A LETTER FROM SHORTY

photos by April Thomas

Dear Momma Duck,

This week has been a blur! Piercer Camp is so much fun. I’ve met so many new people and had a lot of fun with my friends from last year. Unfortunately most of the “Boat Bois” couldn’t make it this year, but that hasn’t stopped John Robberson and me from recruiting some new ones. I got the same cabin as last year and everything was still set up the way we left it. My cabin-mates were John (of course), Frankie “3 Pens” (aka Frankie Diamonds), Pauly “Slippaz” from Staten Island, Sosa (he’s from Venezuela, but now lives in Ohio), and Barron from Illinois. Barron and Sosa didn’t end up sleeping in our cabin though as they joined Hammock City in the Activity building. Hammock City is comprised of about 30 or 40 hammocks that are hanging from the rafters all over the place. It’s pretty rad! Everyone hangs out in their hammock during class, then hangs out in their hammocks at night until they just fall asleep.

The weather has been so all over the place. The week started off hot and humid, then rainy and dreary. Then, overnight, we had Hurricane Michael blow by us about 2 hours south. It wasn’t bad except the power went out at 3 am; I woke up and my air conditioner was off. I know, I know, Momma… you know I’m a bit of a Princess. I need my air conditioning at night or I can’t sleep. It wasn’t all that bad though, the wind blew my window shutters open so I had a constant misty rain blowing across me which kind of kept me cool until the power came back on around 8 am. Beside the rain and some gusty winds, it was pretty much a non-event which lead to the most gorgeous weather for the rest of the week!

I’ve been learning so much great stuff from all these really cool instructors. We had a class all about finances and money stuff. I know, sounds kind of boring right? It really wasn’t! Chrissy Shull, the instructor, had a lot of great tips on how to make credit cards and loans work for you and actually save money while getting lots of free stuff. Pretty cool, I mean who doesn’t like free stuff?

Also there was this guy, Rob Hill (funny story: I actually thought he was a shaved sasquatch when I first saw him, because we’re in the middle of the woods and this dude is huge) who talked to us about security. I’m pretty sure he’s a ninja! He actually showed how easy it was to bypass common security protocols by breaking into another camper’s shop right before he got to Camp, with her permission and knowledge of course! He gave us so much good information and so much to think about. Momma, we’ve got to tighten things up a bit more at the shop when I get home.

Cale Belford did a bang up job on her social media class; she’s always so good to listen to. Jef Saunders taught about how to teach. This was especially great and funny at the same time because after his class all the other instructors were instantly questioning their own classes and presentations -even though they were all excellent, it still made them squirm a bit. I definitely enjoyed Ryan Ouellette’s Thunderdome class, it was a buffet of quality information on some wide ranging topics. There was a ton of interaction and it seemed like all the campers really loved this class style and the topics he presented.

Beside classes, there was tons of chill time. Of course you know I spent most of my freetime by the lake fishing. I caught soooo many catfish. John and I have a little fishing contest going and he’s winning with a score of 26 to 22, but I swear he cheated more than once by catching the same fish twice. We also had a rad game of kickball; I got to be pitcher and my team won! Bethrah Szumski also organized a long walk in the pouring rain. Everyone put on bathing suits (or birthday suits) and they hiked all around in the rain. I skipped this to go fishing, but all the campers that went said it was so nice. We had a huge campfire on the last night and told scary piercing stories. We even roasted marshmallows and made s’mores!

There was a really terrifying moment at the campfire where we heard some growling from the woods. It started kind of far away and slowly got closer and louder. Everyone was swearing there was an actual sasquatch in the woods watching us so Paul, John and I all ran into the woods to look. Turns out there wasn’t a sasquatch, but there was a European Hornet’s nest that apparently didn’t like us, because all three of us got stung. It was pretty painful, but at least we all can say we got pierced by a hornet at Piercer Camp! There were also very large wolf spiders (some of them looked like baby tarantulas, but were actually like kitties) and this crazy daddy long leg that liked pie and crawling on people randomly. I also saw a cute little millipede in my room that was moving super fast. On the way into Camp, John and I saw a deer run across the road. A few other campers said they saw a sasquatch in the woods just past the Activity building, but I never saw it. We didn’t see any armadillos or scorpions this year though.

The food, OMG, Momma, the food is exceptional and there was so much of it! I don’t think I ever eat this much. It seems like all I’ve done is eat. Our Head Chefs, John Johnson and Matt Bavougian, really are talented and did a great job accommodating all of our special diets. A few of the other instructors and campers even jumped in and made some special snacks. Jef made some really yummy pizzas; you know how much I LOVEEEEEEE pizza, so this was extra special!

We had a raffle where everyone is supposed to donate something. It could be anything, a shirt from the shop, a rock from a hike, something silly from back home, something super special, something homemade, pretty much anything. Bethrah put everyone’s names into a bucket and then she pulled names until all the prizes were gone. I won some Professor Phardtpounders Colon Cleaner Hot Sauce and a slingshot! Pat Pierce was the winner of my raffle prize! I was super excited, and apparently he’s a huge fan of it already! Pretty rad.

I’m so sad that everyone will be leaving tomorrow and Camp will be over. This is honestly my favorite trip every year. So much laughing, so much learning, and so much time to just be in the moment. It’s always hard that first day to adjust to “roughing it” with not always being connected, but then it’s actually kind of nice to just be away in the middle of nowhere with a group of really good people. The cool thing though is that I won’t have to wait very long to see everyone again since APP Conference 2019 is in May. We will be doing our closing talks here in a few minutes and then I have to pack up. Tomorrow we clean up our cabins and turn in our bedding and then we’re done. I think we’re driving the Pauls to the airport early in the morning too, so it’ll be an early night for me.

Whelp Momma, I hear the meeting whistle now, so I’ve gotta run! I’ll be seeing you real soon though! — Shorty