Careful What You Say on a Walkie-Talkie.

          At an average camp there are about 40 staff, but only four walkie-talkies.  So who gets them? 

          That's what it's all about.

          Without a radio, you're just like everyone else;  running around, taking campers' luggage to their cabins, taking parents on camp tours, or trying to look busy so you don't get tagged to do something you don't want to do.  But with a radio in your hand you don't have to run errands, and for everyone who comes to camp from your home church, you are one of the first staff they see, and you are high-ranking enough to need a radio to keep in constant communication with the director.

          But what do we actually talk about on the radio? 

          Not much that's camp-related.  We talk about last week, what's going to happen tonight, and sometimes we talk about our fellow staff who are not fortunate enough to have walkie talkies.  The director has a radio, but he keeps it turned off unless he needs it because he is sitting at the registration table, and he knows what we talk about.  It's not stuff the parents want to hear as they leave their precious children in our care for a week of days and nights.

          One occasion I remember vividly was arrival day for the second camp of the summer.  We had introduced a new program the year before; a day camp group of younger kids from various local churches that would arrive each morning and leave just before supper.  Wayne was still well-connected with his friends from Biola, and as male staff we were delighted to get to meet some recruits from down south.  Last year's day camp director had been a very attractive young woman who was a spectacular basketball player for a leading high school team in California. 

         We told ourselves that we had to take it easy on her because of the knee brace she wore, but the simple fact was that she could mop the court with us most of the time.  We had been very sorry to hear that she would not be returning for a second summer, but none was more sorry than our sports director, who had dated her for a time.  I won't mention his name because he seems to have a particular affinity for California girls, and I'm not sure if the one he married knows about the pattern she became the last link in. 

         Anyway, we had just had a chance to meet our new day camp director; a very attractive young woman from California who was a spectacular basketball player with a knee brace.  It was even on the same knee (our memories were that good).   Apart from hair color, there wasn't much to differentiate, and I was unwise enough to speculate that our sports director had the inside track since he had experience in how to win the heart of basketball-playing, California-girl day camp directors with gimpy knees.  

         Within minutes I saw him coming down the driveway toward me, with a remarkable head of steam, a walkie-talkie in his hand, and what, in anyone else, would have been described as "murder in his eye".  Since I had never seen him get violent, my initial reaction was to laugh, and that perhaps took away a little of his momentum.  He merely punched me on the shoulder and said "Not on the radio, you idiot.  She was standing beside me when you said that.  And she wants an explanation!" 

         Now, for a mere mortal, that would be the end of it.  That kind of handicap would take a normal guy a lot more than six weeks to overcome.  But I knew it wouldn't defeat our sports director.  A slight set-back, that's all. A chance for him to experience just how difficult it would have been for any other staff member to win her over.  He did overcome, as I knew he would.  But it slowed him down a little, and it was good for a laugh.