Winning a Week at Summer Camp

Have you ever had a perfect day? When everything goes right, and you are completely "on?"

I didn't know such a thing was possible until my last year of high school. I belonged to a girls' club connected with my church. It was the Girls' Auxiliary to the Anglican Church of Canada, but we just called it the Gee Ay. It was sort of religious girl scouts. We earned badges in activities that were considered essential to girls, back in that far-away time. We had a uniform, an annual fund-raiser, and an annual convention of all the groups in the diocese.

At this convention, we were supposed to put up a display of crafts and perform a skit, among other things. Points were awarded to individual troops, and two senior girls from each troop were entered in a "Miss GA" contest. (This was not a beauty contest, involving swimsuits--remember, this was a Church group!) The contestants were required to make speeches and serve high tea, complete with gracious social conversation and not spilling stuff.

As our troop only had two seniors that year, myself and the Troop Leader's daughter, we both found ourselves in the competition.

The troop Leader's daughter figured she'd beat me, because I was very shy and a bit short in the social graces department.

The skit came early in the day. It was a simple little fairy tale, with stage directions included in the lines. Things started to go very wrong. Troop Leader's Daughter was The Prince, and I was The Princess. One of her lines (my entrance cue) was: "The Handsome Prince draws his sword." She read the line, from where it was written on her wrist, but failed to draw the sword. She was a bit nervous. So, I hissed from the wings, "Draw your sword." Nothing happened. Louder: "Draw your sword!" The audience heard that one. Still no sword-drawing happening on the stage. Finally: "Draw! Your! Sword!" The audience laughed, and the Handsome Prince drew his sword, the Beautiful Princess entered, and the show went on. After the curtain came down, it went back up for our curtain call, which consisted of each character (all of us dead all over the stage) sitting up in turn and saying, "The King is still dead," etc., and dying all over again. Mine was last. As I delivered my line, "The Beautiful Princess is still dead, and beautiful even in death." (I don't make this stuff up--that really was the line!) As I re-flopped onto the floor, my arm was flung a bit farther than it had been before, and, when the curtain came back down, my hand was on the outside. So, I waved. We won that event, hands down!

Crafts and Hobbies went well--we had all learned how to knit, and spent a long time knitting slippers to sell at our fund raiser. So we had those, and various individual hobbies, like stamp collections, and the Barbie wardrobe we had designed and made.

Speeches--no problemo. I was pretty much a pro at speech by then, having won several contests around the district in the past three years.

Then came The Tea. I was dreading The Tea. I knew how to pour, and that you always serve from the left and remove from the right. I knew where the placemats, silverware and doilies were all supposed to be. I knew that you carry the cups and saucers to the teapot, not the other way around, and I knew that you always, always, keep the saucer with the cup. I could even balance a plate, cup and saucer, and serviette. But I was terrified that conversation would lag, while I dropped scones butter side down on the rug and spilled tea on the Guest of Honour. Did I mention that the Guest of Honour was the head of the whole organization? A true Dragon Lady of uncertain years, and very definite manners.

Much to my amazement, nothing was spilt, the conversation sparkled, and the Dragon Lady got quite chatty under the influence of some good Earl Grey from a properly hotted pot.

I couldn't stay for the closing ceremonies, as Dad had to pick me up and drive me nearly 100 miles to a Speech Contest. I finished 2nd in that (a nice Parker pen and pencil set), and got home around 11:00 PM. I called the Troop Leader to see how we had done in the points. As a troop, we had placed 4th in the Diocese, and I was the Miss GA!

The prize was a Leadership Camp--a week of seminars, fun, dancing, boating, fellowship with (gasp) boys included, and singing around a campfire. Did I mention boys?

But the thing I carried away from that convention was the heady feeling of being "on" and able to do everything right.

Now, if I could just do it again!