A dream becomes reality

What a great thing when someone takes a chance to make their dream a reality.  My brother has always wanted to own and run a summer camp.... he tried for years and wasn't able to make it happen.... But by a strange twist of fate, an opportunity presented itself to him, and he jumped, quitting his teaching job after 22 years or so and going for it with an amazing ammount of trust and faith that this was the right direction for his life to take.  He'd been waiting and was so ready for change as fate crossed his path and he embraced it.  I'm really excited for him and I know he is going to continue in the tradition of this beloved summer camp and rebuild it into something wonderful!  It is incredible to see someone so happy doing what they were born to do.

Camp Roosevelt and Firebird (for boys and girls) in Ohio

You can see more about his journey here:

A new facebook page for the camp:
https://www.facebook.com/Camps-Firebird-Roosevelt-270670676412/?notif_t=fbpage_fan_invite

another page to follow his personal experience:

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=113158522383470&id=100010679676276&fref=nf

a diary entry from Joe which express his excitement and passion for this new project:

Wow! My first two conversations with Roosevelt-Firebird CIT'S have gotten me so excited. The young women were mature, passionate, articulate and had that obvious love for camp -- for this beautiful place. Thank you Erica and Madison. You've got me feeling very good. You both had a pure love of camp -- no cynicism -- just a pure emotional happy spirit that came clearly across the phone lines. These two girls were brave too -- teenagers talking to a stranger and certainly holding up their end of the conversation.

So, tonight I sit here content. I sit here alone in the old red farmhouse (I learned it was a SEARS ROBUCK house that was purchased by mail order probably in the early 1920's. That's very cool.) So anyway, here I sit, eating a dinner of steak, tomatillos, onion and salsa. By myself. And I'm content. Yeah, it's strange thinking that this is my house now. So much history has gone on here before me: The Preston family who farmed here, the FFA who had a camp, the Lorimers who built it into a summer camp -- all three Lorimer generations -- and finally for the past 11 years Andrew, Debbie and Manuel. And now, for just a glimmer of time, me.

But back to today's reality; Yeah, I locked my keys, wallet and cell phone into the camp office today at 1:30. All of you who know me are not surprised! You're probably laughing! But so what. (Debbie came and bailed me out after school which seems to be a theme.) Who cares? I was still content -- even right after it happened. All I had to do was look around me at the land, the lake, the Appalachian foothills and the turkey vultures. Really, I gave myself a present.

I received the gift of time. Time to walk the property. Time to imagine the future and consider the present. I walked all the the way to FFA camp taking a short cut through a hillside marked "wildlife management" area. A logging road cut up the holler. The forrest service sign explained that the logging "was making room for a young forrest." It looked like a ravaged clear cut to me. Bureaucracies can spin anything the way they want can't they?

But back across the camp property I came knowing that NOBODY WILL EVER BE ABLE TO DRILL FOR OIL, TEST FOR OIL, OR INDISCRIMINATELY LOG THIS LAND. That was part of the purchase agreement I brokered with Alan Schwartz. Thus, I can look the spirit of this land straight into its white piney eye and say: "You are protected from man's greed and short sighted avarice."
And perhaps, if I'm wise enough, someday I will be able to say, "I, too, helped to protect, sustain and love this land." And if I do that, and only that, I will have done something good in this life.

Good luck Joe, we are all so excited for you!!!