By BILLY MURPHY
Laugh Lines

My wife Julie and I just got back from camp. We were program directors for a three-day “First Timers Camp” which consists of first through third graders. The point of the camp is to provide a pleasurable first-time experience for kids so they will come back to camp over and over.

Julie and I have been program directors for Woodland Christian Camp together and separately for many years, ranging from elementary to high school ages. I can never come back from camp without a sleeping bag full of stories.

First of all, being a movie buff, I have noticed that the cabin full of kids I have, no matter what age, are always a mirror image of the typical military grunts you will find in any war picture. Like “Saving Private Ryan” or “Full Metal Jacket” or “Stripes,” for that matter.

There is always the loose cannon that is about to snap at any moment. Then, there's the guy with the nickname like Snake or Killer. And of course there is always the guy that all the others make fun of, that has the deep-South accent. There's also always the guy who lives for when he can finally get home, pulling out a tattered picture of his mom, or dog or something to otherwise live for.

The kid stories from camp are always the best, too. My favorite from years ago is one where this little boy got stung by a bee and we have him in the nurses station being attended to. The nurse pulls out “Adolf's Meat Tenderizer” to put on his sting. The kid then asks, “How does it work?” To which the nurse gives this long discourse on how the meat tenderizer powder has a chemical in it that draws away the pain of the sting from the bee. After some profound silence the boy finally says, “I meant, how does it work on meat.”

The best, true incident this time around at camp was when a camper came up to me and told me that a friend had thrown up during lunch. As I looked around for some minion to send in to do the dirty work, the concerned camper continued. He proceeded to tell us that he friend had a loose tooth and it had come out during his... uh... regurgitation, so they were all looking for the lost tooth. Gross but true.

Our daughter Olivia, who is almost 4, gave us a lot of fun by visiting camp, too. She made all the announcements with me and she stayed one night in the boy's cabin to get a firsthand feel for sleeping in a hot, hard bunk. She took particular pride in repeating every instruction I made to Snake and the gang.

After lights out and I gave the guys instructions that I didn't want to hear another “peep,” they, of course, continued moving, whispering, etc. Olivia quickly and quietly instructed me that the boys were “peeping.” She then proceeded to tell me that when she got to come by herself to camp, she wanted to “stay in the bunk with the little kid Nicholas.”

Despite my coronary, the heat and the thunderstorms that wiped out two swimming sessions and one canoeing session, we had a great camp and typically most of the teaching was coming out of the mouths of babes.

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