Some highlights from my third year at the Cordova 4-H Music Camp. I’ll try and section this up so you can skip around at your leisure. (Not that I condone skimming Abbott Family Blog posts, of course…)

Sasha! Sasha! Blah, blah blah!

First up: a video of the most popular dance at Cordova Music Camp:

I think this is a Russian dance that was introduced to the camp a few years ago by a dance teacher (who has been absent ever since). The “blah blah blah” part was originally “1 2 3″ in Russian, but the kids couldn’t remember it. And thus, a timeless classic was born. It has since become the most highly-requested dance at the 3-4 community square-dances held during camp.

Sadly, the batteries ran out before the music started speeding up, as it always (purposefully) does… by the end, everyone is breathlessly trying to clap as fast as they can. It’s a blast. As were all the dances:

Getting foot surgery!

That is, getting my foot cut open; and not by a doctor, mind you. Let me explain. Thursday was the annual, highly-anticipated squirt-gun battle, which the Cordova Music Camp hosts at this place called Skater’s Cabin, on Lake Ave just past the small-craft airport. It’s pretty epic; two years ago there was even a small boat that lobbed water balloons toward shore, and water cannons that fired back at them.

I’ve never participated, but I told myself that this would be the year I would join the fray.

So when the whistle blowed, I grabbed a bowl and started lobbing water at people, mostly other instructors and the kids in my camp band. All went great for about thirty seconds… until I went in the lake to refill my bowl.

First, I forgot that this was a lake, not a river. In a river, the flowing water smooths down the rocks. Not so in a lake. Furthermore, there is no sand in Alaska. So I expected a bunch of pebbles and smooth stones embedded in sand; what I got were a bunch of sharp rocks that I couldn’t see beneath the perturbed waters.

But there’s more. In Cordova, everyone warns you: “You gotta wear shoes in the squirt gun fight, there’s glass in the water!” Usually people are overzealous in their “you should be wearing shoes” advice, but in this case I believed them and brought along some shoes. Flip-flops, to be exact. Well, wouldn’t you know it: my left shoe broke, and my right shoe slipped to the side just once, enough to cut my foot pretty good. No photos of the cut, but it was about two inches long and a quarter inch deep. Very clean, which makes me think it was glass. It bled a lot, which I took to be a good thing, flushing out all the infectious agents—I later learned that the outhouse less than 50 feet away drains directly into the lake.

Thankfully, one of the camp board members turned out to be an EMT. And one of the instructors as well.

My thanks to Renee and Patty for getting me fixed up… and to Kris for lending me her only pair of shoes for the night!

Seeing the glacier calving

Calving is when a chunk of the glacier falls into the river or ocean below. The Booth family gave me a ride to see Child’s Glacier, which is 50 miles east of Cordova. We were so lucky; 20 minutes after we arrived, there was a massive calving, and…well, see for yourself! (You can also watch the video on YouTube, in glorious HD.)

The speed of the falling ice gives you a sense of how tall the glacial wall is. The tidal wave came up all the way to the top of the bank: 30 feet or so. Which is why the video got turned off for a half a minute or so; people were screaming at Dan (who was down by the water): “Get up on the bank! Run!” Which sounds like an overreaction, but do keep in mind that people have been killed by tidal waves coming from Child’s Glacier.

The music

Oh, the music. Mmm mmm. Not as much jamming with the other instructors as in years past (and consequently, earlier bedtimes and more sleep) but enough to satisfy. And, being instructors, we had to (got to) put together some music to perform to the community.

Don’t have footage of some of the best performances at the staff concerts, but here’s a couple old-time numbers I led:

Sadly, no footage from the kids’ final concert (batteries ran out and I forgot the charger) but it was great to see. And, during the week I even got my banjo class to play a song (Shady Grove) at a camp potluck; all banjos! I was proud of ‘em!

More?

Yeah, there’s more, but not as well documented, and I’m too lazy to write any more stories right now, and I think this blog post is long enough anyway.