often when people are telling campfire stories, those are folkloric pieces, often involving ghosts.
i'm not into ghosts at my campfire, and although i have told my share of jack tales at campfires, my favorite stories are the ones told by people about things that happened to them, often at camps.
this summer i have had several occasions to tell one of my favorite camp stories: the pixie party.
a long time ago (as these things often begin), in my very first time at girl scout camp, on the last night of session, after we were all asleep in our beds, our counselors got us up and dressed IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT (it was probably only nine or ten o'clock) and walked us out to a fire ring we had NEVER SEEN, way out in the MIDDLE OF THE FOREST (it was probably one just outside our unit that we had never noticed and made unfamiliar by darkness) where the counselors of camp (the coolest ones) were all there, dressed in weird clothes with sparkles and fairy wings and they talked in little high voices and called each other by strange names and they performed comic skits we had never seen and sang silly songs we had never heard and they called it THE PIXIE PARTY!
and then it was over. our counselors took us back to our tents and put us to bed and in the morning they DENIED EVERYTHING.
"can you teach us that song you sang last night?"
"we didn't sing any songs last night."
"don't you remember? the pixie party?"
"were you out of your tents last night?"
--
hats off to you, young women who performed this thing, because it is forty five years later and i still remember that party and i STILL haven't learned those songs and i STILL haven't given up hoping that i will discover them and learn them and pass them along.
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