212 CBH Year Pins

212 CBH Year Pins

Object: 7 year-pins from Camp Black Hawk

Acquired: Between 1994-2005

From: Camp Black Hawk

Notes: Every year that you went to camp you received one of these pins.  The color was different for each year (well, a few were the same), and it was a way to bring the camp together as a community.  I always had a determined goal of reaching the inner-circles of the ceremony where we got the pins (literally circles), and I was so proud to finally receive a silver pin (for 10-15 years).

I spent a portion of 10 different summers (11, actually, I think) at that camp, and while you can tell that some of my year-pins are missing, these are all the actual ones that I actually received each year.  I have another collection somewhere of a full and properly-colored set. They are slightly less abused than these, and I rather hope they are in the correct color-order because it bothers me that I can't recall which colors went with which pins, since it was such a large and important thing for so many years.

211 Wisconsin Button

210 Wisconsin Button

Object: Wisconsin Just Do It button

Acquired: May 1993

From: Fourth Grade

Notes: This was a second WI Just Do It button that I got somehow--I think there were extras and I got it after? Anyway. Good times.

210 Wisconsin Button

209 Wisconsin Button

Object: Name Tag button from the Wisconsin Just Do It trip

Acquired: 1993

From: Fourth Grade

Notes: 4th grade was like an island of fun and learning sandwiched between the torment of 3rd grade and the insanity of 5th. One of the most memorable things that we did that year was to go on a 5-day, 4-night field trip wherein the entire class was piled into a school bus and driven around the state. We slept in gyms and hung out with other kids about our ages at other schools, ones with whom we'd been penpals before the trip.

It was the first year our teacher had done such a trip, and it went really well (at least from my perspective).  He did it again several times in later years, but it never sounded like it went that well, so maybe it was beginner's luck.

Each of us kids was given a button (I think they were all pink) to wear as a name tag in case we got lost. You can see that mine got a bit beaten up along the way.

209 Amy Button

209 Amy Button

Object: Button reading 'Amy'

Acquired: Unknown

From: Unknown

Notes: Apparently I made name tags with my real name on them, too.

208 Castle Button

208 Castle Button

Object: Button with a castle on it

Acquired: Unknown

From: I made it

Notes: I used to draw castles like this all the time. See, we had a 'how to draw everything' book that made things just a step up from stick-figures, but really quite cute. I could draw the castles, and a dragon and...a bunch of other stuff, too. By now I'm not sure what was from the book, and what I figured out on my own.

I'm not entirely sure where the button came from, though. Could be anywhere.

207 Qui Button

207 Qui Button

Object: Another Camp-tag button reading 'Qui'

Acquired: Unknown

From: CBH/I made it

Notes: Here's another tag, just like object 206.  This almost looks like I didn't make it because I was never one for those sorts of curly queues, but I'm pretty sure that's my handwriting, so let's assume that I did make it. This one might also be made with gel pens.

206 Qui Button

206 Qui Button

Object: Camp Name-Tag reading "Qui

Acquired: Summer Camp years

From: CBH/I decorated it

Notes: Over the years that I worked at summer camp, the policies slowly changed from 'whatever, we know who the staff are' to 'ZOMG YOU MUST WEAR AN OFFICIAL NAME-TAG AT ALL TIMES OR WE WILL NOT RECOGNIZE YOU!!!' I have my opinions about all that, but it wasn't like I could complain.  Anyway, several of the between-years had us make other sorts of name-tags, and I'm pretty sure this was from one of those.

I'd guess that I secretly used my own gel pens for the image, though, rather than whatever markers Camp provided. And I never wore it much.

205 Echo Valley Button

205 Echo Valley Button

Object: Button with my name, the location and the date

Acquired: March 1998

From: Echo Valley Regional Gril Scout Retreat

Notes: Echo Valley is one of the properties that the local Girl Scout council owns. It's an old farm with an awesome old manner on it, called Gray Manor. I attended a few events there, most of which I barely remember.  I can clearly recall two of them, though.

The first was a thing called 'Living on the Edge' where we learned about wilderness survival, and then they sent us out into the woods with a few tarps, some food, some water, solar blankets, and a slightly cheesy story of how we got there.  We were then supposed to survive on our own (peeing in the woods, conserving food, and so forth) for 12 hours, sans adults (although they came by every few hours to check on us). It was pretty memorable, and I'd wanted to go back the next year for level 2, where you stayed out in the woods for 24 hours, but the next two years it conflicted with hunting season, and then the third year after that they made it 'Living on the Edge in the City,' where the girls rode the bus by themselves and looked for apartments, which didn't interest me in the least, so I never did get to go back.

The last event that I attended at Echo Valley was a local girl scout get-together, with a bunch of girls from my neighborhood.  There were only two of us from my troop (although that was 50% of us), and we were in high school while everyone else was a small child or an adult.  We won a bunch of the challenges, and also got to do some fun things (like make up a treasure hunt) because we were older. It was fun, and I'm pretty sure that's where this pin is from, rather than Living on the Edge.

204 Cassville Button

204 Cassville Button

Object: Button

Acquired: 1994-ish?

From: Cassville, WI

Notes: This is out of order, actually, and I should have shown you object 210 first, but we're here now, and I don't want to mess with renumbering things.

Basically we went on a HUGE field trip in fourth grade, and one of the places we went was a tiny town called Cassville. We had penpals at the tiny school there, penpals who actually kept up with us, unlike the other ones we were supposed to have at the other schools we went to.

203 Graduation Button

203 Graduation Button

Object: Button from Middle School Graduation

Acquired: June 5, 1997

From: James Coleman Wright Middle School

Notes: Maybe I'm a middle-class snob or something, but even when I was graduating from middle school (or fifth grade, for that matter), I didn't think it was all that great of an accomplishment. But I did get this lovely button.

My middle school was a 'magnet' school, which meant we had to write an essay to be accepted, and there were only 80 of us in my grade level.  It was also a brand-new school, so we were only the second group of kids to go through it, and didn't have a building.  In fact, when I started, it didn't really even have a name.  We called it "Madison Middle School 2000," so you can imagine that there was set time by which it needed to be renamed.

The tried to get us really involved in everything from picking class topics to having us plan architectural ideas of what we wanted for the new school.  And then, of course, they didn't go with any of our suggestions (or they altered the topics we chose to what they wanted).

It wasn't a bad school, and they meant well, but they wanted too big and neglected to realize that the average middle schooler wasn't really prepared to pick what they wanted to learn--not in the setting they had picked out, at least.