I remember when … I learned how to behead a seagull. It was one

bright summer’s day at Word of Life Bible Institute, August of 2001.

Ahh, the Ranch. I was a camp counsellor, and we were getting ever

so close to the end of youth camp, an end to the overwhelming flow

of rambunctious, sugar crazed kids, an end to a long, long summer.

I and the rest of my fellow camp counselling unit (about 8 of us)

were summoned together by our unit leader for our weekly meeting.

Now normally these meetings were peaceful, serene moments where we

would delve into the Word of God, and encourage one another.

At

this meeting however, serenity was scarce to be found. For purposes

of law, the names of those involved will be kept secret to protect

them from all those who may cherish the scavenging, parking lot

hyena…the seagull.

By some twist of fate all of the right elements for disaster had

been produced for this unit meeting.

1. A slightly crazed counselor with a loaded paintball gun.
2. The perfect outdoor

   setting, away from many spectators.

3. A good number of annoying,

   unsuspecting victims…I mean seagulls.

4. A weary lot of male counselors who had been spending themselves on hundreds of young

   teens for weeks.

When you put all of those elements together it is basically

like chemistry lab, you are bound for an unpleasant

reaction. The humorous thing about this whole occurrence was that

we were just opening our Bibles, preparing to read, when the crazed

paintball gunner got this glint in his eye and he told us of this

crazy scheme concerning the seagulls.

The ensuing events went rapidly. We lured in the prey with leftover

lunch bits forming a neat little line directed towards certain

destruction. When the birds finally approached we sprung upon them.

The crazed gunner opened fire and the rest of us heaved quarter

sized rocks menacingly at our foes.

The seagulls scattered abruptly

but one went down with a thud. We cheered in victory until we saw

the red stain creeping along the creatures backside. Now, I don’t

exactly know what we thought was going to happen but I think we were

a bit surprised that we had injured one enough that we were going to

have to put it out of its misery. From our little band, the South

American took the responsibility to enact the final death blow. I

just don’t think any of us were really prepared for what happened then.

From nearby the South American picked up a filled trash bag and began to

beat the bird repeatedly. After a few licks with the trash bag he lifted

the seagull by the head and began to spin it, ringing it’s neck.

After only two revolutions the head departed from the rest of the

body and the South American was left with a Seagull head in his

hands. I still remember the lone female passer-by with eyes wide

and hands clutched over her mouth. The rest of us were trying to

contain our laughter, because surely this was one of the oddest

string of events to have happened to us in a long time. Well, after

a short time we chucked the carcass into a trash recepticle and we

pinched the head into the lid of the canister so that it would be

staring at us from it’s spot for the rest of the meeting. It was

very difficult to study the Bible with that severed Seagull head

grinning at you.