Circle Square Ranch - Part 2

After a year of hearing us boast about our camp experiences (see Part One), Jackie and Sandra decided to join us at Circle Square Ranch the next summer.  The four of us shared a wagon with Hannah, Cynthia and Linday.  Cynthia had already been there for a week where she met a boy, who was so taken with her, he paid for her to come back again to spend another week with him.  I remember being taken quite aback that she'd accept such a gesture, especially considering she insisted she didn't 'like' him.

We had an honourary bunkmate named Montana.  She didn't sleep in our wagon, but her bunkmates didn't like her for some reason (how very un-Christian of them...) so we befriended her and talked crap behind their backs and gave them all the mean squinty eyes (un-Christian of us, too, I suppose).  Montana was obviously cool, since she had long cornrows and, well, her name was Montana.

There was another camper named Annette.  She had short blond hair and seemed much more mature than the rest of us.  I wasn't actually present for this happenstance, but when her group was at the rock climbing wall, she slipped on a rock at the top and started to fall.  Her partner wasn't paying due diligence at the time so the rope was tearing through the grigri.  Rope burn prevented him from grasping it, so in a heroic act to save her spine from possible snappage, he shoved his hole hand into the metal device, grinding the rope to a stop.  Annette jerked to a halt without injury, but her poor partner's hand got mangled in the process.  He was a reluctant hero and Annette continued to walk.  She further cemented her reputation when her leather-clad father picked her up on his motorcycle at the end of the week with her duffel bag bungeed to the rack.

We followed the same basic itinerary as the previous year: horseback riding, rock climbing, camp fire and the such.  This year I recall a much higher fervour of Bible lessons, prayer, and confessions.  Our councilor had a particularly heart breaking back-story that she shared with us, and possibly because of that we all decided to turn a leaf and embrace a stronger set of Christian values.  After the week was done, the four of us returned to Brampton feeling very religiously inspired, though I can't say how long that lasted.  I also have some drunken teenage memories of house parties where Laura climbed into a dryer.   

The "shmuck the staff" that year was much more successful for me.  I had the ultimate pleasure of finding the camp director, so whereas anyone else who found a councilor got a can of whipped cream to douse them with, I got an Italian-family sized can of tomato sauce to pour on poor Steve.  I savoured this honour.  Not because I didn't like Steve, but because what person gets full permission and approval to paint another human being with tomato sauce?  Seriously.  I fully recognized that this was a once in a lifetime honour, and I was prepared to enjoy every second of it.  I let it drip on Steve's head until it streaked down his face like he'd been scalped.  Then I used handful's of it to chuck against his shirt until he looked like a massacre victim.  By the time I was finished the entire gallon (remember I said Italian-family sized can) I too looked like I'd been through significant trauma. 

Almost as if I was suffering from withdrawl, knowing that my tomato sauce painting days were over, was nearly too much to bare.  Whats more, the ground beneath where poor Steve had once knelt was a thick pool of the substance.  As I am a firm believer of reduce/reuse/recycle, it was beyond my self control to simply leave it lay.  I scooped up a handful and continued my human sauce painting movement on Sandra, Jackie and Laurie.  Within minutes, the four of us had a makeshift mud wrestling pit.  We didn't even notice that our escapades were not appreciated by the councilors and unfortunate bystanders who got the back spray.