The Zeltlager Series: am Lagerfeuer

Lagerfeuer is one of those words I love because it is a compound word where both parts translate exactly to the same parts of the compound word in English. Lager = camp and Feuer = fire. And thus we had our campfire.

Aside from being a very likable word, the Lagerfeuer was pretty much the place to be every day after sundown. At our particular campsite the campfire was in a covered area with stacked benches built in around it, which made it particularly nice the first couple nights when it rained.
 
Early in the night there was usually a game or two for the entire group. After that most people sat and chatted or played games in smaller groups. 

If anyone fell asleep around the campfire they would get drawn on. But the rule was that they could only be drawn on by members of the same section. I got to partake in this ritual hazing on the second night when one of the younger horn players fell asleep pretty early in the night. 

At midnight every night we sang songs (I mean, it is a music club). It always started with the same three: the song for Franken, the song for Bavaria, and then the German national anthem. There were words and music for the first two, but the national anthem they said "you all know it from memory"... so I just hummed along after the only three words I knew ("einigkeit und recht und freiheit"). At least I knew the melody. And, unfortunately for everyone else that was present, on the first night 

they had me sing the Star Spangled Banner. Alone. I mean, it was pretty bad (probably on par with the usual sorostitute that sings at the Basketball games), but at least I didn't forget the words! Thankfully, I only had to do it that once (I'm sure they decided they didn't want to have to suffer through it again). After the standard songs, we would sometimes sing for a little while longer, either well-known German songs or old pop songs (Hey Jude came up a few times). 

More often, however, we sang my favorite kind of songs. For lack of better word, I will call them the prost songs (prost means cheers). I don't know whether to love it because it's such a German thing to always cheers while drinking, or to love it because it's such a music nerd thing to have songs for it. Musicians are the same all over the 

world, for the record. 

So I will leave you now to reflect on the Lagerfeuer with a Zeltlager recording of "Ein Prost mit harmonischem Klangen" ("A cheers with harmony")