Grampa C-But and the King of the Wild Frontier

Wow, that could be a great story title...anyways, I wanted to use this time in the middle of my Center Lake story to share with you my two favorite nicknames, Grampa C-But and Casey Butler: King of the Wild Frontier, and how I came by them.

So, during my second summer working at camp, I was sitting with a table of my campers. I said "Hi," or something to D-Wag as he passed by, and my little junior campers wanted to know why I called him that. I explained that we all call him D-Wag because his name is Dan Wagner; we just take the first letter of his first name, part of his last name, and stick them together to make a new one. Foolish as I was, I decided to give them an example. "If you did that with my name, it would be C-But." Keep in mind, these were junior campers. Dumb idea. I tried to tell them not to tell anyone else...in vain. I was officially C-But as soon as the words left my mouth. It was lame...but I got over it. Now, fast-forwarding to the after-camp part of the summer: a group of us, led by my Uncle Wookiee (we ALL have weird names at camp, don't we!?), took a trip up to Neebish Island for a few days. During that time, I found a closet in the cottage we were staying in that contained a bunch of old clothes 'n' stuff. I proceeded to put on said old clothing, hike up my knee socks, grab a cane, and pretend that I was everyone's grampa in front of a camera (yes, there is video footage of this). The "grampa" label was put on the front of C-But, and thus Grampa C-But was created. Before that summer, I had actually informally adopted my two friends Matt and Jon as my grandsons anyway, since their grandparents live far away. Last year I adopted the entire floor of Ormston 3 as my grandsons as well. Except for Jon Wills and Travis Traxler; they're my sons.

ANYWAYS....the story of how I became the King of the Wild Frontier is somewhat simpler. Basically, my friend Mike Johnson (Canadian-Arab-Christian-camp counselor/storyteller extraordinaire-Moose brother) discovered one day that my name fit perfectly in Davy Crockett's theme song...and also that I had fought rocks and trees and clouds and leaves and birds and snakes and flowers and bees and beetles and bugs and Volkswagens and rakes and spoons and forks and sporks and knives and SHARP knives and bowls and plates and deers and mooses and saskaskewans and nessies and krakens and Jacks and Joels and Pats and Mikes and Kiels and Wookiees and ZOMBEHS and rabbits and squirrels and chipmunks and non-existent woodchucks and mustaches and FAKE mustaches and GREAT BIG BUSHY BEARDS and Simeons and common sense and boulders and grass and shrubs and bears and lobsters and dinosaurs and lakes and ponds and streams and oceans and the seven seas and deserts and forests and mountains and hills and movies and run-on sentences and the English language and ravens and crows and scarecrows and dogmans and the Cochranes dogs and cats and tortoises and wild raspberries and woodchips and birch bark and foul creatures and my own fear of the dark and Flesheaters and Pokemon and campers and counselors and SMTs and lazy core staff and Monkey Kings and trends and hardcore dancers and black socks and rated R movies in the staff lounge and Pride and Prejudice and television in general and Tennesee and sand and raptors and Gollums and t-rexes and pterodactyls and Transformers and Chuck and Jeff Kassuba and grounds and dirts and arks and boulderins walls and mosquitos and Neebish.

Mike enjoys breaking out into songs similar to that when he sees me.

So...yeah. That's about it, and it's so random that I don't really need to add anything to spice it up...haha.

By the way, I can't wait for the DANG election to be over already...and soon after it is, I won't be able to wait for all the COMPLAINING to be over with. Just thought I would share that.