But at Wah-Nee, war is part of Color War. The staff has lately debated whether the team plaques should be scored or just admired. There is a strict “No Color War in the bunks” rule, after summers of Red girls refusing to sleep next to their White friends, and boys on opposing teams finding themselves in fistfights. The Strickers did away with silent lunches in the mid-1990s, concerned it was not healthy for children to run around all morning, then find themselves unable to vocalize their desire for more turkey. The exact timing and nature of each summer’s break is like a state secret: Dave Stricker, who owns Wah-Nee with his wife, Donna, did not tell even his top counselors until the day before that Color War would break the following night, with fireworks.Īs other camps have gotten rid of Color War or changed its name amid parental fears over hypercompetitiveness, Wah-Nee has made a few concessions. and shepherding them to a field for a laser light show featuring flying saucers (frisbees).
Maguire himself declaring that the games had begun.Īt Wah-Nee, which prides itself on being down-to-earth (the seven-week session cost $8,500 this year, compared with Timber Lake’s $10,000), there were never celebrities, though one year the “break” involved rousing campers from bed at 1 a.m. Interrupting the spectacle: none other than Mr. In 2002, when Tobey Maguire’s “Spider-Man” was the summer’s hottest movie, Timber Lake staged a mock wedding between two staff members that was interrupted by multiple people dressed in Spiderman costumes, creating the illusion of Spider-Man jumping from building to building. As far as anyone knows, Wah-Nee opened in 1931 (though it was called Nee-Wah) and Color War was among its earliest traditions.įor years, Timber Lake Camp in the Catskill Mountains which calls the competition Marathon was famous for elaborate break-out ceremonies studded with celebrities, like Hulk Hogan or Shaquille O’Neal or the aptly named Justin Timberlake.
#Color war chants series#
Paris said, Color Wars composed of a series of small contests, from checkers to swimming races, were a staple of the camp experience. Several sleep-away camps claim to have invented Color War, said Leslie Paris, an associate history professor at the University of British Columbia who spent years investigating the matter while writing “Children’s Nature: The Rise of the American Summer Camp.” The earliest reference she found: “Red and Gray Week” in 1916 at Schroon Lake Camp, a Jewish boys’ camp in the Adirondacks. They are the most eagerly anticipated, the most dramatic, the most formative. It could just as well be 45-4-4: We live 45 days of camp for the four we spend in Color War. “We win with class and we lose with class.”ĪT Camp Wah-Nee there is a saying, 10-4-2: We live 10 months of the year for the two we spend at camp. “No, no, no,” the counselor replied, sweaty eyebrows raised.
Afterward, as White and Red T-shirts streamed off the field, 8-year-old Jack Jacob, whose hair was painted Red, dashed up to Luke Jamieson, a White counselor. Then, on Tuesday evening, everyone gathered on the basketball court, Reds sitting with Reds and Whites with Whites, as each team belted out a brand-new Wah-Nee alma mater that its leaders had stayed up long past curfew to write.īut before all that there was the freshman boys’ baseball game, where little Joe Miller ended up scoring twice, helping Red make a stunning comeback to win, 17-15. There were competitive lip-syncing performances, one-act plays and what seemed like an endless stream of basketball games. There were rope-burning contests that sent them scrambling into the woods for tinder, a game called hooter ball that involves knocking down a tennis-ball can with a softball (harder than it sounds), and the creation of team plaques that will forever hang in the dining hall. confab by the eight counselors secretly tapped as generals and lieutenants duked it out in soccer and dodgeball and table tennis and capture the flag. Wah-Nee’s 375 campers ages 7 to 17 and split into two teams during a furtive 1 a.m.
The freshman baseball game was among the first of some 400 events spread out over those four intense, passion-filled days. It was Color War, the four-day blitz of competition at the end of every summer when Camp Wah-Nee is divided in two. This was not, of course, the major leagues.
“It was a call that didn’t work out, O.K.,” he told Joe. He sat down next to Joe, swept his arm around him and, in the voice of a loving grandfather, began to speak about winning and losing, good plays and bad plays, the Yankees and the Mets. Harvey Mandell, the boys’ head counselor, wandered past.
0 kommentar(er)
