#GBE2: Shenanigans in the Rockies

It's best to be at Shwayder Camp!

Back in high school, I worked as a camp counselor at Camp Shwayder, a Jewish camp nestled in the beautiful rocky mountains of Idaho Springs, Colorado. As staff, we enjoyed the full run of the camp and knew her well. Although always nice to the campers, we were guilty of laughing at some of their shenanigans after the sun went down, such as the story of a little girl called Spacy who tipped over backwards the moment she put on her backpack. She fell in a straight backwards flop without a scream, twitch, or even a facial grimace.

I guess I was the same way on my day off where I made the mistake of falling asleep in a chair with a room full of counselors ready to pull their shenanigans on me. It would have been a lot more fun to watch someone else wake up with a cigarette butt in her hand and an empty bottle of booze under her arm. I am not nor have I ever been a smoker, but I might have drank a little that night since I slept through those shenanigans.

I miss the mountains!

When the camp sessions came to an end, several of us found ourselves in an odd predicament. We wanted to attend a youth group convention a week after camp ended but lived too far to go home for a week. The director gave us an awkward option. We could spend the week at the camp and participate in a program called Youth Tute provided that we be campers. Campers? We had spent the entire summer being counselors, and now we couldn't even wander into our own staff lounge! 

This was horrendous! This was unacceptable! This was... wait a minute, this could be fun. Okay, if they want us to be campers, we'll act like them–and thus–the shenanigans began. Imagine the look on the camp director's face when he found his former staff breaking every rule in the book. We had a blast sneaking out of the cabin, hiding behind the water heater, and raiding the boys' cabins. Shenanigans!