Hey, Libbers!

Today I’m sharing a Camp Lib I wrote just for our Production Supervisor—Shirley. Shirley makes camp trunks and she’s probably one of the best in the country at doing it. After 27 years of building them, we pretty much consider her an expert! You can read about how our camp trunks get made in the Camp Lib that Shirley helped fill out below (but you probably won’t learn anything from it!).

If you want, you can write down your own words for the blanks too. Just use the following list of requested words and you can make your own version of Shirley’s Camp Lib below. And remember—a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea; a verb is an action word; and an adjective is a word that describes a noun while an adverb is a word that describes a verb. Enjoy!

1. Verb
2. Adjective
3. Verb Ending in ‘ing’
4. Noun
5. Noun
6. Verb
7. Plural Noun
8. Past Tense Verb
9. Verb
10. Noun
11. Noun
12. Verb
13. Plural Noun
14. Plural Noun
15. Noun
16. Noun
17. Plural Noun
18. Noun
19. Noun
20. Verb Ending in ‘ing’
21. Adverb
22. Noun
23. Verb Ending in ‘ing’
24. Noun

Here’s the Lib:

When you jump out into our factory here at Everything Summer Camp (the home of C&N Footlockers), you’ll find our production crew quick at work. They’re skipping all year round to make all of our C&N camp trunks. What started out in a small garage 27 years ago now operates in a 24,000 square foot fish.

All C&N camp trunks are made from boat; so the first step is to slice the wood in our saw room. Then we cut our steel sheets with the metal husbands.

After we’ve snored the wood as well as the steel the next step is to limp one side of the wood with Durawrap paper lining. It’s grandkid-resistant, cat-free, and virtually fight-proof!

After that, we take all of the wood hikes and make footballs out of them at our Assembly shrew. Some of the boxes are shallow as they are made to be the bear of the trunk while the other, deeper boxes become the leaves of our trunks.

The next step is to attach our nickel-plated rubber duck and hardware—all of it done with a Philips head staple gun. This all happens at the swimming station.

Slowly, once all the trim, the latches, the handles, and the shoe have been attached, you’re lookin’ at the final product. The trunk then gets passed on to our Crying Department where it gets shipped out to you.

We hope you treasure your employee trunk forever!

Thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Campers!

Show of hands—who here is a fan of Jeff Daniels? Obviously you can’t see it, but my hand is way up and I’m willing to bet that most other hands are raised up high too. Did you know that Jeff was a summer camper just like you when he was around your age?

You may remember Jeff from such films as 101 Dalmations, RV (a classic camping movie), Fly Away Home, and–of course–his calling card Dumb and Dumber.

He participated at Bruin Lake Boy Scout Camp where he learned valuable lessons to survive in the wilderness using tools and to listen to instructions. He learned about environmental conservation, community, being physically fit, academic studies, and sports.

His mother Marjorie gave birth to Jeff in Athens, Georgia in 1955. But her and her husband, Robert only stayed in Georgia for the first six weeks of Jeff’s life. After that they moved from the south and raised Jeff in Chelsea Michigan.

He went to Central Michigan University and was very involved with the theater program during his time there. When he was 21, Daniels decided to switch things up and focus solely on theater at the Eastern Michigan University drama school. There he participated in a special event called the Bicentennial Repertory program that really launched his acting career for the stage.

As for his stage acting, Jeff has been both on and off Broadway and has been nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor. He’s also been nominated four times for his performances on the screen.

He still lives in Michigan where he has founded a nonprofit theater company called the Purple Rose Theater Company. More than just an actor, Jeff is a playwright as well as a musician—a triple threat!

You can catch Jeff and his old buddy Jim Carrey as they reunite their old roles as Harry and Lloyd in Dumb and Dumber To.

Jeff learned a lot in Boy Scouts for his summer camp experience. What will yours bring you? That’s all for today, Camp Fans. Till next time.

- John

Hey, History Buffs!

I think one of the best sensations in life is when that perfect summer breeze comes and goes whispering past you, up against you, and, sometimes, seemingly THROUGH you. It’s great being swept away in a cool breeze or even a strong, gusting zephyr.

Since the first summer, people have always desired that feeling of airflow—a concentrated breeze. Pharos and kings were fanned with giant palms while hand fans were a cheap means of cooling yourself since ancient times. But nowadays, we have the convenience of fans run on electricity.

These days, fans are an essential summer item found in pretty much every home. But things weren’t always so. In fact, electric fans didn’t even exist until sometime around 1883. Fans made at this time had fully-exposed blades and inner workings. They were expensive and found only in large offices or wealthy homes.

It took roughly ten years before motor enclosures and fan cages came along, not so much as a safety measure for the user but more so for the protection of the fan and its expensive blades. In another ten years they figured out how to make them oscillate back and forth.

Other improvements were made along the way, but the game-changer for the electric fan finally came along in the 1930s. Better materials became available for wrapping wire which allowed for the use of smaller wires which in turn allowed for manufacturing smaller motors. While already in some homes, this benefit brought the fan to every home.

With the onset of air conditioning, the market for fans went way down. Over the years, however, fans have remained because of their ability to adapt. Using cheaper materials like plastic instead of metal as well as introducing different shapes like the box fan for windows and tower fans for optimal air flow.

Everything Summer Camp is happy to offer such innovative shapes and designs for personal fans like our Funky Flexi-Fan, the Squeeze Breeze Water Misting Fan, the Desktop Fan, and the Deluxe Fan/Light. These fun electric fans are always handy on those hot days at camp!

Thanks for reading, Fan Fans and stay cool.

- John

Hey, Gamers!

Today is National Video Game Day. From Tetris to Mario, Donkey Kong to Madden NFL, the world of video games has exploded with booming popularity and growing possibilities. No matter what your style is, chances are there’s a video game out there that you would enjoy. Even for people who prefer a more active pastime, there are games like Dance Dance Revolution and Wii Sports for interactive and active entertainment.

So how did video games begin? Well, that’s not so easy to answer. First, you have to define what a video game is or else you might go all the way back to Goldsmith and Mann’s Cathode Ray Tube in 1947. This device used screen overlays as there wasn’t any ‘video’ back then. Other attempts were made at interactive electronic games along the way but the first real video game console was released in 1972.

Ralph Baer’s Magnavox Odyssey, by all technical terms, became the first video game console. So how come you never heard of it? Because it failed in a horrible way since the Odyssey was only compatible with Magnavox television sets and each console could only play ONE GAME!

Baer’s dream of an interactive television set may have flopped, however, it did launch the video game craze that was to follow.

In 1972, Atari Inc. was founded which led to major success in the arcades. Pong, the first arcade game to catch on caught on indeed, becoming a giant hit. Still, the wait lasted until 1977 for Atari to come out with a game console for home entertainment when the Atari 2600 was released. Up until the Atari, home consoles like the Odyssey were only able to play the one game they were programmed to play.

With incomparable sharpness in graphics and heightened possibilities, video games have grown in diversity to establish its own genres. The advancements they’ve made are impressive to say the least—it’s no wonder they’re so celebrated. With an interesting foreseeable future in virtual reality, video games are sure to continue astounding us for quite some time.

Thanks for reading, Game Fans! 

- John

Everyone at Everything Summer Camp has at least dabbled in the realm of video games. Read on to see all our favorites…

Mark:
The original Legend of Zelda for Nintendo
After the game came out I was in a race with several friends to see who could finish the game first. I remember my Mom waking up around 5 am on a Saturday morning, finding me playing Zelda and being surprised that I was up so early. What she didn’t know at the time was I had never gone to bed!

Matt:
R.B.I. Baseball (NES)
I grew up playing it. I can even recite all the teams and most of the lineups from each team. From the quirky music to the unbelievable graphics this game will forever be a true classic.

Nate:
Mario Kart
I grew up playing it on SNES with my brother and neighbor; now I play it with my kids on the Wii.

Kristy:
Super Mario World for Super Nintendo.
It is my favorite because growing up my brother and I were allowed to spend Friday nights conquering as many levels as we could while eating our favorite pizza (Fatboy’s Pizza) and other junk food. I still own our Super Nintendo along with the game and will break it out once in a while. I still have to blow in the game and the Super Nintendo to get it to work!

Brian:
My current favorite game is Mario Kart 8.
It’s easy to pick up, and really fun to play with others—online, or by yourself. You can play for five minutes or five hours, so it’s very friendly to people with busy schedules.

John:
Mario 2
This game was originally a Japanese video game called “Doki Doki Panic.” The Mario makers simply placed their characters over the ones in the original game. I beat it for the first time very recently. It is my very favorite game.

Mel:
Wheel of Fortune
They’ve got Pat and Vanna on there just like the show! I also like to play Family Feud on the Wii!

Teresa:
Candy Crush
Like every owner of a smartphone, this game sucks me in every time!

Missy:
(Unable to pick a favorite, Missy offered a slew of her old favorites):
Between the arcade and the Atari, I loved playing Centipede, Asteroids, Space Invaders, Enduro, Pong, Pitfall, and Donkey Kong.

Myron:
My family used to have an Atari and the original Nintendo when they came out. I remember playing Mario—probably the first one. I don’t think I ever made it to the second level, though!

Chelsea:
Call of Duty
Currently, Black Ops 2 is my favorite to play.

Dawn:
Pacman
This is the only video game I’ve ever cared to play. Well, and Mrs. Pacman, of course.

Hey, Fried Chicken Fans!

Previous Celebrity at Summer Camp, Zac Brown, says in a famous song of his, “You know I like my chicken fried.” I think this line speaks for most folks when it comes to our preference of how to make chicken, after all, there’s a day dedicated to this method of poultry preparation. Yesterday was National Fried Chicken Day.

There’s something about biting through that crispy outer layer of breading and into a juicy mouthful of chicken that will always leave you wanting more. People have been frying things (like eggs, potatoes, fritters, and, of course, meats) for a very long time—at least as early as the 1st Century, yet some evidence points as far back as 9000 years ago.

Due to a lack of cooking equipment, only some cultures were able to fry foods. Many cultures had no means of extracting oil, nor did they have a vessel that could hold the oil under such extreme heat. In fact, it’s theorized that frying foods was first born along with the invention of pottery. Pottery pieces provided a container for hot oil in which to fry different foods.

As time marched on, technologies advanced frying methods and made resources that had been hard to acquire now easy to obtain. Fried foods quickly grew in popularity across the whole world and fried chicken became a fast favorite (with fried potatoes—French fries—a close second).

There’s typically a level of fear that goes along with preparing fried chicken. It can be messy, unsuccessful, and (dealing with extremely hot oil) potentially dangerous. Still there have always been people throughout time who are unafraid to rise to the task. Harland Sanders was one. But you probably know him better as the Colonel.

To make money in the desperate times of the Great Depression, Colonel Sanders started selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant, located in Corbin, Kentucky. In 1952, Sanders opened the first KFC franchise which would quickly sweep the country, offering an alternative to the already accustomed hamburger.

It’s never too late to celebrate so go grab some fried chicken for yourself today to celebrate National Fried Chicken Day. And thanks for reading.

- John