“Mr. California, time to redeem yourself!” canoeing instructor Roger Brandon joked with first-time camper Levi at the start of an afternoon session by the Seven-Acre Lake on the Herbert W. Armstrong College campus. It was on a scorching Tuesday, July 14, that I visited dorm 4B’s first and only canoeing lesson of pyc 2015, where 12 young men learned the basics of water navigation from a longtime canoeing enthusiast and his eager staff of six (six!) assistants.
As I crossed a bridge to the campus’s only island just a few ticks before 3 p.m. that day, I recalled my five not-so-distant years of pyc canoeing experience as a camper. Mr. Brandon, a native New Yorker and energetic sportsman, had been the entertaining canoeing stalwart for as long as I could remember.
The start of this particular class contained the same trademark humorous canoeing explanations for which Mr. Brandon has become known over the years. His three assistants already in attendance—sophomore Rachel Culpepper, freshman Johnathan Mansour, and incoming freshman Jessica Brandon (his daughter and a fill-in for class that day)—looked on in amusement as he used his full arsenal of linguistic tools to point out the canoe’s gunwales, bow, stern, port side, starboard side, yoke and caps. He also demonstrated methods for carrying the canoe and taking it in and out of the water.
About 20 minutes into class, three more canoeing assistants—graduate Abraham Blondeau and freshmen Katelynn Smedley and Arianne Olsen—arrived after helping track and field instructor John Rambo teach running, the long jump, javelin, discus, and shot put to dorm 6B. They are just three of many pyc staffers performing double duty.
Before dorm 4B could put on life jackets and carry their canoes into the water, they had to ace Mr. Brandon’s oral test. The test, a short and simple list of true/false and multiple choice questions, induced a lot of laughs.
“What is it called when you fall out of your canoe?” Camper Levi couldn’t figure it out, so Mr. Brandon offered more and more obvious hints. “Where do alligators live? What do they call that wet region down in Louisiana?” As his dorm mates spurred him on, Levi spoke the magic word: swamp.
After 4B aced the test and narrowly avoided the punishment of cleaning the campus chicken coop for the rest of the day, it was almost time to get in the water. As the boys divided into pairs, donned life jackets, and watched Miss Culpepper and Jessica Brandon swamp a canoe and bring it back to shore, I chatted with counselor Justin Goodearl and assistant Gino Chi about their dorm. They told me that they were tired but enjoying the quirks of these young men.
After Mr. Goodearl and Mr. Mansour took a canoe of their own into the lake to perform a tandem rescue with the girls, 4B could finally try these techniques themselves. I chuckled as the inevitable struggle to re-board the canoe after swamping ensued. Laughter echoed across the lake as the boys repeatedly tried and failed to reenact what they had just been shown. Aside from camper Zechariah losing his glasses just seconds after launching into the water, all went as planned during that portion of the class.
Mr. Brandon then showed 4B the different strokes. It was over an hour into his instruction, and the campers had not yet laid a finger on the paddles. “Stroke, feather! Stroke, feather!” the boys yelled in unison.
As the campers straddled three lines of benches on the island and practiced the J-stroke, I noticed dorm 6B: They were heading down the other side to learn archery from Mr. Brandon’s son James. Just over halfway through yet another memorable three-hour canoeing class, photographer Reese Zoellner and I departed to follow 6B to their destination.