The Importance of Silly

It all started the other day with this kid...Our program is right next to the Atlantic City Rescue Mission and, in fact, we rent our space from them. One of the advantages is that we get access to all kinds of cool stuff for our program. A few weeks ago, it happened to be inflatable baby floatation devices and beach balls. One our our kids decided that it looked great, uninflated, as a hat. I agreed.

Today we took the kids dolphin watching in Wildwood. None of them had ever been on a boat or out in the ocean and they were a bit nervous. I insisted that two of our young people "represent" and wear the inner tubes as hats.

This kid protested a bit but with a smile. I was dead serious. He put that tube on his head and I sat in back of him stifling laughter the entire trip down.

This kid decided to wear two...or at least use one as a pillow in the van, which was fine. In my mind, the tubes just had to be worn in some fashion.

We got to the dock and hung out for a while, sans tubes. It came time to load up...I looked at the kid who was wearing the yellow tube in the van and raised my eyebrows...He gave me a big sigh and put the tube on his head.

He wore it on the boat...

He wore it in front of the rest of the class and the scores of people we didn't even know...

When we went really fast I warned him not to let it fly off his head so he held on to it...Even writing this I am laughing out loud...

The other kid who wore the tube wasn't feeling so well...but at least he agreed to wear the inner tube.

It was a very wet trip...yeah, we saw some dolphins...wahoo...I was more interested in getting the kids out on a boat and experiencing something they never had before...one threw up, one ended up laying down on one of the benches, the rest, including the inner tube kids, looked like they were about to die...One of the girls who bought new hair yesterday was upset that her "do" was now saturated with salt water--I'd warned them it would be a wet trip.

On the way back the inner tubes turned into devices to pound each other...

I think they all had more fun bopping each other with baby inner tubes than they did on the boat trip.

We got back to the site, settled down, and went on our separate ways...some of them went home to no one...some of them went home to temptations and trials...some of them had to look over their shoulder the whole way home...and some, well, who knows what awaited them...

But to my delight today, they agreed to be silly...Even the ones who didn't wear the inner tubes enjoyed poking fun at the ones who did...all in good, clean fun. Were they ever able to be silly as kids? As young teens? When was the last time they were able to laugh at something as ridiculous as a baby inner tube on some one's head? And props to the kids who did so unashamedly in public, not caring about the 80 other people on the boat.

Those are the kinds of memories I enjoy making for these young people. And I did get teary in the van on the way back while they were bashing each other with the deflated plastic...because when they aren't at YouthBuild they might be bashing others with fists or knives or guns...and in a few months there won't be a safe place for them to be silly, to have fun...but hopefully these memories will stick with them...and they'll remember that Ms. Jen made them wear a baby inner tube on a dolphin watching trip...and they didn't really mind.