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Published: Wednesday, Jun. 29, 2011 / Updated: Friday, Dec. 30, 2011 05:09 PM

Thunderbird staffers outshoot, out-climb and out-paddle in outdoors contest

LAKE WYLIE -- 

Lately I’m driving around in a Chrysler Dutch oven. Political parties yap inside my television like an old married couple. How we as a society survived “Weinergate” I’ll never know. For the love of Ferris Bueller, what ever happened to summertime?

I’m told it’s alive and kicking at Camp Thunderbird, Lake Wylie’s retreat from callous living since 1936. I hope so. My latest competition takes me there for a triathletic test of all things outdoors. Camp offers 50 land and water activities for thousands of children each summer. It’s a multimillion dollar industry even without environmental education and retreat center services filling the remaining seasons.

Thunderbird is bigger than any one person. So I’m taking on the whole darn place. It’s a relished reprieve from grass that seems to grow back angrier every time I cut it, almost nightly lightning storms scattering the heavens in paparazzi flashes, bank sign temperature readings and gas station boards all but racing to four digits.

Kelly Bennett runs archery and riflery. He hand-picks archery ace and rookie staffer Cody Mitchell for a five arrow duel. I haven’t “arched” since middle school. Against the general population, I’ve got a shot. If he’s Robin Hood, I’m the Sheriff of Not-a-chance.

“We’ve got some Robin Hoods,” Bennett confesses.

I practice against campers from Davidson, N.C., Atlanta and Orlando, Fla. They’re three of 420 kids in town for a two-week session. Audrey Carroll, 12, fires nearer the bull’s-eye though my three arrow score nips hers. Bruen George, 14, beats me both ways.

With a bull’s-eye worth 10 points and almost missing the target one point, I score 15 with five arrows. Remember that Spaniard who shot a flaming arrow to light the Olympic torch at the 1992 Barcelona games? I’m not him. Still, it’s respectable. Then Mitchell takes aim. He needs a graphing calculator to tally his score. It’s 30.

Thankfully, I’m a day late on the lunch bet, where losers made the winners’ meals. Today it’s extra canteen candy for a bull’s-eye. Likely some of the same motivational tactics employed to steer kids’ minds from home pressures for generations.

Another newspaper man, then-Charlotte Observer Chief Curtis B. Johnson, founded what became Camp Thunderbird as a retreat for inner-city youth. Observer Fresh Air Camp so succeeded that almost 30 years later, director Walt Tomlinson had a hard time finding paying families who’d send their kids. Tomlinson oversaw massive changes in the 1960s including integration, but may be best known for adopting the Thunderbird name.

My troubles aren’t inner-city severe – rained out softball games, indulging teacher friends who just aren’t sure another month off will be long enough to recharge the batteries – but I get the diversion. Then I get Stefan Flores.

Flores is the assistant land director and challenge wall guru. Fellow staffers – friends, mind you – coin him the “beastly creature” of the belay rope. Someone who lies awake nights itching to escalate several stories of wooden wall in a time I can’t touch. He’s also the first to tie on and shimmy up in aid of flash-frozen little girls and homesick boys when the wall becomes too much.

Flores teaches me safety commands and hands me a helmet. He demonstrates climbing clip protocol, and how to keep certain parts of our anatomy from improper harnessing. I relay the commands and grab hold of rock handles bolted in with far smaller people in mind.

I navigate the bottom third, an incline that flattens the rest of the way to the top. I’m not concerned with heights. I’m not anticipating making it far enough to fear them. Flores doesn’t begin climbing until my hand reaches the incline nook. When my feet arrive, his sneaker soles are staring down at me from the summit.

Kudzu and Sunday gossip couldn’t climb a wall as fast. Maybe better than his 17-second personal best. I labor a moment longer on the flat section. I let go. I’m the Humpty Dumpty of wall climbing. I’m hanging there like a May 6 piñata, beaten twice as badly.

“It’s called the challenge wall, not the easy wall,” Flores tells me, about nine times.

I won’t be earning any red bandannas today. Campers come back multiple years to earn red, blue, silver and gold ones, higher ranks like double gold earning lavish ceremonies. Points come from excelling at every challenge, a lesson they like to teach here. One camper asks kayak and canoe chief Andrew Cheek how I’m doing points-wise. Points-wise, I’m trying not to drown.

In envy him before we’re introduced. Cheek can’t be much younger than I am. The man reports to work in a swimsuit and sunscreen. We’ll try paddleboarding, a camp addition this season along with wakesurfing, wakeskating, a digital media class and sand volleyball court. It’s basically kayaking, standing up.

“They’re super stable,” Cheek insists.

Maybe once you’re paddling. Ever seen a newborn foal try to stand up for the first time? Take two legs away and that’s me steadying to paddleboard. I’m a catawampus mess, but I make it. I notice the huge flotation device Cheek tows as we paddle to the start line, “just in case.” Counting belay anchor Brian, it’s the second time within the hour I’m entrusting my life into another man’s care.

Cheek sprints past me on the buoy slalom, but I’m close as we approach Snake Island. For reasons I still don’t know, Cheek hits the water. I overtake him with only a small island to circumnavigate for the win. What happened next will forever remain between me, Cheek and Thunderbird lore.

I’m not saying he bumped my boat rounding the rip rap, but I’m not saying he didn’t. It’s the Vegas of Thunderbird shoreline – what happens on the blind side of Snake Island, stays there. Regardless, Cheek comes to shore first. If it’s gymnastics judging – I missed a buoy, he fell – I win. Race rules, he wins.

We decide to remain friends either way. Folks meeting on Thunderbird summer soil seem to do that. I’m reminded of a conversation early last year with Bill Climer, camp director from 1969 to 1989. That first year there Climer met his wife, her feet red with Thunderbird clay after a summer as counselor. The boats and buildings are nice, Climer said, but they’re “a hill of beans” compared to camp’s greatest asset.

Camp may be bigger than any one person, but it’s never greater than its people.

“Thunderbird, it’s a place, but it’s more than a place,” Climer said that day. “It’s a place where people can come and grow, and they also can become something new.”

Competition: Camp Thunderbird staffers with specialties in archery, wall climbing and paddle sports

Contest: A five arrow archer duel, wall climb sprint and paddleboard race course

Score: Archery and wall climbing clearly went to Camp Thunderbird. Based on rules as we set them, so did paddleboarding. Final score: Camp Thunderbird 3, Marks 0.

Overall Record:Lake Wylie Pilot local talent 109.07, Marks 34