The Mission

[Barbasiewiczfan]

The Mission

By Bruce Stark 10 July 2009​

In the summer of 1957 I was 5 years old and had just completed half of kindergarten at Tulsa Street School in Granada Hills California. LA had a half year program at the time. We were told of a summer camp program that the school offered. I attended the summer camp where we sang songs and played games like checkers and shuffle-puck.
In the summer of 1958, with kindergarten and the first half of the first grade under my belt, I was allowed to take my younger brother Peter to summer camp with me. The first day the camp counselor assembled all the kindergarteners and first grade students in one of the class rooms. He directed our attention to a large pile of sealed cardboard boxes that sat in the center of the room and announced to us that they contained an entire airport. He opened the first box marked “tower” and produced a large pile of painted wooden blocks. Also inside the box was a drawing which showed what the tower building was supposed to look like once assembled. Another drawing showed the completed airport with a long wooden runway, a tower building, a fire station, a fire engine, a hanger, some tugs and several airplanes.
The counselor had us group together all the boxes marked tower and then all the boxes marked fire department and so on until we had six piles of boxes. He then broke us up into small groups of four or five kids and assigned each of the groups a pile of boxes. He told us, “Build the airport” and left the room for quite some time.

My brother and I were in a group with two other guys and a girl. We were given the tower to build. The wooden pieces went together easily and we soon had a two foot tall airport tower assembled. As the other groups started completing their part of the airport, a small fight had broken out between the guys who had just assembled the runway and the guys who had just finished building the airplanes. The runway guys wouldn’t let the airplane guys use their runway. The airplane guys then got into a fight with the hanger guys for the same reason.
Each group had a person or two who didn’t want anyone else to use their creation.
My brother and I started talking and soon a group of like minded kids joined us in our line of thinking. Eventually an announcement was made to the group that we had been directed to build an airport and that is what we would do. Others joined us and a few objected. I am afraid we used a strong arm technique but after a while we had a complete airport exactly as in the supplied picture.
The teacher returned to the room to find the proudest group of kids standing in front of the airport just as proud as a hunter standing over a just taken deer. The long wooden runway with airplanes staged for launch, the fire department with the engines on standby for an emergency and the hanger with its airplanes inside.
The teacher was delighted and pointed out that we had used every piece supplied and had built everything perfectly. He said he only had one question. Why was there a small group of kids sitting in the corner of the room looking quite unhappy ?

I was also considering titling this story, Jr. Project Manager. My 15 year old daughter suggested, Bully’s Airport. The airport was never assembled again as it was broken up and given to many different classrooms. This is a true story to the best of my recollection.