Dear Boundless Families:
Every single student has bought in. Without exception.
I started noticing something uncommonly good last night before dinner. Both groups converged on the front lawn just hanging out before dinner. That lawn is probably about 25,000 square feet. Yet they all were clumping within 400 square feet of each other. Some were strumming the guitar, making bracelets, tossing a ball or just giggling. Others head’s down in board games competing for every square inch of a single picnic table where there were two more available a mere three strides away.
They have evolved into a kind of black hole where they won’t escape each other’s gravity by their own choice.
The younger group – with no specific name – definitely has a clear code. It is the “Code of the Wild”, forged last night. Defined as:
1) Don’t be a mosquito, sucking the life blood out of the group
2) We are a pack, where all actions are for the pack’s welfare, not our own
3) Adapt. This means toughen up and deal with it
4) Show your animal colours – be real, don’t cheat, show yourself
The youngins head down the Madawaska for a three night, 4-day whitewater journey, leaving from our front lawn and ending in Griffith, Ontario. They will have to reckon with the infamous snake rapids, replete with names like Rifle Chute, Thread the Needle, Hass’s hole, Surprise, Crooked Chute and on and on it goes. They will come back for two nights, and then head out again for two nights on the lower Dumoine River in Quebec.
It is this last point that is extraordinary. It is unusual that we choose a younger group to do the demanding Dumoine in the best of conditions. But in this crazy high water, the choice borders on the audacious. It is because the youngins are so strong that we are pushing the peddle to the meddle. I will accompany them through the Red Pine Rapid stretch to add a little dad energy.
The older group refer to themselves as “The Weiners”. The contract, which they solemnly and with much pomp signed as if it were the U.S. Constitution, was actually a hot dog wrapped in duct tape. It is their banner now, and they will protect it as if it was their standard in Caesar’s beloved 10th legion.
Asking Owen, their trip leader who moonlights as our guidance counsellor in our Live-In School, what the hey the “Weiners” actually mean, he responded with a wry smile,
” They arrived at their theme with a sense of irony. A recurring message has been “don’t be a weiner”. They chose the name because they accept the weiner within themselves. Everyone can be a weiner. So by calling ourselves the weiners, it serves as a daily mantra not to become one. It also represents their conviction to allow their inner weird to come to the surface. Its something to rally around because we are okay with being unusual.”
I don’t know about all of this cuz the name feels weiner-like. But its working so who am I to argue.
The Weiners are spending the day on the high ropes course tomorrow, prepping Tuesday, and then head out to the Dumoine for the full monty, returning late day 12. I will rendezvous with them on day 10 at their Lac Robinson campsite, and ply them shamelessly with Tim Horton’s sugar as a way of buying myself into their tribe.
Families, I officially knock on wood as I write this: your kids are thriving big time, and this session may yield phenomenal outcomes.
warmly,
Steven
[email protected]
