Howling at Howland's Landing

Indian Guide dads and braves, from left, Michael Blanchard, Francis Pillsbury, Mike Reynolds and Shea Blanchard prepare for the water balloon assault during weekend camp-out. Picture this. You're attending a father/son weekend at a camp on Catalina Island and one of your two outboard motors breaks down an hour before you are scheduled to take two dads and three sons back across the channel so the kids can make their Little League playoff game at Riddle Field. So you limp to Avalon on one motor, put them all on a helicopter, and realize as they take off that you have a cell phone in your pocket belonging to one of the dads, John Carpino, senior sales and marketing vice president for the Angels. As you watch the helicopter disappear into the low lying clouds, down to literally minutes before the championship game starts, Carpino's phone rings and it's Angels owner, Arte Moreno.

Question: Do you answer it?

Such was the beginning of a full day last Saturday for Tony Shutts, former chief of the Coyote Tribe, part of the Chumash Nation, an Indian Guides program of the South Orange County YMCA. Back at the camp on Howland's Landing, dads of the Coyotes and the Snakes, the other Laguna Beach Chumash tribe, were filling up a 1,000 balloons with water for the afternoon water wars on the soccer field (think "Braveheart").

The Catalina weekend is the last main event of the year for the Indian Guides program, and this year, especially so for some of the Coyotes. Some eschewed the longer ride on the established shuttle (nicknamed U.S.S. Barf by the kids) for their own smaller boats from which one could settle on the horizon line a little more easily. On Friday, John and Chandler Fischer, Mike and Sam Reynolds, Buzz and Kyle Shaw and current chief, Peter Pillsbury and his son, Francis, motored over leisurely on Pillsbury's Cal 40 "Ralphie" through two schools of more dolphins than anyone remembered seeing in one place. The thrill was watching them swim just ahead of the bow, vying with each other for position and making a clear case for the fact that the goal of dolphins is to simply have more fun.

Saturday morning there were the usual camp activities: archery, soccer, kick ball, basketball (with a five-foot spring loaded basket so 7-year-olds can dunk the ball and hang on the rim just like their NBA heroes), tennis, and a rock wall to climb. But in the afternoon, the Coyotes and Snakes were in charge setting up a bocce ball tournament, officiating a father/son kayak race and, of course, organizing the second annual water balloon melee that truly did resemble a battle scene out of "Braveheart." The whole camp was split into two groups facing each other on either end of the soccer field launching water balloons with four foot long elastic sling shots that took two kids and a dad to operate. (I use the term "organize" loosely; it was more like a free-for-all.) Balloons were flying 100 yards in the air and landing with a force that sprayed over six feet and left a welt if you happened to take one dead on. That lasted for a few minutes before both sides abandoned all fear and charged each other with squirt guns and balloons for hand grenades. The carnage lasted 15 minutes tops, less time than it took to pick up all the balloon bits, but everyone did their part.

"Kyle has never been dirtier, wetter or happier while hanging with his pals," said Buzz Shaw.

"I could be coming to Catalina with a walker by the time I am done," said next year's chief, Mike Blanchard, referring to the fact that even though his son, Max is graduating this year, he's coming back for a bonus year. The same is true for Jeremy Shutts, Chandler Fischer, Nicolas Carpino and Luc LaMontagne. What else is there that promotes father/son time together to this extent? It's a rite of passage dads simply aren't ready to let pass yet.

Blanchard will have his hands full next year being chief with two "braves." And of course there was the trash talking between the Snakes and Coyotes, complete with toilet papered cabins and potato chips in sleeping bags. "Boys will be boys," concluded Chief Big Boulder (Peter Pillsbury), "and so will their dads!"

Meanwhile, the Little League playoff group finally returned from their game on David LaMontagne's boat, having averted a forfeit by half an inning.

Tony Shutts claims his most vivid memory of the weekend, however, was seeing an ashenfaced John Carpino walk off that boat after a day that would rival "Trains, Planes and Automobiles" in real life.

But ask Carpino if he'd do it all again, and his answer will no doubt be in the affirmative, if only for the closing graduation ceremony Saturday night where dads and sons face each other eye to eye and confirm their love and appreciation of their time together as Indian Guides. The ritual includes drawing an imaginary tear under each other's eye—hardly necessary when dad's tears are already there.

In case you were wondering, Shutts didn't answer the cell phone. It was most likely Moreno trying to find his way to Riddle Field. He did attend that Little League game, which is pretty remarkable in itself … but that's another story.

Fisher