The Legend of Alfred Winifred Jr.

It just occurred to me this morning: Good grief! I have a blog!

Ok, it has been a while since I have made a new posting, mainly because I turn my brain off almost completely during the summer months. But I thought you'd enjoy hearing the story of Alfred Winifred Jr.

Last week I was a counselor for a week of Adventure Camp at Jumonville (near Uniontown, PA). We had 17 kids in our group (ages 10-12), and I was one of the allegedly responsible adults involved.

I acted as a counselor for the same camp a few years ago, and during that week we pulled off a highly successful prank as measured by the number of boys who spent an evening crying in fear. So we decided to pull it off again this year.

I concocted a story about a deranged man named Alfred Winifred Jr., who had escaped from the nearby "Home for the Emotionally Interesting," a name I borrowed from an episode of The Simpsons. The name of this facility did not seem to phase the naive boys in my room, God bless them.

Last Wednesday night, my pastor (who was our camp dean for the week) made an announcement at our camp fire. He said he didn't want to alarm any of us, but this man had recently escaped from the facility, and naturally he was last spotted near the camp.

The girls were in on the prank, but some of them were still semi-freaked out by the whole thing. We headed back to our cabin from the campfire, and really enjoyed listening to the boys discuss their fears of Alfred.

Back at the cabin, I told the boys that we counselors were going to have a meeting to get an update about the situation, and that they should remain in the room. While we had our "meeting," the girls sneaked out of the cabin and onto the porch so they would be in good position to further freak out the boys.

I went back into our room and found that several things had occurred. First, one of the boys was working on a homemade grenade, using some combination of a Mt. Dew bottle, bug spray and AA batteries. I have no idea where that was going, but I thought it would be best to put a stop to it.

Then the boys decided on their own that they should form a circle and pray that Mr. Winifred would not harm them. The picture (posted above) was actually used on Jumonville's web site. Parents who saw it probably thought it was a very nice moment of praying before bedtime. By contrast, the boys were taking turns asking the Lord to protect them from the escaped lunatic (Verbatim prayer by one boy: "Dear Lord, please don't let Alfred Winifred Jr. eat us tonight").

When they were done praying, I went on to explain that Alfred had a unique, distinctive breathing noise that we should listen for. If we hear this breathing noise, we need to get out of the cabin -- FAST -- and make a run for it. I'm happy to say that at least one boy was already crying at this point.

One boy actually had the sense to question why we would want to go outside if that's where Alfred Winifred Jr. was hanging out. In a rare moment of thinking quickly, I told the boys that if we stayed inside, he would have us cornered.

Of course my pastor was standing outside the window this whole time, gradually making louder and louder weird breathing noises to attract the boys' attention. A couple of the boys heard it and yelled, "I HEAR SOMETHING OUTSIDE!" I blamed the boys for it. I said, "I don't know which of you is doing that, but this is not funny. Do not make weird breathing noises to scare people." And this led to a round of the boys blaming each other for the noise.

But the noise got louder and it was definitely coming from outside. Ohhhhh nooooooo! I told the boys we had to get out of there! They all sprinted outside where the girls jumped out at them, much to the girls' satisfaction.

Needless to say, the boys didn't get a whole lot of sleep that particular night, and as a result, neither did I. But I would say it was worth it.