Serenation

Starting around the third week of camp, I serenaded my kids every night, right after lights out. I would walk up and down the hall, and sing them a song under the pretenses that it would help them get to sleep faster. When they would complain that it wasn't helping, I would say, "Well, I guess I'll just have to keep on singing until it does help." They learned quickly not to complain.

It served a two-fold purpose. First off, it set the tone for the hall, a tone that said "any ideas you guys had of me being that really cool college-age guy you'd always wanted as an RA should quickly be dispelled." Secondly, it let me show them that life isn't about being cool or conforming to the norm, but that it's more about finding acceptable outlets for the various oddities in all of us.

At a certain point, my "Serenations" became accepted by the group, and were a sort of bonding experience; perhaps even a sort of home away from home. I would sometimes change the words in the song to include names of various kids whose doors I happened to be walking by. Oddly enough, the kids loved it, and would often complain if I had not mentioned their name in the previous night's Serenation. I would make it a point to include their name in the song the following night.

One night I forgot to serenade. Surprisingly enough, I got a decent amount of crap the next morning from the guys about it, so I told them that at night, if I hadn't sung by ten minutes after lights out, they should shout down the hallway for me to start. Sure enough, from then on my guys would diligently remind me within the first five minutes of lights out by yelling "Serenation!" down the hall.

Sometimes kids would sing along, barely audible behind their closed doors. One time I started singing a song that one kid liked so much that he decided to come out in the hall and sing with me, refusing to go back to his room till the song was over. But most often I would just walk up and down the hall singing my heart out to any number of tunes, catching sounds of the occasional giggle beyond closed doors and the bellow of my voice.

I would sing them oldies, like Stand By Me, and songs that everyone hates, like Beautiful by James Blunt. My tour de force came when I serenaded them the theme from Halo, although my attempt at Nessun Dormat was a close second.

The last night of camp I had to go to the office immediately after lights out, so I sang them Semi-Charmed Life cause I knew it by heart. It was a bittersweet moment, as I knew the next day was the last day of camp, and I would never see those guys again.

It's odd that now, a month after the fact, I start to wonder if they ever missed hearing some random guy in his mid-20s that their parents had handed them over to for three weeks walking down the hall and singing tunes for no apparent reason at all. Perhaps so, perhaps so.

ps. Believe me, the picture has little to do with the subject at hand.