Happy Tuesday, My Friend!
Summertime and the livin’ is……… HOT!! Ah, but still, summertime is so great.
Lately, I have been thinking about my experiences at summer camp. Have you been? I’ve been to two different camps. One that I went to multiple times was for my 4H club. I wish I could remember the name of the camp. I’ve tried googling, and I come up empty-handed. I went two or three summers in a row. And then the second camp I went to was a Methodist church camp called “Whispering Pines.” Doesn’t that sound peaceful? It’s an excellent name for a camp . . . or a nursing home.
My “going to camp” days were around 4th-6th grades. At the 4H camp, I always ended up in the “Hummingbird” cabin. I think all of the cabins were named after birds. They were very stark—just a bunch of bunk beds. There were no fancy frills, like toilets, for instance! Toilets were for sissies. We had to hike up a trail to “The Crystal Palace” to do our business. I wish I could remember what the boys’ bathroom was called. I doubt “crystal” was in the title.
One of the years I went, I was there with my friend, Julie. We were in our cabin claiming our beds and unrolling our sleeping bags when in walked a group of girls. The screen door slammed, and all heads turned toward the door. There she stood. The self-appointed queen of the hummingbirds. Her royal court buzzed about her. She looked around, sized each of us up and down, then stated, “This is even gyppier than Camp Roundelay.” She then picked out her throne—er, bed—and Julie and I side-eyed each other, wondering who she was.
“I’m Cindy.” (I guess we didn’t have to wonder too long.) “And I just got back from Camp Roundelay, which was so gyppy!” I’d never even heard of Camp Roundelay, and I wasn’t sure what “gyp,” or “gyppy” or “gyppier” meant, but I was about to get schooled.
Queen Cindy crawled onto her top bunk, and we all pooled around at the bottom. We looked up to her and waited, mouths agape, at what she’d say next. She told us all the gory details about Camp Roundelay and how nothing was quite good enough. And as we began to learn the rules about the camp we were at, Cindy continued to comment about how our current circumstances were “even gyppier than Camp Roundelay,” which made me wonder if our parents might have brought us to prison rather than camp! There was simply no pleasing Queen Cindy.
I remember making dreamcatchers and macramé belts during arts and crafts. Of course we did! This was the 70s, man! We macraméd everything back then! And we made some sort of “stew pocket” each year. We peeled our own carrots and potatoes (I felt that was way too much work for me), and we must have had some type of meat. We wrapped it all up in individual pieces of aluminum foil folded just so (I think this is where I learned the “drugstore wrap”) and had our own little stew pocket when it was all said and done. I remember not liking how it tasted, but I felt like Julia Child because I had made it myself!
And then there was the Methodist Church camp, Whispering Pines. I only went to that once with my friend, Kathy. That stay was a whole week instead of about three nights at 4H camp. It was not as gyppy as Camp Roundelay because we had bathrooms right there in our cabin! How modern!
The dining hall I’m picturing in my head is enormous! The first night we were there, we scooted all the tables out of the way and were taught how to do “The Hustle.” (Do you know this song and dance?) I think it is hilarious that I learned how to do this popular disco line dance at church camp. Those Methodists! They were out of control!
I broke my toe at Whispering Pines. (That should be on a t-shirt.) Kathy and I were running full speed across the property one day, and I plowed my foot into the root of a tree at full force. I don’t think I’d felt pain like that in my young lifetime. I crumpled to the ground and watched as my toe turned all the colors of the rainbow. How was I going to do The Hustle now? Would I disappoint my fellow Methodists?
One thing I regret is that at that camp, you had to pass a swimming test before you could go past a certain point in the water. Now, I could doggie paddle like no one’s business, and if you threw me overboard, I’d be able to tread water with the best of them. But swim in front of lifeguards to show my ability to stay alive? Nope. I think someone once told me I “looked funny” when I was swimming, and I was terribly embarrassed. So, while Kathy ran off to take the swimming test and get the special bracelet that identified her as a competent swimmer, I chose to stay in the shallow water with the other chickens. I knew I could swim just fine, but I didn’t want to “look funny” to the camp counselors judging the swimming. Oh, Patti, why did that matter to you so much?
As it happens, summer camp runs in my genes. My brother worked as a camp counselor for several summers during college at a boy’s camp in Wisconsin. My sister worked several summers as the cook at a Lutheran church camp in North Dakota. Note: I can’t imagine planning meals and cooking for a camp full of kids and adults. I’m lucky I kept my family of 5 alive . . . a whole camp full?? No way! And, my son, Teddy, was a camper for many years at a Methodist church camp in Florida and then went on to be a counselor there for many years.
Nowadays, “camping” for me is staying at a hotel with no Wi-Fi. Maybe it was that tree stump, or maybe the swimming test, or maybe even the hike to the Crystal Palace to use the bathroom. I just know now I need air conditioning and a hot shower.
Have you ever been a camper? I’d love to hear about it!
Well, I’m off to Greece soon, so I won’t write for a few weeks. I’ll write again on July 23rd. From what I’ve heard, Greece will be far better than Camp Roundelay!
γραμμένο με αγάπη - - - PattiXOXO
“Light a campfire
and everyone’s a storyteller.”
John Geddes