Hot Springs where we stopped and stayed at my grandparent's house until the following morning, and I got a good, long night's sleep. I love all you guys and I miss you a lot, and I'll see you whenever we meet again.

Later,
Dane & Dave

permalink