Hidden in the woods near a national park in central Florida was a little place called Camp Wekiva. My parents used to ship me off there during summers when I was a kid. It was corny, and like any summer camp it was more an excuse for then to get some time to themselves for a week or two than anything else, but there are some things about it that I still remember vividly.
Like we used to have a "movie night" where we'd all gather in the cafeteria and watch a series of films on a fold up screen. The thing about this place was that no matter how many years you went (and I put in quite a few) everything was the same. Same skits, same food, same nature walks, same arts and crafts. So every year it was the same movies, in the same order, with the same bad jokes and hokey visuals. The films were about recycling, safe camping, conservation, the environment.. stuff like that. What's worse, these films were all like 20 years old, so they were totally scratched up, impossible to hear, and utterly out of date -- even for little kids in a summer camp.
The last film they'd show every night was this cartoon about the way the water cycle worked. There was this scene where water that evaporated from the ocean formed into a cloud. And then inside the cloud there was this little waterdrop with a little kid's face painted on it talking to another waterdrop with an old man's face on it. And from there the old man explained to how rain could form rivers, or sink into the water table, and then eventually find it's way into the ocean or back in the air, blah blah blah -- Truly mind numbing educational pap. But the reason I remember this movie is that there was once scene where the old waterdrop was explaining how sometimes water "gangs up" and causes trouble like floods -- accompanied by this scene with hundreds of little water droplets painted up like criminals with scruffy beards, toothpicks between their teeth, striped shirts, and that droopy "criminal hat" that you always see on old school drawings of robbers.
No matter how many times they played that film, that one scene always got a laugh from the crowd. After a few years, it felt like movie night couldn't be complete without it.
I suppose that's just how some things work. Somehow even the lamest of traditions can find a way to developing some sort of necessity about them if you do them them enough. Somehow it's those over and over stupid things that you tend to miss the most when they're gone...
I don't know -- when I started this thing I really was gonna write about something else. Something about those moments that you remember, the inside jokes we share. Something about cookie aisles, dove bars, supermarket price checks for condoms, and that thing you used to do whenever a hockey game came on television.
Things that fade away, but still have a place, you know?
I don't always know what you think of me, and sometimes I worry. But this thing is worth fighting for, I truly believe that. It's not always new, and it's not always about discovering or pushing the envelope -- It's been too many years for that to be the case with everything anymore. I know that can be tough. I know what that feels like.
Sometimes I say corny things.
Sometimes I think too much.
Sometimes I try too hard.
What I'm trying to say is, every movie night there's a scene that always makes us smile. And even if it is the same thing every time, and even if it's not really funny at all -- my life just wouldn't be right without it.
...It just wouldn't.
Like we used to have a "movie night" where we'd all gather in the cafeteria and watch a series of films on a fold up screen. The thing about this place was that no matter how many years you went (and I put in quite a few) everything was the same. Same skits, same food, same nature walks, same arts and crafts. So every year it was the same movies, in the same order, with the same bad jokes and hokey visuals. The films were about recycling, safe camping, conservation, the environment.. stuff like that. What's worse, these films were all like 20 years old, so they were totally scratched up, impossible to hear, and utterly out of date -- even for little kids in a summer camp.
The last film they'd show every night was this cartoon about the way the water cycle worked. There was this scene where water that evaporated from the ocean formed into a cloud. And then inside the cloud there was this little waterdrop with a little kid's face painted on it talking to another waterdrop with an old man's face on it. And from there the old man explained to how rain could form rivers, or sink into the water table, and then eventually find it's way into the ocean or back in the air, blah blah blah -- Truly mind numbing educational pap. But the reason I remember this movie is that there was once scene where the old waterdrop was explaining how sometimes water "gangs up" and causes trouble like floods -- accompanied by this scene with hundreds of little water droplets painted up like criminals with scruffy beards, toothpicks between their teeth, striped shirts, and that droopy "criminal hat" that you always see on old school drawings of robbers.
No matter how many times they played that film, that one scene always got a laugh from the crowd. After a few years, it felt like movie night couldn't be complete without it.
I suppose that's just how some things work. Somehow even the lamest of traditions can find a way to developing some sort of necessity about them if you do them them enough. Somehow it's those over and over stupid things that you tend to miss the most when they're gone...
I don't know -- when I started this thing I really was gonna write about something else. Something about those moments that you remember, the inside jokes we share. Something about cookie aisles, dove bars, supermarket price checks for condoms, and that thing you used to do whenever a hockey game came on television.
Things that fade away, but still have a place, you know?
I don't always know what you think of me, and sometimes I worry. But this thing is worth fighting for, I truly believe that. It's not always new, and it's not always about discovering or pushing the envelope -- It's been too many years for that to be the case with everything anymore. I know that can be tough. I know what that feels like.
Sometimes I say corny things.
Sometimes I think too much.
Sometimes I try too hard.
What I'm trying to say is, every movie night there's a scene that always makes us smile. And even if it is the same thing every time, and even if it's not really funny at all -- my life just wouldn't be right without it.
...It just wouldn't.
[Listening to: Bootsy Collins]
Comments