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Memior - Think I'm Going to Bostin Part 2 - Swamp Day!


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Posted by Pete on August 27, 2022 at 03:40:33

I didn't sleep very well at all that night, as I wasn't used to all the lights and noises of the city that filled Dylan's small bedroom. The next morning I could hear Dylan's parents talking quietly in the kitchen, and I padded downstairs while Dylan was still sleeping. His parents gave me a warm 'Good Morning,' and I lied that I slept very well. Dylan's dad explained that he'd send us me and Cole to school with Dylan and Hayden today, and he'd already cleared that with the school principal. He explained that they just had a half-day of classes in the morning, then we'd have "Swamp Day" in the afternoon. "What IS swamp day?" I asked. Dylan's dad gave a little smirk and said "I'll leave it to Dylan to explain. But don't worry, its all fun, I'm sure you'll enjoy it." Meanwhile, Dylan's mom was rolling her eyes and remarked that everyone better wake up and be ready for school, and she marched upstairs shouting at the rest of the crew to get out of bed. Soon enough, Cole, Dylan and Hayden reluctantly stumbled into the kitchen, where bowls of cereal were quickly consumed, then Dylan motioned for me to hurry back upstairs. "We don't have school uniforms," he explained, "but there IS a dress code." We pieced together outfits for each of us that met their dress code - nicer khaki shorts and a blue polo for me, a white polo and khaki shorts for Dylan, a blue polo and navy blue shorts for Hayden, and jeans and a red polo for Cole.

"How far away is your school?" I asked, as we headed out the front door. "Just a few blocks," Dylan explained, "we'll walk today." "You don't have as school bus?" I asked. "We can take the bus, but it actually takes about as long as if we walked, so usually we only take it if its raining or cold or something." That wouldn't be an issue today, as the weather was clear and sunny. It was also quite warm, and only about 7:30 in the morning. I realized it would probably be HOT by lunch time. "Gosh, its hot," Hayden remarked, as if he were reading my thoughts. "I'm sure glad that its swamp day this afternoon!" "WHAT IS SWAMP DAY?" I demanded - Hayden and Dylan were enjoying having their little inside joke that I didn't understand. "Oh Petey," Dylan teased, "you'll find out soon enough. But don't worry, I promise you'll love it." If it wasn't that I trusted Dylan, I'd probably be upset about not being let in on the secret.

When we got to their school I was once again blown away by how different it was from where I was from. The school was massive - and crowded, with kindergarten through 12th grade split between a couple buildings on the campus. Dylan was in the high school, which boasted modern classrooms with TVs in each classroom, a computer lab, a swimming pool, a huge gym, an outdoor track and sports field... And absolutely packed wall-to-wall with people. Where I went to school, there were so few students that they'd often combine 2 or 3 grades into one classroom, and still have plenty of empty desks left over. Here, each grade was split into multiple classrooms, all of which were packed.

The school day was strange on account of it being a half day with only a day or two left in the school year. I followed Dylan around for a few classes - each one would start with the teacher asking me to introduce myself and explain where I was from, then the teacher would usually just return their graded papers and final exams, answer questions about report cards, or just kind of chit chat with the class. The social studies teacher seemed to be excited that I was from West Virginia - and motioned to a huge map of the United States he had mounted on the classroom wall, and asked me if I could point out where I was from. Now I wasn't a great student in those days, but I could find my hometown on a map, so I confidently marched over to the map and attempted to point out where I was from. And what I saw was strange - the map had the state of West Virginia, but it was empty. I tried to find one of the rivers I recognized, but none were labeled. The only town labeled on the map was Charleston, our capital city, but none of the other cities I recognized - Beckley, Princeton, Mullins, Welch - all missing from the map. The only road was the main interstate that cut across the state in the shape of an upside-down L - I stammered for a minute, and heard some of the students in the classroom snigger, before finally pointing vaguely at the southern part of the state, and stammered, "around here." That seemed to be enough to satisfy the teacher who sent me back to my seat, feeling just a little embarrassed.

At the end of the school day, Dylan stopped by his locker, and we met up with some of his friends, and - finally - headed to "swamp day." It was held at a park field a couple blocks from the school. Dylan explained that his parents volunteered us to help with setup and cleanup - since that would earn us a free lunch - so we'd spend about an hour setting up, then the rest of the school would arrive to participate. When we arrived at the park, I started to understand - there were canopy tents set up, a stack of plastic wading pools, an area with the ground dug out to form a mud / water pit, a couple big inflatable slides and obstacle courses, and a bunch of other random pieces of equipment. Dylan started narrating: "they do a tug-of-war over the mud pit, balance beams over those troughs of water, an obstacle course, water slide, other games, then before they send us home, the fire department brings out their engine and hoses everyone down." As Dylan explained, I could feel my smile growing wider. Dylan went on, "sorry for having a bit of fun with you, keeping this a secret, but I figured you'd end up enjoying it." "Yup!" I agreed, immediately forgiving him for keeping me in the dark.

I took another look around while we walked towards one of the canopy tents. Cole and Hayden had found the company of some pretty cute young ladies, gathered around a huge wooden trough - a square maybe 8 feet x 8 feet large, and 3 feet deep, filed with water, and with a balance beam running across the top of it. Hayden already had his shoes and socks off and was tip-toeing across the balance beam, while the girls were teasing him and nudging him. At the last minute the pushed him just hard enough, and he hopped off the beam into the water. He landed on his feet so he just splashed the bottom of his shorts but otherwise remained dry. I laughed, and realized this was going to be a pretty fun afternoon.

Dylan and I were tasked with putting together the "needle in a haystack" game. They had a bunch of bales of hay, which we had to pull apart and form a massive pile of hay, taller than we were. We then took a bunch of those foam noodle pool toys and buried them around the pile. When the game was played, the goal was to find all of the pool noodles (the "needles") in the haystack as quickly as possible. It was fun crawling around the giant mountain of hay, but before long I was hot and covered in dust and bits of hay. "Come here, Petey," Dylan called. He was a few feet away at the edge of the park, where a few plastic bins were getting setup under one of the tents. "Take your shoes off, and take anything valuable out of your pockets, you're only going to get more wet and dirty from here," Dylan instructed me. He went on, "its super great if you jump in the mountain of hay after you're already soaking wet - all the hay sticks to you, like you've been tarred and feathered, but its water and hay. Last year, remember I had my hair longer then? Yeah, it was great spending the next week fishing bits of hay out of my hair." I laughed, but Dylan went on, "BUT... Petey, if you're doing the tug-of-war and get pulled in the mud pit, you're GUARANTEED to make a mess out of yourself! So if you want to stay clean, you'd better stay away from that!" "I'm down for anything," I said, "let's do the tug-of-war!" One of Dylan's friends, Kevin, was hanging out with us. Kevin was a friendly, talkative kid who I had no trouble getting along with. He piped up, "But no cheating this time, Dylan! You remember what we do to cheaters!"

Dylan groaned. "You a--holes dumped SOO MUCH mud on me! You know how hard that was to clean up?" "Pretty boy did not like the mud treatment, not one bit" Kevin teased, and Dylan blushed. By way of explanation, Dylan said, "I was about to lose the tug-of-war, so I let go of the rope at the last minute, before I got pulled into the mud." "And we simply could not allow that," Kevin finished, and I had a pretty good idea of how they might have kept their friend honest.

By now, most of the setup was done, and the rest of the kids were starting to arrive. Some looked like they came straight from school, in their collared shorts and nicer shorts or pants. Other kids looked like they'd run home and were in t-shirts and swim trunks. One of the adults came by with some hotdogs and hamburgers, which we inhaled while we waited for the games to officially begin. It took a while for everyone to arrive and get organized into teams, get their shoes off and stored in the plastic containers that lined the edge of the park, and deposit their backpacks, beach towels, water bottles, and everything else. Dylan, Kevin and sat down on the grass and kept chatting.

"What do you think, Petey?" Dylan asked me, gesturing at the park, which had been transformed into a water park. "Swamp day is an AWESOME idea, I wish we did this at my school!" I exclaimed. "Well, Petey, when I visited you last year, it seemed like EVERY day was swamp day with you guys." He had a point, we spent most every day swimming at the lake near our house, or wading in the stream, or accidentally falling in the mud bog. I thought for a second, and smiled, "only thing missing is a dunk tank." "A dunk tank..." Kevin said, thoughtfully. "Yeah, you know, that thing where you sit on a seat above a tank of water and people try to throw balls at a target to knock you in the water," Dylan explained.

"Yeah, thanks, but I know what a dunk tank is, Dildo!" Kevin exclaimed, making fun of Dylan's name, which caused Dylan to blush. "I was just agreeing with your much smarter and nicer friend Peter, that a dunk tank would be a fun addition to the festivities here." "Well," Dylan interrupted, "I'll have you know two things. First, when I was in a dunk tank last year, it was COLD AS H-LL. I'd highly recommend heating the water. Second, I actually asked Mr. McGrath - he's the guy in charge of all this - if we could have a dunk tank this year. And he said no, it was too dangerous." "YOU went in a dunk tank?" Kevin asked Dylan, apparently surprised to hear that. "Yeah, at Petey's church picnic thing." "It wasn't a sneak baptism or something, was it?" Kevin taunted him. "No," Dylan laughed, "just a plain old fashioned dunk tank. I'm still going to h-ll!" "Those things always looked like fun to me," Kevin said.

Then, a man, who I assumed with the Mr. McGrath that Dylan had mentioned, stood up on a the small stage and began speaking into the PA system microphone - Swamp Day had officially begun!

---

So there's the lead-up into swamp day - I'll follow up with a separate post about all the games and shenanigans from the day.


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