“The black chevron goes to Jenna Lafler and Allison Fryson…”

We couldn’t have been more excited if we had won an Academy Award.  Walking down the sticky aisle of the dining room to claim our small black piece of felt, we truly felt that if we never accomplished another thing in our lives, we would have still been a success. 

The coveted black chevron was a small piece of felt awarded to a person or group of people who successfully executed a unique and creative prank on the camp without getting caught.  Many people attempted this feat, but in the nine years that we had been at Camp Dunmore, we had only seen one group of girls obtain a black chevron.  It was our turn to join this elite group of pranksters.

It wasn’t easy.  We had many failed attempts.  The first one happened a few years prior, when we decided to try to steal road signs and put them all over the camp.  Unfortunately, the two of us, who did not possess great strength or any useful tools, had a difficult time getting stop signs off their posts, not to mention that we were probably breaking a variety of laws.  We did manage to steal one “Do Not Enter” sign, but realized as we carried it back into camp that it was too large to conceal.  Our camp director laughed and told us the story of a group before us who had already tried that prank.  It was a small consolation that road sign theft did not bring them black chevron glory either.

Another time, we tried to steal everyone’s shoes while they were sleeping.  What we didn’t count on was that no one really sleeps much at camp, and we were greeted by many of the shoe owners when we entered their bunks.

One summer, we got desperate and devised a plan in which I joined Allison on her daily evening run around the lake.  The plan was for me to call our camp director in a panic, claiming that we were being chased by a psychopath with a knife.  It was my lack of athletic prowess that foiled this attempt.  My camp director began to laugh after I completed my well-rehearsed, breathless, panicky speech on the pay phone about a quarter mile from camp.