Camp Green Lane Blog Post, August 8th

There are new names on the walls of Arts and Crafts.

A Camp Green Lane tradition, after Color War anyone who has been in camp for 5 summers can write their name in Arts & Crafts. The only rule is you can’t write over anyone else’s name.

For the last 2 days, you’ve had to watch where to step in there. Or put your hand. Because there’s wet paint everywhere—on the walls, on the floors, on the ceilings, on the door frames, on the shelves, on the window sills. Wherever there’s a flat surface in Arts and Crafts, it has a name written or painted on it.

I spent some time down there today to see how the bunk plaques are going, and to see some of the new additions to the walls.

CGL doesn’t have a museum or an archive outside of the pictures and papers in the White House. Many years ago, there were names on every board of the Field Office, but that building has been replaced. Arts and Crafts remains, and it stands as a living CGL register that goes back generations. Each name tells a story and holds a place for so many summer memories made here at camp.

I stood there for a while today reading name after name. It’s become a tradition of mine to go through the miles of names in there in the post-Color War period of summer. They go back more than 50 years. Today, I found a message that comes to us from 18 years ago:

It’s Aug. 5, 2007, and White Villains and Green Heroes are finishing Plaques. Color War has gone by really fast, just like our summer. But even as we near the end, we know that the next 10 months will eventually pass and we’ll be back.

Tonight, we go ice skating, another reminder the end of summer is here. It’ll be the last yellow bus ride of the summer. Sadly, the next buses we board will be the ones to take us home. The summer has gone so fast.

So today, tomorrow, and the short amount of time we have left this summer, we’re not going to stop. We have Leagues championships and Tournament winners to crown. We’ll have a Clash Lunch and a Birthday Meal and a Survivor Sing. There’s Cabaret and Banquet and Firefly. Plenty to tell you about in the next few days.

But, sadly, our summer has gone fast. They all do.

So I hope the next few days will slow down.

And I hope there’s time and room for some more names in Arts and Crafts.