Page 192 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
of his pocket, and, with the solemnity that might have been reserved for a high act of state or a funeral, told the four of us that we should be extremely proud. Based upon our proven abilities with campers and our peers, we had been chosen, he went on to say, as the four generals, two to a team, to lead the teams in the 1964 Color War. This and all that we were about to do and learn had to be held in the strictest of confidence. Were we agreeable to serve as generals and to keep secret this meeting and what would flow from it?
I have no idea what he would have done if any of the four of us had dissented. We all agreed and soon learned the purpose of the coin. Kotimsky told us that the candle-lit ceremony that was about to occur had occurred during each summer at Brookwood that he could recall, as well as during each summer for many years before his coming of age (although, based on his ultra-serious performance that night, it’s diffi- cult to make the case that he had indeed come of age). I struggled to keep a straight face and somehow succeeded, maybe because I was relieved to find out that we would not be required to take some form of oath while cradling the burning picture of a saint in our hands. This year’s teams would be the Blue Policemen and the Gold Firemen. George and I were to be opposed to each other as the two senior gener- als, and the other two counselors, one of whom was Kotimsky’s cousin, were to be the adjutant generals. I got the cousin, Richie Katims, pre- sumably so that I could be watched and held in check. Katims’s father had been a Kotimsky but had changed his name, apparently, I surmised, because he could not handle jokes about chopped liver or Color War. As a result of the coin flip, my team became the Firemen. (Little did I know that my future son Peter would later make me very proud by becoming a firefighter.) The coin was not just for that flip, however. We then had to flip for the choice of counselors for each team, and, finally, we alternated choices of the two, hopefully balanced, squads of campers into which each of the seven groups had already been divided.
But then it got a bit more ridiculous. It fell to the four of us to write our fight songs, alma maters, and cheers (no humor songs needed) within a four-day period, with the assistance of the music counselor but without
• 174 •