Page 190 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
War. Guess what? Brookwood had a long tradition of Color War. Well then, what to do? Easy. Have both! Thus, it was bad enough that those who had been at Brookwood for years valued their traditions and looked down on Kee-Wah’s ways, not to mention on Kee-Wah’s former campers and counselors (and vice versa), but the arguments concerning the com- peting cultures were immediately accentuated and perpetuated by the decision to institute what, for Brookwood campers, was the entirely inexplicable and unsatisfying Tribe War—and to do so in the very first week of camp. To compound the problem, as Color War was always treated with great secrecy, no one could calm the waters by saying that having Tribe War does not mean eliminating Color War. This left a lot of Brookwood loyalists quite irritable.
And for this year’s Chippewa Chief? None other than Harvey J. Yaverbaum, who was thereby thrust bodily into the morass that the merger had created. (I guarantee that I was selected for reasons other than my skill with a bow and arrow. Rarely was a specialty counselor entrusted with matters relating to true athletics or camp spirit.) Any- way, I assume that I did a competent job getting the Chippewa nation to make war at a reasonable level.
By the time of the last event of Tribe War (the Apache Relay, remember?), the mighty Chippewa were strongly ensconced in second place, needing to win the relay in order to win the war. It was received wisdom that, barring a crazy occurrence, Apache Relays are won during the water legs, and Tribe War 1964 did not disappoint. Going into the leg that pitted two-man rowboats against each other for what seemed like a mile, the Sioux, who were leading Tribe War, were in the lead in the race as well. The mighty Chippewa were second in the relay and were not closing on the Sioux boat—until, that is, a magical occurrence occurred: Somehow, an oar in the Sioux boat broke in two. (No. That was not said sarcastically. There was no sabotage involved, at least none to my knowledge.) The Chippewa boat then overtook its rival, and the Chippewa, having thereby established a healthy lead, went on to win the race. Because the Sioux lost the race and my tribe, the Chippewa, won both the Apache Relay and Tribe War, Marc Sherry (who is now a co-
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