July 24 2025

At 6:45 this morning, reveille blew and a great shout arose from Tentalow Row. The girls were excited about another Great Day, this one featuring you! A line of tractors was waiting on the road into camp and they started their engines at the same time as the cheer arose from the campers, shifting into gear one by one they pulled into the cabin area with their enormous trailers ready to receive smelly laundry bags, trunks, duffles, boxes, and bags. I joined the men, intending to show off like the old days (carry trunks single-handedly with an outdated standard of physical fitness).

I worked hard for ten minutes, but slowed down when I saw a little 10-year-old dragging a duffle twice her size towards the closest tractor. She wasn’t alone; there was an army of campers joyfully carrying luggage, obviously proud of themselves for doing such a hard thing. You should know that your girls are much more capable, much stronger, much grittier, much more resilient than you think. Our culture is one that does not readily embrace challenges; we prefer to shelter ourselves and our loved ones, but I believe that life is all about embracing the hard things that come our way every day.

A good camp session draws us closer to God. We might be sad (not a strong enough word… devastated might be better) when we close a chapter of the Greystone book, but we also joyfully anticipate what is yet to come. Reunions with family, vacations to squeeze in, a new class in school, a new team, a new project… so many good things that we now enter with a new sense of confidence. We look forward to calling our camp friends and talking in new circumstances. We look forward to reunion weekends in exotic places like Atlanta, California, Tennessee, Illinois, New York, or Nebraska. We anticipate unexpected airport reunions with Greystone Girls we haven’t met yet. We look forward to the joy of driving into camp on Opening Day next year. We remember: Wherever you might wander, whatever be your goal; keep your eye upon the donut and not upon the hole. The Donut is the good things that surround us no matter the circumstance. The Hole is what is missing from that otherwise good circumstance. Find the good… it is always there!

Greystone Girls (I know you are reading this… it’s one of the things you like to do at some point after leaving camp) please know that we miss you keenly. We will look at the moon reflecting its brilliance in the lake’s calm waters tonight and wish you were here to see it. We are just as exhausted as you. We are just as teary as you (it’s true that I probably cry more than any boy you have ever met… I’m proud of that fact!). We miss you and we love you dearly.

Greystone fans (a group that includes parents, alums, and friends), thank you for caring enough about camp to read a camp blog on a day such as this. Only a fan would read a camp blog when camp was over. That you exist is an encouragement beyond words. Thank You.

The end of Main Camp marks a transition in our year. While there are still two weeks of absolute Greystone delight ahead of us, it will not be the same. Young campers love camp differently than more mature campers. So we have fun, laugh a lot, and play like little children, experiencing camp in a whole new way. We love August Camp but are already anticipating next year with you Main Campers.

Soon, we will carefully consider what we have learned from this summer. We will lean upon your surveys, letters, phone calls, comments, and stories… we read them when you dropped them off in the boxes but with a little more time, we will better digest your thoughts and form action plans that will make camp better next year. Your feedback is invaluable to us, and we take it seriously.

Thank you… We miss you.