Hare–Raising Adventures
6th Edition, September 6th, 2000
Well, It has been a while since I wrote — almost three and
a half months! I was originally planning to continue with my once a month idea,
but due to the hecticness of the summer, once it got into August, I decided that
I would just write a letter at the end of the season, covering all the things I
did during the summer. Now it is September sixth, and because of my laziness I didn’t write any notes about what I did during the summer, so I may have missed
several things which Mom has probably written in her letters, but I think I have
most of the main things here.
I ended my last letter with a promise that I would write
about Nana and Poppa’s 50th weeding anniversary, and while it seems so long ago,
I will do my best. We started out the celebration by having pictures taken of
the extended family, in various different combinations by a professional
photographer. After that, we went down to the sanctuary of the church (I forget
what it is called — I went to nursery school there though), and Peter, Aaron,
Stephen, Megan, Katelyn and I were given the tasks of covering the entrances of
the sanctuary, and not to let anyone in unless we had given them a schedule
thing, and told them to sit in the front, but that the first two seats were
reserved (for us). Pete and Aaron put the two handouts together, and the rest of
us handed them out. I saw a lot of people that I knew, which surprised me,
(although in retrospect, in shouldn’t have) include some who I wouldn’t have
even thought of, such as Dr. Folmer (I don’t know how you spell his name). After
most of the people had come, all my cousins and brothers except for me had gone
up to our pews, and I was left for the stragglers. The service was nice,
although I think it had more sentimental value for some of the older people as I
think the music especially had been played before of something. Anyway, after
the service, we all filed out and went to the gym (it was big — I’m pretty sure
it was a gym), and ate food, drank punch, and listened to the various people
speak about different stories, anecdotes or something with a connection to Nana
and Poppa.
After all the strenuous activities in preparation for the
wedding anniversary, a relaxing weekend had been planned, and all the relatives
went to Camp Hebron, where our only responsibilities were to stay out of
trouble. I had a really fun time, and I think I can vouch for everyone else to
say they did too. I got to do two things which I had never done before: I got to
go on a climbing wall, and actually managed to get to the top on one side of the
medium wall (there were two sides on each setting of hardness — I tried the
other side, but I couldn’t make it up for some reason), and I got to go
horseback walking. It was hardly a scary activity, since the horses had done it
a hundred times before, and the worst thing my horse did was walk on the wrong
sine of a tree. Katelyn’s horse, which was right behind mine, on the other hand,
was slightly rebellious, and I thought I heard the instructors say something
about how he wasn’t getting a treat, or something to that effect, which made me
feel kind of guilty, since it must be boring doing the same thing all the time,
though I’m sure they do get some variation. As we were coming back to the
compound, we crossed over a road, and to our right there was a field, and I felt
like kicking my horse and just riding away… but I’m sure that the horse would
have been bewildered at the change of routine, would hardly dash off, and that
the instructors (one at the back and one at the front) would have caught me soon
enough — but I can dream.
On a more technical note, Dan, Dad, and Pete managed to get
all three of our computers networked, meaning that we can pass information from
computer to computer, basically meaning that it is like one computer with three
keyboards, mice (not mouses), and monitors. It took much blood sweat,
frustration, agony, and tears (the last, mostly Stephen’s and mine), and it
works most of the time now, but it was a long process.
In July I took two weeks of summer camp/school at a Vo–Tech school. It has this promotional two weeks (ten days) of classes for
fifth through eighth grade kids, in which you have a choice of four classes out
of 22 per week. This year I went both weeks, and took
graphic arts, commercial arts, landscaping, plumbing, auto tech, auto body,
electronics, and electrical wiring. graphic arts in one of my favorite classes, and you make scratch pads,
spiral notebooks, bumper stickers, address labels, et cetera, in whatever
quantity you can achieve in the time allotted. It is pretty much of an
independent class, but if you need help with the technical aspects, the teacher
usually can help. commercial arts was also pretty much do what you want,
although we made tee shirt designs which we would iron on to a shirt we were to
bring into class. I yanked four pictures of guinea pigs (what else?), and after
several days of work, got them in a satisfactory arrangement. So if you see me,
I may be wearing my guinea pig shirt (now it has gotten rather cracked though —
too bad it wasn’t a professional job).
Landscaping was much more ordered compared to the previous
two, and we made an ornamental birdbath which Stephen put as our center piece on
our table, drew a blueprint of a yard of a house (the house was already on the
paper), and made a mini landscape, which we had to tear down. Plumbing had a
really cool teacher, and I liked him much better than the one I had two years
ago. I had the honor of cutting the smallest piece of PVC pipe with a cutter
that you turn in a circle around the pipe, and slowly increase the pressure
until the pipe is cut through, in my class if five (but later it was found that
it was the smallest cutting of all four classes). Inspired by my example (I was
the first to cut) everyone else tried to beat me, and one kid almost did but at
his widest point, it was twice the size of mine. In an interesting note, I
couldn’t cut that small again. We made copper men in Plumbing, as our main
project.
Auto tech was boring and I didn’t like the teacher. I know
nothing about cars (and don’t really care), but everyone else in the class, was
a fanatic (even worse than Dan) or an (ahem) individual of lesser intelligence.
Auto body was yet another free reign class, and the teacher was good as well. We
spray painted metal plates with a design of our choice and brought them home.
Eectronics is another favorite class, and the first two days the teacher
teaches us some theory, the third day we practice soldering, the fourth we made
little kits the blink or make noise or something, and the fifth he gives us a
shock and we finish our kits if we hadn’t on the fourth day. Electrical wiring
is similar to electronics except we practice cutting wire, and making switches
instead of soldering. We made those things where if you touch the wire with your
wire the light goes on, and you try to go the beginning to the end without
touching the wire. So in conclusion, Vo–tech was fun, and I could go into
greater detail about the food, teachers, and so on, but I’ve rambled on enough
about that subject for now.
During one week I was at Vo–Tech Dan, Pete, Stephen, and
about half the kids and teenagers from our church went to French Creek for the
fourth and fifth grade camp (Dan and Pete went as counselors), and Dad went to
Mississippi or somewhere, so Mom, Ben and I were home alone. It was a strange
feeling — Peace.
After Vo–Tech I went to French Creek Bible Conference (don’t let the name fool you
— it is really a camp) and since my camp started in
the afternoon of the day that the fourth and fifth grade camp ended, only one trip
was made, so that was convenient for the drivers. French Creek went from the
seventh of august to the fourteenth of august. The only people that I knew there
were Paul and Andrew MacDonald (who I’m not sure I would want to associate with
anyway — just kidding), and originally Paul said that he couldn’t come, due to a
conflict with another camp that he and his family were going to. Luckily it
worked out that he could come, so we got to share a two bed cabin, instead of
having to be in a four bed cabin with strange people who I didn’t know. So now
for three years Paul and I have been able to be in a two bed cabin, and we’ve
ruled them with iron fists! We still had to have a counselor, but at least he
was in a different cabin with all the strange people (nothing against
counselors, but it is very nice having a cabin to ourselves). French Creek, if
you know about it, hardly needs explaining — it was about the same as the year
before — very fun. French Creek, if you don’t know about it, would take far to
long to explain here, and would just bore the people that know about it, but I
will explain the basic idea and try not to anger both sides. Each day you have
to get up at seven, clean your cabin, get down to breakfast at eight thirty (your cabins are way out in the woods, and the farthest ones are about
a mile away) then have two classes on whatever theme they have that year, then
lunch. After lunch you have clan activities (sports, basically), then free
time, in which I always go to the pool with about half of the rest of the camp, and then you
come back and go to your cabins and change. Then you come back to the main base, eat
supper, have clan activities, evening class, canteen, then back to cabins for
devotions with your counselor and personal hygiene (brushing teeth, etc.), and
then to bed at ten thirty.
Several things happened while Paul and I were busy playing
checkers on my board, whooping the other clans, and despising all the people of
lower wisdom. The first actually happened the day I arrived at French Creek. Mom
had put Blackberry, Sawdust, and Sage (my three Guinea pigs) out to eat grass,
and due to the heat, and the fact that the shade had moved, they were out in the
sun. Stephen, noticing that they were in the hot sun, brought Black and Saw
inside the house (Sage had escaped into the hedge), and put them into the tub,
and filled it up to their sides with cold water, and consequently they had a
heart failure (I would assume) and died before Mom noticed what Steve had done
and stopped him. Sage, because of his timely escape, wasn’t put in the tub, so
he is still alive. They buried Black and Saw in the back yard. The other thing
that happened while I was away was hardly unexpected, since it was the birthdays
of Daniel and Ben, who turned nineteen and four, respectively. Since I was away,
they postponed the opening of their presents until I came back.
In and among all these things, were four weeks of church
stuff, in which each Wednesday night, the adults and the Junior and High school
students had a seminar on one topic each week (the adults had different
teachers, but on the same subjects): Finance, Computers/Internet, Clothes, and
Courtship and Marriage. I volunteered (yay me) to baby sit/coach soccer for the
one through five year olds during the seminars, so I was only there for the
Clothing seminar, since it was raining and the kids watched a movie instead, so
I can’t say anything about the other weeks, but the one on clothes was pretty
good.
Once again on a technical note, Dad decided it was time
for us to venture farther than a Domain name, farther than a networking of the
computers — we were to get a… DSL. I think — though I my be wrong — that
DSL stands for Direct Subsciber Line. Which is something which means we can
have our computers connected to the Internet all the time, without clogging up
the phone line, which some of you may have experienced with frustration. If it
is possible, setting up the DSL was harder and more of all the adjectives (?) of
the networking, and more of a pain to keep working, but maybe it will stabilize
(let us hope). Because of the advancement of modern technology, we are able to
connect to the Internet on all three computers, so no more clogged phone lines
due to computers.
The above are the large specific things done during the
summer. Here are some of the smaller (of interest to the rest of you maybe, but
not to me, and not necessarily in time either) continuing things that I did. The
first is school. As a result of my prodigality during the school year, visiting
relations in Hawaii, Florida, and countless other distractions, I was forced to
do school during the area of time generally considered free of such academic
requirements and constraints. Finally though, after long hours of faithful
repentance of my previous foolhardiness, I finished that burden. Other, more
light hearted aspects of my summer were reading (ever a top priority), playing
on the computer, playing with my guinea pigs, going to the pool, inviting
friends over the play, and avoiding responsibilities.
That pretty much sums up my summer, but since I have
already started school (technically) I guess I should say something about that.
Peter has, after much confusion as to whether he would or not, gone to the
Christian high school, and, to all appearances, likes it (although you can never
tell with Pete). Dan has left to JHU and I bade a fond farewell to his computer —
but to be honest, I will miss his renting movies, driving Pete and me to the
disc golfing place, and his other attributes. MAFIA will be starting up again
soon, so Mom is scurrying to get ready since she is teaching two classes instead
of one this year. Dad as well has been busy since all the freshmen and other
college student have come back, so he has to actually work, instead of just
sitting in his office hoping he has E–mail and playing FreeCell. Ben goes to a
nursery school in the afternoons this year (yay, yay), so we should be able to
get slightly more school done without him, and Stephen and I are back to a year
of home schooling (which is going to be my last in middle school, which is scary,
because I’ll be in High School next year <gasp>).
So now the only thing I can look forward to, other than
months of school, is our trip to the Outer Banks which we leave for on the
fifteenth, so I guess I’ll have information on that in my next letter.
Disclaimer, Copyright, Notes from the Editor
Disclaimer: Anything said here is probably false unless I specifically
say otherwise, and if you want to try to convince me that something I haven’t said is true actually is, you will have to speak to my lawyers: Sage
and Cinderella. Sage does the smooth talking, and if that doesn’t work,
Cinder beats you up. Or you can call me at any time by calling 911 (I had to
pay a lot of money to get a only a three digit phone number instead of a ten digit one)
Copyright: every word in this E–mail is copyrighted, even
the misspelled ones, so if you want to copy it, slide ten dollars in a plain
white envelope under my door at 3:48 A.M. and my hedgehogs will grant you
permission to copy the section labeled Copyright in the mail thirteen days later
at your home address.
Note From the Editor: Please, if you have any suggestions,
corrections, or problems, please, come to me! you can E–mail me at Snowshoe_hare@cdgreen.org
–~Snowshoe Hare~–
–~Christopher Green~–
–~Snowshoe_hare@cdgreen.org~–
*Here Endeth the Newsletter*
