Monday, August 4, 2008

MDA camp...




So Seth says....

....as some of you know, from the old lady's previous postings, I spent last week at MDA camp with my brother Levi. A little background here; this was my ninth year going to MDA camp. I was corralled into attending, sometime during the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college. I haven't missed a year since. MDA stands for Muscular Dystrophy Association, you know, "Jerry's Kids." Funny thing actually, I was talking to one of my customers last week, explaining to him why I hadn't answered the phone during the day, and he says to me..."so what ever did happen to Jerry's Kid's?" Seriously? So anyway, camp is taking care of every waking need/desire of the kids. Since most of the kids are in wheelchairs, and have diminished muscular function, therefore they usually need some assistance with eating, drinking, getting dressed, transfers, day to day activities, etc. Since I want to share the full experience, I will probably break this down into daily blogs detailing the inner workings of the day one week prior to the posting.

So back to the weeks events. Camp starts on Saturday, with the arrival of the counselors. Everyone gets acquainted with each other and the magnitude of what will be happening during the next 5 days. This is also the end of any kind of descent sleep anyone will get for the remainder of the duration. So the children start arriving Sunday morning around 11 am. This was my first year with a camper not named Jonathan (he has been my camper for the last eight years), so it was a whole new experience. Greeting parents that have never been away from their children for more than a "night at Memaw and Pips" was pretty intense. Who, What, Where, When, Why...it was like playing 20 questions with a five year old. 2 hours and an exhaustive amount of Q&A later the parents finally decided to hit the road. Tears were shed. So onto the activities. The ladies of MDA do a damn good job of putting this together. Every year Harley Riders from Granite Mountain Harley participate in a Harley ride out to Camp Twin Lakes, CTL, to spend Sunday afternoon with the kids. This year they decided a carnival was in order to celebrate the beginning of camp. Great idea, lets pump a metric ton of sugar into kids that are already "Excited to Be Here". By six o'clock, there are approximately 135 kids bouncing off of the walls like little spider monkeys in power wheel chairs. Better be wearing those close toed shoes they told you about! This pretty much took care of Sunday. Sleep has now become limited. Not only are we having to endure with a plastic-coated mattress that sounds a little like, crinkle CriNklE, CRINKLE every time you move, you have to listen to everyone else's mattress perform the same crinkle action all night. This compounded with the cries for help during sleep time. Sleep is just a dream.....

...Monday starts with a bang. Jana decided to swing down to camp to check some things out. She met us at Nature where we were acting out different animals, and our collective cabin was trying to guess what animal we were. Good stuff. Jana hung out for a couple of hours, and "endured" lunch with me and my cabin mates. Camp food is camp food. Try to remember lunch in elementary school. Are you there yet? How about now? Now imagine that 3 times a day for 6 days. Are you feeling me yet? Hope so.... So the afternoon activities played out with some canoeing, and swimming in the pool. Swimming in the pool with these kids is like having 20-30 mini heart attacks in the span of an hour. The kids have some ability to maintain themselves above water due to the buoyant forces of water, however there are moments when you cant quite figure out if their heads being under water is a planned event or the early stages of drowning. Also, CTL has a slide in the deep end of the swimming pool which creates a current in the swimming pool. It took me a while to determine why the kids kept drifting towards the 9 foot section of the swimming pool. This was another primary cause of the mini heart attacks. At least pool time was somewhat refreshing. So off to another delightful camp meal. Sidebar-every night at camp, there is an event that occurs for everyone in camp to enjoy. Again, the ladies of MDA do a fantastic job of putting this together. So back to Monday night. The event of the century, or the week......Wraslin. For all of you non-reds out there, wrestling is the name of the game. So this Wraslin troupe comes to camp to put on a show for the kids and the counselors. I don't really know how to describe the events that occurred on Monday night. The first three words that come to mind are as follows....trashy, hilarious, adult diapers. Pictures do not do this event justice, but I have attached one so you might be able to get some of the effect. Yes I am indeed ring side. Three matches were slated for the evening. They usually involve a "good guy" and a "bad guy", with the bad guy being repped by a monstrous hilbilly affectionately name Tiny. I can now say that I have seen it all. Watching a 350+ adult male in a suit found in a thrift store crawl across the ring and kiss the boots of a banana sling laden 55 year old man with a rat tail was fantastic. This however was not the culmination of the events for the evening. I know that I am rambling a bit now, but bear with me....In this corner we have 72 year old man affectionately known as Randy Rhodes/Rose, not sure, wearing a bedazzled red coat along with his red speedo which appeared to be covering an adult diaper. Somehow this conglomeration of clothes/sanitary equipment managed to yield the appearance of a reverse camel toe. Yes, I too was shocked. Don't ask me how it happens, its physics folks. So the 72 year old dude wrasled a 375 pound dude name Rob Adonis. Check Youtube, I guarantee you will find something on these guys. When the old guy took a hit, it somehow took him a full three seconds to hit the mat. Unbelievable. So after stopping the match 3 times in a span of 1 min 45 seconds for oxygen treatments for the old fella, and a 3 minutes stoppage to ensure that he hadn't broken a hip or dislocated his sternum, gramps somehow manages to pin beef cake. It was incredible. Even though we were exposed to massive quantities of mangina and sweaty redneck grappling, I must say that this was one of the most entertaining moments of the week.




So thats all for today folks, tune in tomorrow for another session of MDA camp 2008. Here is the pic for everyone to enjoy.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for writing about this Seth! I always wondered exactly what went on at camp. I wait with baited breath for your next entry
    :)

    ReplyDelete

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