So, even though I had originally intended to go to Crossroads this weekend, I instead went to Belknap's "Alumni Weekend", which I had gone to many years before, but it had been very difficult to schedule when my siblings and I were in college. We stayed in Uncle Tom's Cabin, whose name I had always known was an off-colour joke, but I had kind of forgotten about. I'm glad we came, not just because it was a lovely weekend to spend on the lake, but because some of the Leaders from when I was a camper were there, and it was great to hang out with them. We played a 5-inning game of softball. I got 3 hits and even managed to actually catch the ball. We played a 2/3 length game of Bizouball. There was swimming and diving and cookouts and nostalgia.
My co-worker Miguel said that everyone has their own version of Heaven right here on Earth. His is Spain. Mine is Belknap. When I die, I want my body donated to medicine/science. Anything that is unusable I want cremated and the ashes spread on the camp's island, Little Huck. Every Sunday, we gathered in the Woodcraft Circle for an evening of brotherhood through sketch comedy. Woodcraft is a tradition from 1902, created by one of the founders of the BSA. Some of its tenets are a little hokey and outdated, but one is especially useful to me, and nicely sums up why I love to spend time surrounded by Nature, particularly Belknap's white pines:
Be joyful. Seek the joy of being alive.
