HRCampStories1

Stories written by Paige Hellbaum of Wheatland

Service and Character

Every summer for the past six years of my life has been filled with the heavy scent of pine needles and musty log cabins. It would appear at first glance a simple rustic abode amongst the trees, secluded and out of touch with the world. Once you are inside, however, you’ll feel the warm breeze coming from the open windows and the thickening dust on their sills. Strangely, their simplicity is comforting.

Welcome to HR Camp, in Esterbrook, Wyoming. This warming scene has greeted me every summer since the fourth grade, when I found a snake on the well worn cabin path. With each visit, I take something back with me; some of my fondest memories can be traced back to this place. Whether it’s confronting my fear of heights on the rock climbing wall, dancing in the meeting hall like no one was watching or sliding down into forty degree water from a mossy outcrop of rocks by the waterfall.

Though there are many things I love about the camp program, one part I do not particularly enjoy is the cleaning regime. Each and every day, we split up into groups and divide up the work. I now fully understand what the maid service feels like, because every day, even though you had cleaned it a mere twenty four hours ago, you would come back to the same messy (if not messier) cabin you had the previous cleaning session; it was a never ending battle.

Every other day bore witness to our stewardship program, where we would learn about how to keep the forest around us healthy, natural and safe. Chopping and hauling logs, picking up dense underbrush and patrolling for litter were just a few of the ways we helped keep the environment around us beautiful for many generations to come, as well as protect the surrounding buildings from forest fires.

Cleaning and stewardship may not sound like much, but it directly impacts the way I look at service projects and volunteer work today. Should my incentive to do what’s right over what is easy defeat my incentive to be lazy, and if I did a thorough job, it gave me a sense of pride in my accomplishments. I also learned that service may not always be something you want to do, like using Lysol toilet bowl cleaner. Choosing to do it however, shows your true character.

Character was another thing the camp constantly provided me lessons on. At the beginning of every week, I was the shy one. I believe part of this resulted from my being timid; I was so scared of all the new faces around me, I had to size them up first, see what people were all about. Being shy was my excuse for making astute observations of my peers. By the end of the week, I would finally start to open up, but relationships were still awkward at times.

By my third year attending the camp, I would still attempt to put on my shy masquerade. After about two hours of deceiving others around me and myself that I’m something I’m not, I finally got the picture and truly opened up. When I did that, things weren’t awkward anymore. I made real connections and long lasting relationships with my fellow campers.

Being outgoing and open was never one of my strong points; and given the chance I still enjoy the vantage point from my shy demeanor. Living with a group of ten girls in one cabin for a week however, has changed my perspective. By being honest with my occasionally awkward and randomly crazy self, I could truly enjoy the moment; without ever having to worry about what I said or how I acted for the sake of looking cool. HR Camp was my blank slate to practice on, where I could start over every summer and rediscover myself.

Leadership

Whenever a group of people get together, or teens in my case at camp, leadership comes into play in nearly everything we do together. Natural leaders would start to emerge from amongst us, and the group activities we did daily only augmented their rise to a prominent position of respect in our crowd. None did it so much as the Ropes Course.

The Ropes Course is for the most part, a self explanatory name; an obstacle course with ropes (actually they are wires, but ropes sounds better). There are ropes (wires) stretched tight between trees for balance, ropes (wires) high in the tree tops for courage and swinging ropes (these ones are actually ropes) for fun. Our group would be led by our counselor to the first challenge; two trees just barely wide enough to ensure that no human wing span could touch both trunks at the same time. Everyone must get across the rope without falling down; touch one trunk then the other and if someone fell down, we all started over.

Presented with this interesting and no doubt mentally challenging exercise our group did very little thought and jumped right into it. Tight rope walking was fun, but got us nowhere past two people getting across without starting over. I spoke up for what must have been the first time at camp (much the astonishment of my peers) and stated that some well thought out tactics would be in order here. We all sat down in deep thought, several ideas were mentioned, but our final plan ended up being a conglomerate of several. The best balancer would walk across the rope to the other side: without leaving the wire. The second best balancer would hop on at the starting point; stationing one person at each end of the rope. Maybe one person couldn’t stretch their arms across but two could.

The people that couldn’t do well on the wire were now given a stable support system to grab onto and walk across. As the person that initiated the primary planning stages, I was also deemed best balancer. However, after a series of unsuccessful attempts to get across, one of my teammates did; thus making him the best balancer and me insanely jealous of his coordination skills.

Being put in this situation taught me two things that day. The first was that I needed to make my voice heard, and encourage others to contribute ideas that would be welcomed with open arms, no matter how silly the thought was. When we all contributed, we all benefited. I also learned that being a leader doesn’t necessarily make you the best, or qualify you to be for that matter. I learned that everyone had something to contribute, whether it's the ideas or the muscle to make them happen.

I think that I keep coming back every year to relive my experiences; and make new ones. It amazes me that I could extract all of these from a summer camp; and it never ceases to surprise me with its constant barrage of life lessons. How I manage to retain all of them, I may never know; but one thing is for certain. I shouldn’t be the only one to take something away from summer camp. It’s my hope that everyone who finds themselves in a tranquil forest amidst a serene mountain backdrop and rolling hills will find the same inner peace and open-mindedness I do when I hear the rushing water in the creek bed and the crickets humming at night.