Here is a sample story from the chapter on winter camp in It Happened At Camp.
"We've come to help you find the lost boy!"
The junior high school program generally got the long weekends on the theory that the older members could better stand it, it would be more adventurous, etc. There is no record of anyone considering whether the adult leaders could stand it!
Anyway, one year, the junior high school clubs were at Round Meadow on the Washington Birthday weekend, and they had been given the option of staying for three days or only two. The leader of one of these clubs was a building contractor, and a staunch YMCA supporter, committee member, board member, and a part of the inter-club junior high leadership team.
He had elected to stay only two days with his club, because he felt he should get back to his contracting business and keep his men working at his construction project.
Then Mother Nature took a hand.
Late Saturday, it began to snow. So, early Sunday morning, he called home, confirmed that it was raining heavily there; and asked his wife to call his men to tell them they wouldn't be working Monday, and to call the other parents to tell them the boys would not be home until Monday.
Hearing this, another dad, leaning against the phone booth, said, "When she calls my wife, tell her we haven't seen Larry (his son) since ten minutes after we got here, but we expect to find him before we come home!"
Big Joke, right? Meaning: "Larry is having a wonderful time!" Right? Well, that's the message intended, anyway.
Unfortunately, when children are away from home, mothers have a way of expecting the worst.
And that's how it happened that about two-thirty AM, Monday morning, I was awakened in the director's lodge by flashlights in the face, badges behind the flashlights, and a gruff voice that said, "We've come to help you find the lost boy!"
Coming out of a sound sleep, I didn't know anything about a lost boy, and I said so. But I was immediately alarmed. A lost child! In a snowstorm! I didn't believe it-I certainly would have heard about it. But another secondary concern occurred to me: Lost child incidents always make the papers!
The deputy sheriffs, meanwhile, having come all the way from Yucaipa, seemed somewhat irritated that I didn't know we had a lost boy After all, someone had reported it to the mother yesterday morning!
I had visions of headlines proclaiming, "Lost Child Search Delayed 24 Hours: Director Claims He Didn't Know Child Was Lost!"
Sweeping these thoughts aside, I scrambled for the assignment sheet, which told me which cabin Larry, and his Club occupied. Pulling on pants, boots and jacket, I went out into a two-foot snow, and, followed closely by the Deputy Sheriffs, made my way to the club's cabin, wondering how soon I could call Ralph Broms, the Metropolitan YMCA PR director.
We entered the cabin, awakened the leader, and asked what he knew about a lost boy.
Well, of course, he knew nothing about it. All of his charges were accounted for. The sheriffs even met Larry. They quizzed the poor sleepy boy as to whether he had been lost or separated from the group. No, he had not!
It took several minutes of reconstructing everything that had gone on, including the phone call, to figure out what had actually happened. The Sheriffs left camp and we all went back to bed...and I forgot about calling Ralph.
We've all played the circle game in which a message is whispered from person to person, and it is hopelessly distorted by the unintentional, subtle changes introduced by each person. Here we had proof that the game actually works, and it doesn't take more than a couple of people, if an anxious mother is involved.
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