Biding Time?

I woke up this morning with a searing pain in my left shoulder.  As the gloomy haze of awaking in the morning began to clear I briefly thought to myself; here it comes, the classic massive heart attack early in the morning with me having so much more to do with my life.  However as I rolled myself over it quickly became apparent that it wasn't my ticker that was having a problem, it was the fact that I had slept on my left arm in such a contorted way and was now paying the price of a mild tendinitis and strain.  Good that I would live, bad that it was painful putting on my shirt to go to work today.

As morbid as it may sound, we are all biding time until our time comes to an end.  No surprise there, life after all is a journey and what you make and get out of that journey is up to you.  It has happened to me more than once, where I had the brief concern that something was going to happen that was going to end things fairly quick and with me unprepared (like in a seemingly uncontrolled dive in an aircraft) and you think of all the things you have not done or the things that you could have said to others.  Even more interesting is that when you get past these little scares you don't do any of the things you thought you should do when it was obvious to you that life was coming to an end.  Where is your "bucket list"?  When I started going to college, my father made a big deal about saying good bye to me every time I would leave when I came home.  I kept saying to him that I would see him in a couple of weeks....don't worry.  He didn't worry, but he never knew what tomorrow would bring and this might be the last time he said anything to me.  When he eventually passed much later on, I never felt that we had something more to say as everytime we talked it was like the last time we would see each other.  Morose?  Perhaps, but it was comforting to know that everythig had been said when his time came to an end though it was sad that I knew I would never see him again.

Time moves along quietly and quickly.  For many teenagers it doesn't past fast enough and for many of us older folks, it is passing waaaaaaaay too quickly.  During this time of the year I often say to myself "Hmm, Christmas is here again" while being oblivious to the fact that another birthday has come and gone.  I remember summers when I was a teenager sitting on Mystery Beach on the weekend feeling very relaxed and enjoying a long Saturday afternoon in the sun, or even better, putting a lawn chair in a canoe and sleeping comfortably in the middle of Jackson Cove on a calm day.  That was decades ago.....seems like yesterday.

I enjoy watching our staff grow and move on to make something out of themselves.  I had one former staff member drop me a note just the other day telling me he had received his branch designation in Aviation for the US Army as he prepares to graduate this May from the US Military Academy at West Point.  He was just a young teenager six years ago and now ready to go on an exciting (and dangerous) journey.  Another has retired from the US Navy this past year after a twenty year career of flying fighters.  He worked for me when he was a teenager as well.  CEOs, CFOs, VPs, Lawyers, Physicians, Police Officers, Firefighters and on and on are the careers that many of our staff members move on to as time goes by.  You watch them develop their careers and their families, become very successful and do good things for society as a whole while you remember their humble beginnings at camp.  Now, did camp make them what they are today.....hardly; parents, teachers, coaches and others played a huge role in the development of a person.  However camp did have its influence as nowhere else is a young person able to put to practice what they have learned in all aspects; living on their own, being held to certain responsibilities, role modeling, teaching and being good citizens.  I am somewhat jealous when I look at what some of my staff have gone and done and wonder if I got left behind, still standing on the Hood Canal.  Then I remember what I have done in my life, the friends I have made, the experiences I have had and how hard I worked so I could be back on the Hood Canal as I am today.  I am happy.

As I reminisce with some of the veteran staff members who have worked for me, they often tell me that they wished they had worked one more summer on staff.  Many feel they left prematurely as they thought (or advised) that they had to do something else to make themselves "well-rounded" in experience or they thought it would be important for their future career.  Apparently most of those other "things" that occupied their time in lieu of camp in retrospect were not worth missing another season for.......but life goes on and they are not worse for it.

So we can bide our time by doing things we think we should be doing instead of doing the things we want to do.  Obviously there are things we have to do such as make an income or provide for our families but outside of that, it is what we make of ourselves.  I found out a long time ago that tomorrow never comes, it is always just today.  I plan for future "todays" but as I have said in my previous posts, sometime is not a date.  We are planning for the 2012 season which starts on a specific date in June.  I hope that many of my previous staff returns and joins me to deliver another memorable season to those scouts who attend.  However for today it is loading myself with ibuprofen to get rid of this damn pain.