While Orange County was sweltering in a heat wave, the girls and I took off for our annual Trailmates trip to Camp Surf, an "all-inclusive" YMCA almost-resort, on the beach, 4 miles from the Mexican border.
We got there Friday evening, and went to our traditional Friday-evening restaurant with most of the other guys and girls, but they've added "Live Entertainment", in the form of a guy with a guitar. He was pretty good, and did several completely unexpected songs (like "Tainted Love"), and newer songs that I've never heard before. He played everything from memory, which impressed me, since I'm terrible at that. But his main problem was the sound of his guitar, which was one of those semi-hollow electric Fenders, but it sounded like a plastic Casper guitar.
When we got back to camp, I set up the projector and showed the movie "Silverado". Only about half the girls wanted to see a western, but the dads all liked it. It's long, though, so we were up 'til midnight.
After breakfast on Saturday, we went down to the beach, where Geneva surfed on the full-sized boards, and Acacia and friends went out on Boogie boards. The water was really cold (especially after Mazatlan 4 weeks ago), but we had wetsuits, so we were OK. They drag everybody out of the water for lunch, and afterwards the girls all crashed for a nap until the afternoon beach session.
Saturday night dinner was (as always) build-your-own Taco Bar. Then comes "Skit Night", where the camp counselors (college kids who serve as lifeguards, arts-and-crafts teachers, rock climbing and surf instructors, etc.) and the kids do skits for each other. Each of the groups that were there (us, a small Cub Scout group from Desert Hot Springs, and three Princess tribes out of Newport Beach) signed up to do a skit or two, and I usually sign up to sing some songs, too. I did "Waltzing With Bears" (of course), "Lollipop Tree", and "ended" the show with my Indian Princess-ified "Goodnight Irene". But when I finished it, all the Trailmates clamored for "The Indian Princess Song", so I guess I had an encore.
Of course, I had my new harmonizer box with me, and used it, sparingly, on each of the songs. It was especially welcome on "Goodnight Irene", which absolutely *begs* for a harmony line through the singalong chorus, and I've been wishing that somebody out there would find it, but nobody ever has. Finally, the box took care of it, to my great relief.
After the "show", we went back to our own campfire, and the girls got to singing some silly Girl Scout songs (Geneva ran one or two of those, quite well), and some of them were trying to sing pop songs, especially, for some reason, "Sweet Home Alabama". I thought it would be fun to jump in with my guitar , but as soon as I got back with the guitar, they started asking for lots of other songs. We had lots of Misses -- songs they'd suggest that I'm too old to know, and songs I'd suggest that they're too young to know -- but we found a few that they knew, and that I managed to fake, even without my Big Book: "Let It Be", "Hey, Jude", "Desperado", some others, and most fun of all, "Don't Stop Believing". And of course, ""Sweet Home Alabama" which none of us actually knew the verses to. It was really fun -- it just seemed like a weird campfire to do all those kinds of songs instead of, say, "Comin' 'Round the Mountain" and "Home on the Range". But it had been a long day, and by 11:30 everybody'd given up and gone to bed.
But between the guy playing at the restaurant on Friday, and these girls asking me for new hip songs, I'm somehow inspired to go learn some new stuff. I've been reticent because I couldn't figure out how to find recent songs that several people would know (the girls provided me with a list), and I was afraid to be "that old guy" playing "young" music. I'll remain sensitive to that, but I think learning a few new tunes might be worth a try.
On Sunday, we were glad that we'd done sufficient beach play the day before because an amazingly thick fog rolled in and they closed the beach because the lifeguards couldn't see the water from their towers. So we took it easy, did the crafts, and went home after lunch.
All in all, a great weekend.
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