I took the photo for this post from my office window earlier this week.  Our building looks out on the college football practice field where a high school football camp was in session.  It is always rather entertaining to see them run around, skip, hop, and tackle while the instructors scoot around on golf carts.  I can hear the grunts and sounds of  tackle impacts all the way up to my fourth floor window. There must have been a hundred players.  Their buses fill the college parking lot.  Many come from little towns from Montana or the eastern part of North Dakota, and get to stay in the college dorms for the duration of the camp. We can hear them clatter past our building in their cleats on their way to the practice field.

You can always tell who the local campers are, since they drive their own vehicles, park along the drive up to my building, and then strip down to their skivvies while they change into their football uniforms.  We drive past them on our way to our parking lot. Some have the decency to go behind the large spruce trees that line the drive, but most just stand there in their shorts while they change.

I never went to a sports camp in high school, but trips for speech and music were both fun and stressful at the same time.  I hope the boys at the camp had the same sort of experiences.  I have worked at my agency for 18 years, and I have seen the local campers  in their underwear every year. They sort of signify the arrival of summer, just like the return of the swallows to Capistrano.  I think, though, that I would find the birds more interesting.

What are some of your high school camp and activity memories?