Early Summer

When I was a kid, late May was one of my favorite times of the year. Just like every other kid in the country I looked forward to the end of the school year and the summer, but there was something else that I always loved about the last few weeks of the school year.

Since my parents were camp directors it seemed that there were always people coming in and out of our house, but at the end of May, all the new staff for the summer started arriving. Camp didn’t actually start until June, and the staff wasn’t required to start until staff training week, the week before the kids arrived, but there was always a group of 8 to 10 people who showed up in the middle of May. I remember bugging my mom for info about these early arrivals starting in about March. I’m sure it drove her nuts. I wanted to know who was coming, where they were from, how they were getting here, what they were hired to do, and just about anything else she could tell me. The very best was when one of these people was someone returning for a second or third summer with us. Of course, those people were the crazy ones because the prep work for camp before staff training started consisted of very heavy manual labor.

They were mostly college kids hired as counselors for the summer, and it was usually the guys who showed up early. I’m pretty sure some of these guys had never done a day of real hard work in their lives, and my dad worked them until they were past the point of exhaustion. They built trails and tent platforms, moved furniture, finished floors, painted flower boxes, cleaned saddles, cleared brush, mowed lawns, scrubbed refrigerators…you name it, they did it! I got a kick out of the looks on their faces after their first day on the job, I’m pretty sure that when they signed up to come earlier than necessary, they had no idea what they were in for. They were exhausted to their very core.

There were two things that I’m sure kept them motivated, two things I ALWAYS keep in mind when trying to motivate a group of people to do some less than fun task: my dad always, always, always worked right along side them, and there was always a home cooked meal on the table at the end of the day.

I mentioned my dad’s work ethic in a previous post, but it’s clearly something that has really stuck with me, if you want the job done right, work alongside the people you’ve asked to do the job! I think when these poor, unassuming college boys set out for their first day, they were always surprised by the stamina of their much older boss and probably didn’t quit because they didn’t want to be upstaged by him!

During this time of the year (and pretty much always) my mom made sure there was a good, hearty home cooked meal on the table for when the boys were finally done working for the day. And man, these guys could EAT! We would all sit down together at our dining room table, sometimes as many as 15 of us (that’s just a guess), every night and enjoy our meal like one big happy family. I think my mom must be a saint for doing this each spring until we had access to the commercial kitchen at camp on June 1st. We liked to say that the kitchen I our house was “a three butt kitchen,” so…not all that big, especially depending on the size of butts occupying said kitchen!

I think I loved this time of year so much because it felt like our family grew and I knew it meant the beginning of another great summer. I like to think that there was a special bond between the staff who showed up early, and I’d also like to think I had a special bond with them since they shared our family table and had the luxury of experiencing my parents hospitality first hand.

So, it’s that time of year again, anyone up for some manual labor? Our yard could sure use some work! I’ll work with you and cook dinner (there’s probably time for a six pack or two also). Happy summer everyone!