When I had campers, ages and ages ago, I used to love to tell them that. I grew up reading those Calvin and Hobbes paperbacks; I think Josh used to get one every Christmas, and let David and I read them when he was done. I remember going through them, cover to cover, one by one, everytime I was sick and missed school. A couple of times, David and Bryan Kaestner and I tried to play Calvinball in Bryan's back yard. It didn't work that well. I kept making up new rules on the spot, and they kept hating me for it. Maybe we played it only once, because it mostly sucked. Basically, it probably would have worked better had D. and B. been stuffed animals, but I can't complain because they were good for loads of other stuff that pretend animals couldn't have done, like paddleboating and bike-riding and knocking free candy down from the vending machines in the Weatherwood Center by tipping them or running into them real hard.

But I was talking about campers. We always had full days at Michindoh, sunrise to sunset (and beyond), so any other job working with kids sort of feels like a breather. I remember my first week at the Boys & Girls Club in Montana, coming home after 7 hours and feeling like, "I can't believe they're paying me for this!" It's the same way here in Rutland. Though today was a full day (9-7:30), it just seemed to breeze by. Though by 9 o'clock pm, I'm seriously ready to fall asleep. (I did so last night at nine, but I'm trying not to be a wuss tonight and at least make it to eleven.)

So, anyways, tonight was the big Halloween parade in Rutland. Literally everyone in town showed up for it. The lowest count I heard tonight said that at least 10,000 people were lined up along the parade route, which snaked through and around downtown. Not bad for a community of maybe 17,000. Every kid and one out of every four adults had a costume of some sort on. The parade itself lasted for two hours, float after float from every business, church and organization in town. We had a few kids from the Club march with us, handing out candy along the parade route -- a princess, a pirate, a plumber, a skeleton, a fairy, Maid Marian, a commando, two witches, two serial killers from that movie Scream and myself, Stephen Colbert, in a ten dollar suit from the Salvation Army and a Colbert mask printed from Forbes.com. Honestly, we were the most awesomest group ever. Seriously. We were all like, don't you mess with us. And everyone else was like, wow, we want to be you, and perhaps worship you for all eternity in the afterlife. And then we gave them candy, and they wet their pants in the awesomeness that was our awesome presence. I kid you not. We ruled.

And tomorrow, we get to do it all over again, but in a totally different way.

So this is what Liz(a), myself and DanDan wrote in Adam Bouse's comments when he found us on Myspace. I'm not sure why it's so funny to me, but it just is dagnabbit! Basically, Liz and Dan make me laugh so much it hurts. I love 'em.

Liza: Adam freaking bouse. what the hell.

Me: freaking adam bouse. hells yeah!

Dani'El: hell Bouse freaking, yeah, Adam hell!

Liza: hell bouse, freak adam! and freak you for having regina freaking spektor up here. hell, i had her on my page ages ago. truly, we are two halves of one head.

The End

So yesterday at the Club, a little girl spent 45 minutes trying to crack a password on the internets that she had no chance of guessing. From what I gathered, she has a stuffed animal that works a little bit like a Neopet. You can go online and register your animal, but each animal has a unique code that must be entered during registration. That code lies on the tag that comes with the animal. This particular animal, however, had it's tag snipped off and thrown away by grandma before the girl could write it down, thus her predicament. I tried explaining to her how many possible combinations there were even if we knew which six letter/numbers made up the code. But she would have none of it. Instead, she kept circling around the computer lab asking other kids what letters and numbers were usually in secret codes. Then she'd go back, try out five or six codes, and start circling the room again. Oh, and she was dressed kind of like Maid Marian. Which made it even more awesome, I mean tragic, I mean awesome.

Then later on, while driving home from work, I found that my trusty car could pick up AM radio from Chicago. While this trick only works after dark, and is battered by a thousand miles of static, the traffic report was such a familiar sound that I got a little bit nostalgic. Maybe that's not the right word (Editor's note: It's not). Maybe it's too soon for that (Ed: It is). But it just felt good to hear someone talking about the Dan Ryan and the Edens Expressway like nothing had changed over the past few weeks. And for some 9 million people, nothing has changed. That might seem funny to you, but being able to hear Chicago traffic way out in Vermont might have been the highlight of my night. For a second, the streetlights on Strong's Avenue felt a little more familiar. And the drove home from work felt a little more like, well....home.

p.s. Dear Detroit Tigers, please start winning games more often. I don't want the Cardinals to win a World Series and you are my only hope. Thank you very much. Your friend, Jonny.

p.p.s. Dear Eric B. & Rakim, you are the bomb. Seriously. I Know the Ledge.

Towns

Rutland, VT is a weird town. First there is the city center, officially incorporated as Rutland City (of about 18,000 peoples), where the Boys & Girls Club is located. Then there is Rutland Town (of about 3,000 peoples), which surrounds the city. Then there are a ton of smaller towns with fewer than 1,000 people dotted all around the area. Rutland lies in something of a valley in the middle of the Green Mountains, a small part of the Appalachian Range. We're basically surrounded. All the other towns lie in the hills and hollers. They used to quary for marble and make things here, but now, mostly people just come to ski. I don't have a home yet. My boss and wife have been kind enough to let me stay at their place while I look for something. They have mice in their basement. It's all they talk about.

Weeks

I spent all of this week at the state capital in service training for AmeriCorps. My position is jointly funded by the Club and a giant grant through my AmeriCorps program. I've done this training before (well, most of it anyhow), but it was still good days getting to know the dozen other people who are doing similar things across the state. We are good people. I think we'd basically make a stellar presidential Cabinet. Or a nice pantheon of gods/goddesses. I'd want my constellation to be a fire truck. Or maybe a hot air balloon. An indestructable metal tube would be alright, too.

Next week I get kids. At least 40 of them. For absolutely free.