Posted by: tlnemethy | September 3, 2013

Remembering Those Moments

While I’m sitting in Iowa just biding my time looking for the next job, I can’t help but keep sifting through those random memories of camp that I’m sure will stick with me forever.

Let’s talk about that time my entire cabin went down to A+C (Arts and Crafts for you non-camp people) and decided not to do any crafts, but to paint the counselors in all the colors and messes they could handle. The counselors were wearing as little as humanly possible without being immodest. I mean, c’mon. You’re going to be covered head to toe in a paint that mostly stains no matter how much soap you mix into it. Of course, none of my clothes were really that important to me, but I still like to keep them until they get worn through. Paint does not make for a good appearance in the real world.

So I show up wearing my sports bra and oldest pair of running shorts after having already broached the topics of painting etiquette to the girls. Apparently, the camp thing to do is go ape shit on counselor armpits with the most brightly colored paint. Not only do I not want anyone up close and personal with my armpits, but I’d rather not have them slathered with art supplies. Call me a strange person, but its the truth. According to me, the points to avoid were as follows: armpits, eyeballs, anything covered by clothes, and my belly button. Seriously. Stay away from those areas.

I really should’ve known better. 1184945_10153163613745302_902475293__2222n

The girls started out calmly enough. They had a plan to paint me as my namesake; the salmon. But they really only got a few scale marks done before they changed their minds to getting me as disgustingly sticky as humanly possible. I had to stand there with my arms outstretched like I was miming an airplane as they giggled and openly mocked me. Don’t get me wrong, it was one of the most hilarious activities at camp. It also happened to be a ridiculously hot day so the paint was drying almost as quickly as they could pour it on. Good for me, bad for the mosquitoes that got fossilized on my neon skin.

The painting only lasted a good ten minutes before paintbrushes became the thing of the past. Instead, they grouped together and grabbed the jars of paint to sneak attack me and dump the entirety on me. It was shockingly refreshing. I’m not sure what the physics properties are that makes paint stay icy cold when the air temp is about 90 degrees…

Then they went for the armpits.

I kinda just gave up, because when I would turn to glare at the paint wielder to my left another one would splatter some to my right. It was exhausting and I’ve learned to pick my battles. Just when I thought it was over, one of my kids comes diving towards me with a paintbrush extended in front of her like a jousting lance. I tensed up my body before I was thoroughly impaled directly in the belly button with some crusty tipped paintbrush soaking in red paint. Gah. At least after that she tried to draw some abs on me so I could regain some semblance of dignity.

We were just talking about packing it all in when I see one of my girls dip her entire hand in dark green paint. Thinking she was going to leave a nice traditional hand print on my shoulder or legs like the other girls, I turned away to talk to a fellow co counselor. That’s when I felt the honk. I turned back to her with my mouth wide open in shock because she’d literally just honked my boob and retreated to safety. Are you kidding me?! The internal monologue inside my head started singing the inappropriate song. “Inappropriate, that is not appropriate. Inappropriate, that is not okay” as I carefully reviewed the crowd around me to see if I was going to be fired immediately.

The coast was clear, but I still had the green evidence printed on my boob so I crossed my arms and hid it as best I could until I ran to the waterfront. I ended up chasing the assistant waterfront director around the sand, threatening to hug her and transfer some unique artwork to her, but we called it quits after we got too winded.

Let’s just say I found orange paint deep inside my ear canal a few weeks after the painting. That is how extensive the painting went.

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Posted by: tlnemethy | August 26, 2013

Reunions Two Ways

Oh how I love reuniting with the people and places that have meant so much to me. It doesn’t happen very often so I get pretty damn stoked when I get the chance to walk down memory lane. I came up to the Yoop last weekend and got to visit my home for three years, as well as the people I hadn’t seen in way too long. There’s Houghton where I spent the first two years of my college life, and then across the bridge there’s the town I had my first apartment in and the village my brother bought a house in. I drove past my old apartment and the large quantities of potted tomato plants are still taking over the driveway of my crazy neighbor. I don’t miss that.

I miss the winding road that leads to my brother’s house. The road that gives you plenty of time to think and drive and try not to run over any deer. I miss that old gas station on the edge of his village that has advertised the same old-school gas price for years. It’s gone now, replaced with a shiny new building that has no history. I guess you tend to notice this stuff after you’ve been gone a while. That Culver’s wouldn’t have made a difference to me, nor would the multicar drive-through at McDonald’s. I find it weird though, that my town is moving on.

I met up with someone from Alaska while I was up here. Weird that we only found each other halfway across the world in a state neither of us had much of a connection to, when we lived a mere 12 miles away from each other for three years. We fell right back into our friendship and I was glad that there wasn’t that awkward reunion getting reacquainted period that so often plagues me. We saw each other and immediately started right in where we’d left off. That’s the measure of true friendship, I think. No matter how long its been since you’ve seen each other, you can always just hug and get into the stories. Reminiscing isn’t just for old people.

We ended up driving to the Porcupine Mountains Music Festival in Ontonagon, listening to some sweet bluegrass and celtic tunes from the Barley Jacks before jumping fully clothed into Lake Superior. It was a struggle at times, I mean dragging a newly crippled friend across Porcupine Mountain state park is bound to be challenging. But it didn’t matter that she was hobbling around on crutches when she dove down into the warm water of Union Bay. No, we didn’t have swimsuits or even a spare set of clothes, so we just sprawled like mermaids on some rocks along the shoreline, drying in the sunshine until we headed back to the Keweenaw.0825131710a

I miss the Yoop. Where else would I have heard the wonderfully told story of a 21-year-old at Woodstock or how the very same man was asked by Pete Townsend of The Who to bring him to a store so he could buy a guitar before a show. The guitar just so happened to be one he took on stage and smashed before setting it on fire. How do I hear these stories? Yoopers. Poor guy though, one of his encore wives up and left him for the guitarist of Foreigner and another for his acid dealer. Seriously. I wasn’t even really participating in this conversation, just sitting there with my eyes bugged out and letting him ramble on. No one back home ever tells me such interesting stories without having to be prompted.

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Posted by: tlnemethy | August 21, 2013

Make like Chiquita and Split

The end of camp’s no end at all, just the end of a beginning.

We sang that phrase over and over the entire summer we were at camp and it started out just sounding like a clichéd phrase that had an extreme amount of sentimental value attached to it. Sure, we can sing it all we like, but what are the chances that it can actually hold true? Camp’s over. The summer’s ended. Another year of responsibility and seeking and overall disjointed life plans results. Where am I going, what am I doing, do I even have a job? No. The questions all pile up after camp; the big ones not just what Salmon’s real name is.

I’m not overly emotional. Not in front of people anyways. But after a week of family camp and getting just that much closer with kids I claimed to possess, “my kids” I am upset that some of them disappeared on my final day off. They’ll be back, but there’s no guarantee I will be. Do I want to? Without a doubt. But situation’s arise and you never really know for sure if your plans will hold. On the final day of work, taking down camp, after everyone had packed up their crazy amounts of belongings and dragged their wheelie cases across the gravel road to the shuttle we all kind of huddled together before they drove away. Because I drove, I was damn near the only non-returner who had to say goodbyes. Everyone else got to spend another night together in Minneapolis before they parted ways, most of them traveling about in small posses anyways.

As I was shuffling my group forward with my best non-quacking duck walk I realized exactly how most of my kids felt when they left. Sure, there’s an absolute attachment that I developed with my kids, but I knew them for so much shorter a time frame than my co counselors and the other camp workers. We’d spent, on average, 10 weeks together throughout the summer. Ten weeks to develop profound bonds and create ridiculous memories (or in some cases non-memories). It was horribly depressing to see all the crying as they filed onto the vans and we had no guarantees to see each other again.

Promises, promises. But just remember, the end of camp’s no end at all, just the end of a beginning.

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