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Summertime, and the Living is Easy

Summertime is significant to me. Admittedly, being out of school for 3 months is important for almost every kid’s development, but in my case, it became something more. In 1983, I spent my first summer “away from home” when I started working at a local YMCA camp. I had been camping a couple times with my parents, and spent a week at choir camp. But working as a camp counselor profoundly changed my life. For the next 6 summer breaks, through high school and college, I worked as a lifeguard, canoeing and climbing instructor, high ropes course facilitator and program director.

At the time, I believed that the most important part of those experiences was learning recreation skills. After all, I was 15.  I didn’t go into this journey knowing how to canoe, rock climb or backpack. Since age 5, I was a competitive swimmer, and being a lifeguard and swimming instructor was the first step. Little did I know that it was also a metaphorical backstage pass to what would become my entire career.

That joy of experiencing “the great outdoors” was an unexpected means to an end. Yes, I was learning to find appropriate places to set up tents while avoiding hazards, or how to tie belay lines on a cliff face. But much more importantly, I was developing “soft skills,” too. I was teaching these activities to kids, learning how to inspire interests, and guiding groups of people toward common goals.

I was fortunate to participate in the ECOEE field study program in college. The acronym stands for Environmental Conservation / Outdoor Education Expedition.

Fall of 1987, Wind River Mountains, Wyoming.
(I’m in the back row, 2nd from the right.)
Who knew you could surf while backpacking?

It was a spring planning class that culminated with a semester-long road trip. It took us on a behind-the-scenes visit of various innovative educational facilities, National Parks, and adaptive recreation programs. 

We spent several weeks backpacking in the Grand Tetons and Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, and the Grand Canyon in Arizona. 

Our timing was also fortunate – we were at Yellowstone while the historic decision to reintroduce wolves to the park was being considered – 8 years before the plan was implemented.  It’s cool to see what happened after:

http://How Wolves Change Rivers

In January of my senior year of college, I began a 4-month internship with Hurricane Island Outward Bound School, leading wilderness canoe trips for adjudicated teenagers. The program was one of the most successful of its kind – one of the original “hoods in the woods” rehabilitative programs. And it boasted a HUGELY successful track record: 66% of the kids who completed the course did not become re-offenders.

 

HIOBS; paddling from the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia, down the Swanee River through Florida, to the Gulf of Mexico.

The end result of this life foundation was a 32-year career that spanned camp directing, program development, therapeutic recreation, child and adult inpatient psych counseling, outpatient mental health treatment, probation court services, and law enforcement. I also took my own kids camping and recreating, both with youth groups, and as a family. I still look forward to every opportunity to go camping, to road trip across country, or to explore a State or National Park. It has become one of the biggest passions of my life.

And it all started while getting a suntan at a swimming pool in Iowa, earning $25 a week.

 

-Toph

 

What seemingly minor decisions you made had huge ramifications later?  Shoot me an email and let me know!

Going Fishing

The season is changing. For the rest of the northern hemisphere, it may be spring; but in the deserts of the great American Southwest, our days are already consistently 90+ degrees. I’ve had the doors off of the Jeep, and my wife has been tending daily to her garden. That feels a lot like summer to me.

When it really is summer, it will be the 50th anniversary of the first summer blockbuster. The term references the idea that a film appeals to all the different demographic groups, resulting in lines stretching around the block. Although it is now applied to just about any big budget, highly anticipated movie, it traces its roots to one film in particular.

 

To say that 1975’s “Jaws” was successful would be like proclaiming that Hell can be rather unpleasant. It set all kinds of records; $7 million on opening weekend, and over $21 million by the end of the following week. It was the highest grossing picture of all time until some silly sci-fi flick came along a couple years later. Part of that success has been attributed to the way “Jaws” was marketed. It was heavily advertised on TV and released in a lot of theaters at the same time. Like the grand opening of a store, but it was a movie. And it worked.

That movie caught a lot of attention. It caught the attention of a lot of people including one particular person. But that person wasn’t old enough to drive himself to the theater. He was 8 years old. And he was FASCINATED by sharks. Why on God’s green Earth couldn’t he see this movie?!??

The answer is simple. The movie was rated PG, and his parents took the suggestion, and guided him toward more appropriate audiovisual entertainment. But man did I (I mean, “HE”) want to see that movie!

Okay, the proverbial cat is out of the bag. In case you hadn’t figured it out, this was obviously about ME. In hindsight, it was probably a reasonable decision for my parents to make. They were worried that I would be scarred for life – traumatized by the idea of a shark eating swimmers. And, to make matters worse, I was a competitive swimmer.

But where there’s a will, there is a way. I was too honest to sneak in, or to lie and go with somebody else. We didn’t have a VCR at the time. I just couldn’t see the movie. So, I got a better idea.

I went to the library and checked out THE BOOK. I read it cover to cover. And it was AMAZING! This actually would turn out to be important for 2 reasons. First (and most obviously,) I got to read the story. And, no, I wasn’t traumatized for the rest of life. It reinforced my fascination with sharks. I still think they’re cool.

But secondly (and way more importantly,) I came to the realization that full length novels were not out of my league. I was no longer restricted to the likes of the Scholastic Book Club catalogs from school. The Encyclopedia Brown stories, and “Charlotte’s Web” were no longer the ceiling. The gloves were off. I could read ACTUAL BOOKS.

Hey! What’s wrong with Encyclopedia Brown?

I remember the next year, reading “The Deep” (also by Peter Benchley.) And because I was a year older, I got to see the movie this time. But that was the first time I had the idea that the book was better than the movie. I would end up going back and reading many books of movies I had liked: “The Guns of Navarone,” “The Day of the Jackal,” “The Eagle Has Landed,” and “A Bridge Too Far” all became available to me.

I’ve since come to appreciate that the book and the movie are often very different; but one is not necessarily better that the other. They are created for different audiences (which sometimes overlap.) But the book can go into much more detail. And whichever you experience first will affect your view of the other, for better or worse.

To bring things full circle, I’m probably going to see the movie “Jaws” again this summer, for old time’s sake.

But the book was better.

-Toph