2003-09-26 - 5:47 p.m.
June 3, 2003
I keep a wall of fame on the shelves in my little office that began with pictures of the first two NRA Whittington Adventure Camps, then eight years pass and a camp picture of 1996 sits in the middle, and larger pictures from last year fill in the spaces between. Brochures, arrows left behind, a rattlesnake egg, boxes of .22-250 ammo, a rock, other stray pictures, and Smog hanging from the cracks between logs, complete the picture on one side. By the time I fill the second wall it will be time to take everything down and feel the deep sadness of certain achievements that at the time will mean nothing, and the sadness that comes from repeated failures. It is like when the curtain falls the last time on the last dance and the clapping dulls to the sound of your blood pumping past your ears. For what, for whom, were those hours and hours and hours of practice that produced minutes of performance?
But I do know that I made some people’s lives easier these four weeks. One man could go home to his family, and one man can find meaning in his job with a lot less worry than before, he can know what it is like to have the respect of his staff, and one man can make wedding plans as he cares for his recovering fiancé and know that the camp will continue, and one young man learns to cope with groups of kids, and one young man has an alternative to the shallow conversations of other staff, and some of these kids are going home with good memories of camp because I kept their counselors or instructors from becoming more harried than they are.
