Subject: ...Darn! Right back where I started! ;) Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1998 00:47:05 -0500 From: Rindimo Reply-To: TLK-L@lionking.org Organization: L.O.S.T.--C.A.U.S.E. To: TLK Mailing List What's the meaning of this!! I head off into the woods with a bunch of nagging kids... and end up back here??!! Oh, the Humanity of it all!! ;) Greetings, salutations, and peppermints to you all out there in the pridelands! I have returned victoriously... and naturally must tell the tale of how I survived the ravenous not-so-happy-campers. ;) Well, I must say I've never felt so good in all my life! =) I wasn't an assistant couselor like I had anticipated-- I WAS a counselor! My first job, was to load all the luggage into the bus to cart us all off to Lake St. Martin's Camp Smile-a-Mile in Alabama. :) Heh... not exactly the highest job to start at. ;) Each counselor was only responsible for five kids. I was given the challenge: Five kids that I know from our church that are labelled as "Hyper-trouble." ;) I say that lovingly. Really, I do. ;p' I vowed that I wouldn't be as "overcontrolling" as past couselors. I gave the boys the freedom to be creative, and make choices of their own. For instance... if they were to start acting up, they could choose to either be confined to the barracks all day... or clean the floor with their tongue. ;p No, no, I ruled over them with a soggy bread stick. Still..... we had to choose a team name, motto, and come up with a song over the week, and I've never seen so much fighting! Fortuneately, I turned the fist fight into a democracy by haveing everybody give their idea, and then a vote. After censoring out many names such as "Dirty Underwear", "Stinky Toe Fungus", "Rat-eating Frogs", "Used Toilet Paper", "Organ Doners", and many, MANY more names.... we ended up with "Vintage Whine" coming in first place, with 4 votes... "Crash Test Dummies" coming in second with 3 votes... And third place was... The Hakuna Matata Squad.... with two votes. Oh well, it was worth a try. =) The motto was far easier after they learned the guidelines: "We'll see you at the finish line". How prophetic. We won every single game/contest the camp leader could dish out at us. :) By the end of the week I think their heads were twice their normal size. Aside being the counselor for 5 little "energizer bunnies" I was the only one with enough knowledge to hook up, and run the sound board/mixer for Praise and worship for our little church camp. :) Ah, It was torture.... getting to sit down the entire service.... right in front of a huge fan... ;) Fret not, I'm not that mean to take advantage of stuff like this. I worked hard, and had to make sure each service was recorded, and take care of other sound related things. :) The best thing about our camping trips, is that there is the counselor hunt near the end of the week. I never cared about the seeking part... I wanted to Hide all these years! =) Finally.... I got to see if my record of flawlessness for over three years could stand up to 40 kids ravaging the campgraounds worse than a pack of hyenas. ;) Since none of you can tell the little boogers where I hid... Here's my little secret: There were boundaries that limited the places where we could hide. Aside from all of us placing decoys of stuffed clothes everywhere... (THat in itself limited our choices even more.) But I remember a story that my dad told me from his days in military school about hiding. My dad and other boys were led out to a meadow surrounded by forest. The drill instructor had them study a boy with a white T-shirt, and blue jeans. Then, they turned around, and allowed him five minutes to hide out there somewhere that the drill instructor whisperred for him to go. Upon turning around, they were given a long period of time to look for him. Now the instructor made it clear that the boy in jeans and a T-shirt was not coverred, or hidden behind anything. They stared until their eyes hurt, and still couldn't find the boy out there in the woods, or anywhere in the meadow. Finally, they were instructed to look down at their feet. There, laying in a ditch was the boy-- smiling. =) Upon recalling this story, I have used this tactic many a time-- and this time was no exception. There was a group of waist-high weeds next to a low-branched tree that marked the starting point of this whole thing. Guess where I hid? Come on, guess! ;) I heard the one counselor who wasn't playing shout "GO!", and almost was run over by the minions of children. But the tree was what kept them a distance away. :) I was one of only two out of 12 people that weren't found. Heh... This cheetah in real life may not have spots... but the army fatigues helped him out a tad. :) Not to mention, I still haven't figured out what brat got the idea to throw rocks into the bushes to see if there was someone there... >=A I remained quiet by thinking dark, dark thoughts... ;p' Oh well.... I thought that since my team went through all this trouble to write a song... why not post it to everyone on the list? =) We were the only team with props: We used brooms for guitars, and I had brought some different hats (a fedorah, a camoflage hat, and a few baseball caps) Everyone had some sunglasses. :) One of the boys had a microphone up to the broom, and rubbed a small rock against it to make a funny "Scritch Scritch" noise for our percussion. ANother boy made guitar noises, whilst the rest of us either sang parts of the verses, or were support singers. After we sang, we had everybody take the brooms, and beat them on the ground for a while-- Jimmi Hendricks style. ;) ANyway, this was our "Heavy metal" song: "Vintage Whine" By: The Vintage Whiners (Me, Josh, David, Wesley, Stevie, and Zack) We skinned our knees. We fell on the grass. We yelled alot. But we still beat your-- SCORE! We may not be the best. We may not be the worst. We may not be real fun. I guess we're just a-- BLESSING! We Sweat alot. We sometimes smell. We make lots of noise. You'd think we're from-- HEAVEN! We're Vintage Whine! We're Vintage Whine! We're Vintage Whine! We'll see you-- at the finish line! Man, stop it, man! Come on, man! The song's over! Now quit it man! Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, THAT won first place-- probably due to it being rather original... heh... ANd since I had it taped-- as soon as I get it put into MP3 format... I wonder who will want to listen to it? ;) Well... after all that... I must say, my favorite night was the night before we left. That night was when we built a huge fire, and took turns telling stories. Guess who was the most frequent story teller? Come on, guess! ;p' The two stories that I myself haven't come up with, are known as "Duffy's Jacket," and "The Gastronomical Bean Story." The story that I became famous for in the camp, was me doing my Forrest Gump impression while telling the biblical story of Ehud the Left-handed judge. (Judges 3:12-24) Of course... there were many comments that were related to Forrest Gump that were injected into the story. Heh.... after breakfast, before we left, I had to tell it yet again in front of everyone due to our pastor's request for an encore. =) As for Lion King, I carried my magic Simba penny with me from Disney world, (There's no such thing as luck.) and I had a Simba beach towel. =) The strangest thing was the last night I slept there. Out of the entire week, I finally had a dream, and it was TLK related. :) It was terribly surrealistic, and seemed to be a Timon & Pumbaa type skit. After swimming and floating down river, Timon and Pumbaa run into that Quint guy from the cartoon series-- who has made up his mind to shoot them. In desperation-- as they find a tiny outpost colony in this jungle-- they buy an old antique and rusty gun from the local supply store... and attempt to assemble it for their defense. After finally escaping Quint, they yet again float downriver in the jungle. Suddenly, a lioness that's a lighter shade of Sarafina pounces on the two. Timon escapes, but Pumbaa is captured. It turns out that the two are invited to attend Nala's birthday party-- and the lioness bringing the invitation has a crush on Pumbaa. She kept hugging and kissing him. Pumbaa didn't entirely enjoy it-- but he wasn't trying to escape her clutches, either. =p' So there we are. After all that running around in the woods, it feels so good to return home. Yes, my mom still says my hair could use a haircut real bad... and my sisters took the oportunity to sneak onto my computer to surf for Leonardo Dicaprio websites... and taunt some of you poor people on my ICQ list. I apologise for that. But nonetheless, It is good to be home, and to write all this stuff down, and reminisce over it all while It's still fresh in my mind. =) Heh... oh yeah! I'm Ba-AAAAaaaack! >;p' -Rindimo Cheetah (rindimo@bellsouth.net) +Founder, and only member of L.O.S.T.-- C.A.U.S.E (League Of Simplistic Technology-- Creating All Unforeseen Solutions Evident) +FCOS Lost & Found Clerk ICQ # : 12915153 +Amateur Artist/Writer/Musician AOL IM : Rindimo1 +Bachelor <=( Webpage: http://www.geocities.com/soho/museum/9957/ ********************************************************************* Well don't stop. Whatever you do, don't stop. Because as soon as you stop, you're forgotten. - Mageuzi *********************************************************************