Dads and kids powwow through Y-Guides

Published 4:00 pm Wednesday, October 26, 2005

The activities bring families closer together, participants say.

“Have you prayed to the fire god?”

To Bill Omaits and his now 37-year-old son David, the phrase immediately recalls a 100-foot flame shooting through a 6-foot stack of wood.

Bill and David as a youngster were on a campout with 200 other Bainbridge dads and kids. The fathers faked that “the wood won’t light.”

“The only thing to do now is pray to the fire gods,” the dads said, then set off a hidden chemical activator in the woodpile to make flames shoot into the night.

“David was here three weeks ago and we were talking about the campout,” Bill Omaits said. “Those are the kinds of memories kids wouldn’t get except in an organized campout.”

That event was part of the YMCA’s Y-Guides program for fathers and their kids in first through third grades.

It’s been going strong since the 1970s on the island, filling a niche for many fathers who commute to Seattle and have little time to spend with their kids.

“Y-Guides was designed for fathers who worked all the time and didn’t spend time with kids,” Bill Omaits said. “We had great fun. Several of the dads are my very, very dear friends.

“Many long-lasting relationships came out of it and between dads and kids.”

Omaits helped get the organization started on the island through the Seattle YMCA.

The program was founded in St. Louis, Mo., in 1926, and was based on the strong qualities of Native American culture with the help of Joe Friday an Ojibway Native American.

It was called “Indian Guides” originally, but has since been renamed a more culturally sensitive “Y-Guides.”

YMCA provides the manual on how to conduct meetings and information on simple crafts, songs and other activities.

The YMCA also helps the Y-Guides get reservations for three major field trips each year – a campout in the San Juan Islands, a trip to Fort Worden in Port Townsend, and a visit to Miracle Ranch at Horseshoe Lake near Purdy – the rest is up to the dads and kids.

The “circles,” with about 10 dads and kids in each, meet once a month in member homes.

At gatherings, dads and sons might make air hockey pucks from old CDs or learn to tie fishing flies.

Girls and dads might decorate a cardboard jewelry box with shells or make a wind chime.

A pinewood derby brings all the area’s circles together for a race of hand-crafted wooden cars.

“These simple tasks can be done together and kids at that age are really involved in it,” Omaits said. “The dads have just as much fun with the other dads, because you get to act like kids.”

Omait’s son Micah, now 15 years old, recalls meeting a lot of new kids his age and also having a lot of friends to play with at Y-Guide gatherings.

“I got to hang out with friends and do cool activities,” said Micah, who credits the experience for building tighter frienships.

“You were still having a lot of fun, but weren’t playing around randomly,” he said. “My friends and I had a good time. We share memories through Indian Guides.”

Michael Najarian, whose 11-year-old daughter Natalie recently aged out of the program, is in it now with his son John Michael, age 7, while his youngest daughter Caroline, age 5, will soon be old enough to join.

Najarian found Y-Guides a great way to meet 10 other fathers and plug into the community just a month after moving to Bainbridge.

“There are a lot of things dads can do (socially). This rates high on the family-oriented scale,” Michael said.

His wife Susan Najarian points out that mothers connect with other moms when they pick up kids at school, but working dads don’t have that opportunity.

And, when the fathers and kids leave on the camp out, it’s a welcome respite for mom, she said.

In Bill Omaits’ group, all the fathers worked in Seattle.

To make the Y-Guides, they would plan business trips around the then-twice a month meetings.

Michael says an good deal of conversation goes on between the dads in preparation for each meeting – bouncing ideas off each other, divvying up duties.

And yet, “there’s not one of us who would worry about how a night will go. It almost seems like there isn’t enough time.”

He adds: “To me (a Y-Guide meeting) is agenda-less. There’s no who’s going to win the game. I think now what we’re doing is part of a larger movement core family values.

“It’s the most effortless thing that you can do. I’m not trying to have a good time, it’s because it’s that goal of the greater good that it works.”

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In addition to monthly meetings, upcoming Y-Guides events include a Potlatch meeting of all “circles” at 7 p.m. Dec. 6, and the famous pinewood derby with handmade cars March 11.

For information about joining YMCA’s Y-Guides program – which is actively seeking new members for this school year – on Bainbridge Island, call Michael Najarian at 780-8018.