One aspect that can really make or a break a camp experience is the counselor. An excited and engaged counselor who really interacts with the students can help create a memorable camp experience. A disgruntled and unenthused counselor who avoids the students will also create a memorable camp experience, just a negative one.
Gandalf wasn’t a camp counselor but he was the mentor for Frodo and the rest of the Fellowship. But what if Gandalf was your camp counselor?
You Shall Not Pass
Once when I was counseling freshmen boys, they snuck out of the cabin after I’d fallen asleep. They didn’t sneak out to do anything too delinquent; they just moved all the benches in camp and then moved them back. If Gandalf was your camp counselor, though, there would be no sneaking out. Whether it was to rearrange camp furniture, buy a soda or “look at the stars” with your camp fling, there would be no leaving. Gandalf didn’t let the Balrog cross the Bridge of Khazad-dûm; I don’t think campers would have any chance of sneaking pass him. Any campers trying to sneak out past curfew would be met with a glowing staff and the burning eyes of Gandalf as he shouted out, “You shall not pass!”
Insulting
Gandalf’s kind of mean. He always insults Merry and Pippen, he hits Wormtongue in the head with his staff and he yells at Bilbo. All of these actions and more could be viewed as a tough, outer exterior covering up a warm and kindhearted man. In a week of camp, though, there wouldn’t be a lot of time to get past the hard exterior to reach the gooey center. Gandalf would just end up making students cry over the course of the week. Any time they screwed up during games or made a mistake on a memory verse, he would probably just call them a fool and storm away. He also would carry around a large box of fireworks and, instead of lighting them, just frown at the clamoring children and tell them to get lost.
Getting High
Saruman was a bad dude and even he realized that Gandalf spent too much time smoking the Hobbits’ weed. I don’t know if Gandalf had glaucoma or not, but a camp counselor shouldln’t spend any time getting high. A high counselor would definitely upset some parents but it might even upset the students more. There’s nothing students enjoy more than packing their bags full of candy and snacks to maintain a week-long sugar buzz. How upset would those student be when they found out that their curmudgeonly stoner of a counselor had worked up a mad case of the munchies and eaten all of their snacks? The students would riot and rat out Gandalf to the appropriate authority figure, not for getting high, but for stealing their snacks.
Gandalf may be a great wizard and definitely played a key role in defeating Sauron and saving Middle-Earth, but he wouldn’t be a good camp counselor. He’s a little too old, a little too crotchety and a little too addicted to Hobbit weed.
How did counselors affect your camp experiences?
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