Lake Accidentally Drained During Bucket Brigade

Lake Huron, PA (Aug 10, 2014) – A typo on the Color War Bucket Brigade rules made by Camp Huron Lake secretary Diane Abraham led to an unbelievably unfortunate event yesterday morning as Huron Lake was accidentally drained.  Instead of the rules calling for each team to fill up one garbage can with lake water, Abraham, while taking a call from a mother concerned that her son was wearing the same shirt five days in a row, accidentally held down the “1” key on her keyboard and erroneously entered the number “111,111”.   

The Bucket Brigade is a competition where several members of each team are stationed in the lake filling up buckets of water to pass down a line of team members who then dump any remaining water into a designated receptacle. The person who empties the bucket then sprints back to the lake with the bucket to fill up again.  

“All campers know the rules are the rules and in order for Color War to be fair, those rules must be followed,” remarked Camp Director Marty Feldstein.   After a grueling 22 hours, the Red Twizzlers finally defeated the Yellow Starbursts to gain a valuable five points in the competition to cut the overall deficit to 1,245 points.  

The garbage cans filled with water were then dumped away from the lake flooding farm land and several houses.  Tomorrow, Feldstein plans on turning the empty lake into a 220,000 square foot Gaga Pit. 

Apache Nation Offended by Ridiculous Relay Race Bearing Name

Dulce, New Mexico (August 9, 2014) - Chief Cochise, leader of the Native American Apache tribe held a morning press conference yesterday denouncing the use of the name “Apache” to represent an absurd relay race involving campers across the land stolen from his ancestors.  Cochise, who spoke in his native South Athabaskan language, was translated by local anthropologist, Len Harris. 

The Apache relay has been a staple of sleep away camp Color Wars for decades.  The race is made up of dozens of different stations or activities which a team must complete before passing the baton or other symbolic token to the next person in the relay.  Some examples of Apache Relay activities include making two basketball shots in a row, putting one’s forehead on a baseball bat and spinning around one hundred times then attempting to run fifty feet, wrapping a fellow camper in toilet paper, and a three-legged backwards walk.   

Through his interpreter, Chief Cochise strongly commented, “We are a proud group of people, warriors, in fact, that deserve to be regarded in a much higher esteem.  For centuries, my people have lived off this great land and provided a life for generations through hard work and a lasting heritage.  Never has my tribe had a race where a girl passes an apple to another girl using only our mouths.  Furthermore, I cannot repeat this enough, we have never, I mean, never, had one of our male tribe members dress up like a woman and run three laps around a track wearing high heels and a bra stuffed with water balloons!”

Camp to Use Lanyard for Tug of War After Ropes Set Ablaze During Rope Burn

Lake Huron (August 9, 2014) – Camp Huron Lake Director Marty Feldstein decided to hold the 2014 Color War Rope Burn the night before the divisional Tugs of War for the first time in camp history.  While this seemed like a fairly innocuous change of schedule, the Tug of War ropes were burned leaving the Arts & Crafts department scrambling to create a 120 foot combination Cobra/Chinese Staircase stitch lanyard thick enough to withstand the pulling torque of fifty maniacal campers each tug.  

After the monumental gaffe by Feldstein, the crack Arts & Crafts department worked tirelessly through the night to create the biggest lanyard on record in Wayne County, Pennsylvania.  The first tug of the day featured the Sophomore Girls who grabbed the lanyard, sprinted with it back to their bunk area, then proceeded to cut off key chain- sized sections to be sold later outside the Social Hall. 

Color War Crazed-Camper Chanting “I Wanna Break Out” Gets Wish on Forehead and Chin Areas

Lake Huron, PA (August 9, 2014) – In a cruel twist of irony, fourteen-year old Senior Girl camper Jenna Solomon got exactly what she wished for as her forehead and chin broke were covered in acne moments after chanting “We Want a Break Out!”   As the acne spread across her face, Solomon quickly regretted her overly enthusiastic chanting.  Luckily for Solomon, Color War did break out only hours later.  She is a member of the Red Disney Pixar Dreamworks Animation team so she’ll be able to mask much of the break out with red face paint over the next five plus days.  “Let’s just hope my shipment of Proactiv+ gets here in the next few days,” an anxiety-ridden Solomon commented.

Camp Production of “The Color Purple” Not So Good; “Fiddler” to Return Next Summer

Huron Lake, PA (August 4, 2014) – Last night, The Murray Abraham Social Hall on the grounds of Camp Huron Lake was transformed into the American south for the 2014 summer production of “The Color Purple”.  Although the elaborate sets were stunning, the show opened to mostly negative reviews from campers and staff who sat through two and a half hours of depressing, lifeless theatre.

“The Color Purple”, a Tony Award Winning Musical, takes place mainly in Georgia between 1909 and 1937.   The shows tells the life of an African American woman named Celie Harris, played by Whoopi Goldberg, whose abuse from her father starts at a way too early age.  The show, adapted from the Steven Spielberg directed movie of the same name, focuses on the strong female characters looking to better their lives in a time and society where the odds are firmly stacked against them. 

Super Senior girl, Jana Finkelbaum of Woodbury, Long Island, played the lead role of Celie.  Finkelbaum, daughter of hedge fund honcho Murray Finkelbaum, just couldn’t seem to grasp the internal struggle faced by Celie throughout her adolescence.  The audience was clearly able to sense that misconnection.  “Let’s face it, there’s only one Whoopi, and Finkelbaum ain’t it,” sassy junior boy, Jake Rossenfeller, 9, opined, snapping his fingers as his head bobbed side to side.  “The only suffering she’s ever done is when her father couldn’t get One Direction to play at her Bat Mitzvah. Holla!”

Her performance shaky at best, Finkelbaum just couldn’t seem to capture the raw, unbridled emotion as well as grit and determination that Goldberg was able to bring to the screen.  In one particular scene, Celie is supposed to be working on the family’s farm but Finkelbaum went off script by having Celie refuse to walk in the muddy rows of cotton without her blue Hunter boots that match her Soffee tie-dye shorts.  Drama director, Steve Cohen, fumed after the unapproved liberty was taken by Finkelbaum.  “I’m fine with actors interpreting a character’s feelings and taking some risks, but this was just ridiculous.  Everyone knows her red Hunters match perfectly with those shorts.”

As the show mercifully came to a close, campers and staff alike were eager to leave the horrible performance as soon as possible. 

“I thought we’d try to do something a bit different this summer.  But next year we’ll go to the old standby, “Fiddler on the Roof.”  Who doesn’t tear up when Tevye sings Sunrise, Sunset?” admitted camp director Marty Feldstein.  “Plus, we already have the outfits and fake beards.”