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9.19.2012

The Life of a Youth Camp Director

One small vignette to illustrate the challenges of Youth Camping.

A young fellow who would grow up to pastor several Friends Churches was at the Twin Rocks Friends Camp.  There are still lots of rules for campers, some are for safety, some are evangelical cultural norms - dress codes are about norms.  Back in the day the rules were pretty deep and taken seriously. One dictated that campers, male OR female who chose to wear shorts would make sure that those short came to their kneecaps. In the era of  "We love short-shorts!"  this was a bit of a sartorial burden.  Our young fellow, then or now, was not an archon of sartorial splendor, but he did have an early giftedness in smart-Alec - some might say it would become his charism.

So he arrived at camp with a pair of modified shorts.  The tops of these short pants were denim, but the legs, from the butt down were made of  clear vinyl.  The vinyl legs generously graced the kneecaps.  Appearing in these wonders he was challenged immediately. He claimed the letter of the law.  He was sent to Charlotte who took the side of the spirit of the law.  The shorts lost.

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