Page 193 - WhyAsInY

We’ll err (But) Be true
the knowledge of anyone else. To make matters worse, not only did we have to write the songs in this period, but we also had to abide by a very “special” historical rule covering Brookwood Color War alma maters.
Brookwood’s camp alma mater began “Brookwood, we’ll ere be true / To your colors, the Gold and Blue.” Thus, we were told, our Color War alma maters would have to employ the word Brookwood but could not lead off with it because that would be too easy and would somehow violate the sanctity of the tradition. Always up for a chal- lenge—and perhaps making my own comment on tradition, something for which I did not have unbridled respect—I decided to write an alma mater where, for the first time in recorded history (as far as I knew), the name of the camp would be rhymed—no easy task. Thus, the final prod- uct, written to the tune of “Try to Remember” from the musical The Fantasticks, included the line-ending phrase “than a gilded page of a golden book would.” (I’ll try to beat you to it: Ugh!)
Further, we were given a budget and told to sneak off to Port Jervis to purchase paraphernalia appropriate to our themes. (I did locate a red bucket that said “Fire” and two children’s fire hats, and assumed that we would have axes provided to us. They weren’t.) And then came the pièce de résistance : As we knew (actually, only Katims knew), the first event of Color War would be a torch relay race that would end at the outdoor basketball court, where the whole camp would be assembled. There, people chosen by each team would race to create a bonfire out of a heap of sticks, above which would be stretched a length of rope. Their job would be to determine the optimum configuration for the heap, ignite it, fan it, I guess, and cause the rope to burn and sever. Victory in the first event of Color War would be theirs. Okay, that seemed nice. But there was one hitch. For reasons impossible for me to fathom, these four very special and covertly assembled counselors had, between that night and the breaking of Color War five days hence, to collect the heap of twigs that would be used for the rope burning, all without help, all without arousing suspicion!
Somehow, we managed it. Color War broke with our arrival in a fire engine and a squad car to deal with a supposed emergency at a cookout
• 175 •