Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 25, 1995 TAG: 9505250033
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: DONNA ALVIS-BANKS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
For a minute, I thought I had penetrated the Twilight Zone. Or maybe I was caught up in a time machine that had carried me back in history.
The year: 1929.
The string of people spilling out of the entrance and winding down the sidewalk of the community center resembled a soup line.
Hurriedly dressed women clutching crumpled papers, men in suits and ties with quiet desperation in their eyes, children peeping shyly from behind their mothers' legs - if this were the Great Depression, these folks might have been waiting for a handout.
I assessed the situation, parked my buggy and rushed to join the pitifully submissive rank and file.
No, this wasn't a wrinkle in time. This was May 16, 1995, and I knew that the crowd I joined was gathered together for one reason:
|SUMMER CAMP REGISTRATION!| Some of us were bent on "Busy Beavers." Some of us longed for "High Adventure."
Some - like building contractor Rick Kraft, who fell in line behind me - wanted it all: Gymnastics, Volleyball, Art, Lifetime Sports and Computer Camp.
"My wife teaches high school in Giles County," Kraft explained as he waited patiently in line. "She leaves early for work. I'm a little more flexible."
Kraft had a list of summer camps his 9-year-old daughter, Shandra, wanted to join.
"She likes a lot of activities," he said, adding, "She's an only child. If she wasn't at the camps this summer, she would be at home, bored."
Kraft eyed the line stretching in front of him and said, "It's well worth it."
Was he talking to me or to himself, I wondered.
As the line inched forward and people began to emerge from inside the community center where camp registration was going on, the word was passed from parent to parent:
The mother at the head of the line had been waiting since 5:45 for the 8 a.m. starting time!
Farther down the line, Joan Behl calmly sipped coffee from a big thermal mug.
"I knew there would be a wait," she said knowingly.
Behl was hoping to register her son, Clayton, for the Lifetime Sports camp.
"We tried to sign up for swimming last year, but we never got in," she said. "He begged me to come stand in line this year."
So Behl made plans to swing by the recreation center on her way to work at New River Community Action.
"I hope I still have a job after this," she joked.
Nearby, Kim Beisecker sat on the curb with her 4-year-old daughter, Ling, reading books to pass the time. "Sassafras" and "Mr. Pine's Mixed Up Signs" held the youngster spellbound.
"I think we need more camps in Blacksburg," Beisecker said good-naturedly.
The mother of four children, Beisecker was at the community center to register her 13-year-old son, Matthew, for the popular Lifetime Sports and High Adventure camps.
Debbie Wright, also a mother of four, was one spot in front of me (``The one who's going to get the camp you wanted," she teased). She was there to sign up her 10-year-old son, Bobby, and 12-year-old daughter, Heather.
"Look at us," Wright lamented. "All the crazy parents who are here fighting for our kids so we don't have to hear 'I'm bored' all summer."
At 9:30, Wright spotted a familiar face heading toward her.
"That's my next-door neighbor," she said. "I saw her leave around 7:10 this morning. I knew this was where she was going."
Five minutes later, we had advanced to a sign just inside the community center entrance:
"PLEASE WAIT HERE FOR NEXT AVAILABLE SUPERVISOR. ALL CAMP SESSIONS ARE ON A FIRST-COME, FIRST-SERVED BASIS."
Wright moaned.
"There's got to be an easier way," she said.
Soon, however, Wright was sitting at a table inside the community center, filling out camp questionnaires about her kids.
And I was right behind her.
I breathed a sigh of relief when I found that there were still openings for the two camps my sons wanted to attend. In no time at all, Dee and Darin were set for two fun-filled weeks of volleyball and basketball.
I waited around to see how my new-found friends had fared.
"I got all of them," Rick Kraft said, smiling.
"I got two out of three," said Kim Beisecker. "High Adventure was full, but I got a second choice so that was good."
"I hope he likes tennis," she added, laughing.
Joan Behl lucked out, too.
"I got it!'' she chirped as she hurried out the door, car keys jingling in her hand.
I followed Behl to the parking lot, nodding sympathetically to the persevering parents still in line.
Back in the Mommy van, I looked at the clock.
10 a.m.
I was two hours late for work.
"Oh, well," I told myself, thinking about the long summer ahead. "It was well worth it."
by CNB