PAX: Pope, Goose, America’s Best, Honey Suckle, Popeye, Safety Valve, Smooth Operator, Paradox, Fence Post

AO: The Stage

By: Pope

An exchange (slightly modified) while in a van at Camp Chosatonga between YHC and a slightly younger camper (N):
N: So you’ve never listened to Pearl Jam?
YHC: I might have, I just didn’t recognize it as Pearl Jam. I’m not a 90s rock guy. It all sounds the same.
N: Okay, well, they’re the best rock band in the 90s. No contest.
YHC: I dunno, I enjoy Creed more than most rock bands I’ve listened to. It’s also the only good CD in the junior counselor room.
N: [proceeds to provide a verbal slide show of all the reasons for Pearl Jam’s superiority and Creed’s inferiority] YHC: Alright, alright—I’ll listen to a song, and let’s see what I think.
(3 minutes later)
YHC: …
N: So?
YHC: They sound like every other 90s rock band.
N: Well, you also said rap isn’t art.
YHC: Indeed.

YHC chuckles inwardly whenever elders talk of nearly throwing up during the course of beatdowns: “that’ll never happen to me.” YHC went through his first few beatdowns since spring standing corrected—well, block-n’-bearing corrected.
YHC’s birthday Q was formulated around experiences at summer camp. Warmup was standard (SSH, imperial walkers, toy soldiers, windmills, Willie May’s Haze, TIE fighters, cherry pickers, self-love); Pax grabbed coupons and circled around Goose’s Bose for thang 1.
YHC’s only options for music in the junior counselor room were low-quality, explicit rap, worthless instrumental, and Creed’s Greatest Hits.
First song: One—alternating curls and calf raises for duration; thruster on “one”
Second song: Bullets—various core exercises with coupon in chest press position; WWIII sit up on “look at me” and “through my head”
YHC was on the whitewater paddling group. The gateway to being able to paddle bigger rivers is a rapid called Nantahala Falls; to prove your potential, you have to run the rapid, evaluate your run, get your hefty canoe out of the river onto a wooden walkway (about a quarter mile) and run it again. And again, until you’ve got it down.
PAX began on the left corner (from the stage) of the grass field, 10 coupon American hammers, rifle-carried their blocks halfway to the sidewalk, 10 we’re-not-worthy’s, all the way to the sidewalk, 20 one-arm rows, other corner of the grass at the sidewalk, 20 rows with the other arm, halfway back, 10 we’re-not-worthy’s, all the way back to the stage, 10 American hammers—then, to get the boat all the way back to the start, block-n’-bear all the way back around. Quite tedious.
Now that you’ve got the run down on that paddling side, switch sides and do it again. Round two was the same routine with tricep curls and goblet squats (nothing at the starting point), the block-n’-bear repeating.
PAX completed round two and circled up for three minutes of Mary; COT and Goose prayed us out.
YHC began posting on the Northshore at age 11; his first Q was a Lord of the Thangs grind on his 12th birthday. Since then, I’ve been posting consistently (made easier with Goose holding me accountable), and I’ve never gotten tired of falling in with a group of my elders as close-nit as y’all.
​​​​​​​​​SYITG, Pope