camp memories

Did everyone who ever went to summer camp hate it? I've been reading "Sleepaway" and most of the essays are not the loving tributes to summer that I expected but rather diatribes on childhood cruelty. I'm a little disappointed.

As both a camper and a camp counselor, I had the time of my life.

As a camper I attended a church camp in southern Missouri. The first summer I found out I was going to go I was probably 11 and my dad was completely broke but someone (the church? my best friend's parents?) came up with the cash and off I went. I remember my first day there, running like a maniac for two hours before dinner, then off to the dining hall to eat. During grace I told the Tabby Cat I felt sick, or "funny" I think I said. I promptly passed out, no doubt from the heat and the excitement and lack of water. I was terrified they would send me home for being defective. But they didn't. I spent a happy week there, catching skinks in the showerhouse, hiking, swimming, playing four-square and crushing on boys.

In fact in my two years there I netted two boyfriends, Andy E, a dark haired boy who gave me my first real kiss and J.B., a boy from our hometown over whom the Cat and I got in to a major row. Our car ride home was miles of set chins and crossed arms and I still remember her mother chewing on us all the way over which was more important -- the boy or the friendship. By the time we got home I had conceded the boy so I could keep my friend. I chalked up two valuable lessons that summer: 1) in a fight over a boy, the Cat would always win and 2) friendship is, in fact, more important than boys. To wit, the boy has long passed in to history but 26 years after that fight, the Cat and I are still going strong.

After two happy summers at Galilee, I wanted to become a counselor and pursued a job with Camp Fire the summer I turned 18. The first year I just missed being hired but the second year I got the job and a few days before I was to leave for the camp, my dad gave me a $300 Chevy Chevette, which I had to repair, license and learn to drive before leaving. After installing a working horn, sewing up the headliner, pop-riveting aluminum panels under the pedals to cover the hole in the floor and attaching some seat covers, I was off to camp.

When I arrived, I walked up to the dining hall, stepped in and met my fate at the registration table. Maybe that sounds over-dramatic but that one moment really did change my life. The first person who greeted me at Camp Towanyak would also become my first husband. I can actually remember what he wore: jeans and a "Free Johnny Dangerously" t-shirt. We flirted immediately. It eventually settled into friendship and stayed that way for that summer and the next. In our final summer at camp (it was the camp's final summer as well) we were engaged.

In those three summers at Towanyak I would gain a husband, two female friendships that survived both my ill-advised marriage and predictable divorce, the skills of fire-building, camp singing, drink mixing, practical joking, rappelling, problem solving and french braiding the hot, sweaty hair of ten year old girls. I held hands with kids who needed me and the people I needed. I was punished, rewarded, serenaded, cold-showered, pranked, befriended and loved. As I fought off the inexhaustible hands of time shoving me toward adulthood, the camp fought off the bony fingers of suburban sprawl. We both lost. But some little parts of the girl and the camp are still inside me.

WoHeLo.