There is nothing like the song session of the first dinner of the session. During dinner, the kids were all trying to speak to their bunkmates and to the people at the three or four surrounding tables at the same time, and sometimes they remembered to eat. Returning campers quickly remembered the in and outs of family style dining, while new campers acclimated to the eating with thirteen other people, the long tables, the platters of food, the hoppers and setters. The eating was fun and the food was great (chicken breasts, rice, spinach, salad), but the magic happened a little later. Ken led the dining hall through clearing and the Birkat Ha'mazon, then turned the microphone over to Gal and Jonathan, our songleaders.
The busses arrived and the kids stumbled out, bent and sore from the long bus ride. They had worries on their minds: what cabin they'd be in and with whom, and how fast they could grab their luggage from the field and hurl it onto a bed in the cabin to claim it, and who if anyone, was going to be there from last year or the year before, or who, if they were new, would they meet. In the space of two hours they met their bunkmates and their counselors, took a tour of camp, retrieved their belongings, played a name game and a cooperation game, met their unit heads and unit counselors, and talked to the nurse and learned about the infirmary (we might be calling it the health house now, I'll check on that and get back to you). Dinner was the first time for them to just sit down and look around at the swarm in the dining hall, to feel the energy, to really get the feeling of camp, and nothing gives campers the felling of being at camp like the first song of the first song session of the session. It is always the same song. It is as much a part of Tawonga as the Ga-Ga pit, Arts and Crafts, and the river. It is as exciting to hear the song for me now as it was when I was a camper.
"Country roads...take me home...to the place...I belong...Camp Tawonga...California...Take me home...oh, country roads." The words were shouted more than sung. We insist that all campers keep both feet on the floor during song session, but it was obvious to see that the campers were having trouble staying on the ground. They danced in place. They formed trains that snaked in and out of the tables. They clapped and shouted and hugged. They sung and spun and skipped.
And now we are off and running. Tonight is clearing house and by tomorrow morning when the kids wake up, they will have full schedules hanging from the door, stuffed with fun activities and future memories.