For several summers I went to a week-long church music camp. It was great. We had fabulous talent shows (I still remember the skits), lakes to swim and row in (I rowed forwards, and had no idea that wasn’t “how it’s done”) sang a cantata for the parents at the end of the week…
My mother was the camp nurse at Camp Echo Trail in Pennsylvania for two years when I was 3 and 4 years old, and of course I spent the summer with her. Later I attended Girl Scout camp every summer up through being a CIT (Counselor In Training) and then during college I worked at a YWCA camp as an office assistant. Needless to say I could fill volumes with summer camp memories, sad, joyous, and bittersweet. Here is just one:
At a GS camp I attended in Missouri, the youngest age they took was 6. The sessions were two weeks long and there were three or four sessions in total. Almost every kid just attended for one session, with some of the older kids attending for two. But it was highly unusual to spend every session at camp until you were a CIT, and the few campers that did were generally 12 or 13 years old.
But. There was this one five-year-old girl (a strikingly pretty child) whose parents had gotten special permission for her to attend for the ENTIRE SUMMER. I was around 9 at the time, and our activities occasionally included working with the younger units, so I was around this little girl enough to take note of her. She was quite a brat at times and definitely seemed to have problems.
With all the wisdom of a 9-year-old, I assumed that her issues were the result of being so unwanted that her parents would dump her for entire summer when she was so young. That might have been the case, but I now recognize that she might have had some underlying behavioral issues, not her parents’ fault, and they might have needed a respite. Still…the entire summer?!? I have no idea how the camp even allowed that.
I looked it up. HERE it is. The circus portion alone is quite impressive.
Looks like an awesome camp if one can afford it. It seems to run roughly $290 a day.
I went to three, all of which were within 15 minutes of my home.
Camp Kiwanis at Pinecrest Dunes (1958-1963). This was a one-week camp before the regular Pinecrest Dunes season. The camp was on Long Island Sound; we could swim there or at a brackish lake near the camp. They offered the usual, including horseback riding and rifle (real .22s). I didn’t do them much because I hated waiting on line, so did archery and nature study instead. I was impressed by a counselor would could name the first-string players on all the MLB teams (though there were only 20 of them at the time). Went there for five years, and got my five-year pin.
Camp Momoweta in 1963. I was a day camper, so I probably spent almost as much time in a car than at the camp (not that it was far away, but we had to pick up a bunch of kids). There also was an hour of rest time where you just stayed in the cabin. I mostly remember the swimming. The camp was on a lake, and you got awards for swimming across the lake and back, and around the lake. I also got a swimming award for getting to the float underwater – quite an accomplishment, since at the time I didn’t know how to dive and didn’t know the breast stroke (I could, however, hold my breath a long time).
Camp Wiwokiye (1964). Spent the entire summer there. We swam in Peconic Bay, played NOK hockey, made lanyards (and learned the different stitches), and were taught how to whittle. There was a goat; as one of the oldest campers, our cabin had to take care of him. There was a talent show at the end; I sang “On the Street Where You Live.”
It is. I was very fortunate.
They all look like great camps. Sad none of them still seem to be in business.
I went to camp Judy Layne and camp Schawano in Kentucky as a kid. We had activities ranging from hiking the wilds of Eastern KY and canoeing to singing and learning pioneer skills (taffy pulling, making sassafras tea, catching crawfish with our bare hands.) One year we also formed a terrorist organization and took a counselor’s teddy bear hostage. We didn’t get a merit badge for that.
My mother was sick of me watching TV all day, so when I was about 12, she sent me to Camp Tousey. I only remember three things. First, the water in Lake Tousey was impossibly cold, but we had to swim for hours every day. Second, one kid in my cabin was named Jeremy, and he knew everybody. Naturally, he felt obligated to bully kids like me, who knew nobody. Third, I’m a lousy archer.
One week summer camp with Boy Scouts, about 4 years in a row. Lot of fun. All sorts of outdoorsy stuff, which I was very much into. There was the normal amount of cruel stuff aimed at the unpopular kids, but I was fortunate enough not to be in that targeted group.
It’s also where I learned I was a good swimmer. I signed up of the “mile swim” which was kind of a bid deal, since it was “a whole mile”. While most of the kids were splashing around half-drowning, I was diving down to the bottom… swimming on my back… racing in front of the canoe we were supposed to be following… whatever. I loved being in the water as a kid, and you had to drag me out.
Canoed for a week in Algonquin and a week in Temagami at age 12, Canoed for a couple of weeks up to the Arctic Ocean at age 13. Awesome experiences.
Years ago, it was ruin by the Herald Tribune. Many of the kids were placed in private homes. We took in one at one point, a black girl of around 10 named Sulma. We thought she’d be back the next year, but she didn’t.
Turned out she had a habit of crawling into bed with my brother. It wasn’t sexual; she was used to sharing a bed with he sister and was not used to sleeping alone. Given their ages, it was probably best.
I suspect they changed the program to eliminate the kids staying in private homes.
I was sent to a couple of fine arts summer camps. I didn’t care for them. I’m an only child and an introvert, and the stress of not knowing anyone really bothered me. At the second one I did make good friends with my roommate, though.
As a senior Girl Scout my troop hosted several weekend campouts at Camp Ella J. Logan, to get badges or awards or whatever. I absolutely loved it. It’s easier to be yourself out in the woods.
Nope, I never ever went to summer camp. It was too expensive, I would imagine. I didn’t think anything of it.
We did, however, host a “Fresh Air” girl in our suburban/rural house one summer. I remember feeling jealous of her because she got a bit of special treatment from my parents.
Ugh. Speaking of Fresh Air…my mother was the local coordinator for the program in or town in NH one year (this would have been in the mid-1970s). As a result, our family had to take in the kids when the original placement didn’t work out. This meant that I got to babysit, full-time, three inner-city kids. (My parents were at work all day so it pretty much was not their problem.) The kids, and their reasons for being rejected, were:
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An 11-year-old girl who was rejected by her host family for having lice. She was nice enough, but very needy, and absolutely worshipped me and wanted us to do exactly the same things - except, instead of imitating me, she wanted ME to do exactly what she wanted. Whine, whine, whine.
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A 5 or 6 year old boy with a quick and violent temper. He was quite strong for his age and alarmingly close to me in strength, as I was a very slight, fine-boned, and not particularly strong girl. As I mentioned on this board not long ago, among other bits of acting out he hurled a bottle at my face and chipped my eyeglasses; I felt lucky that he didn’t do anything worse.
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A five year old girl who had very limited verbal skills who was rejected for being a bed wetter.
Oh yeah, THAT was a fun summer. I mean, I know it wasn’t the kids’ fault or anything, but that was complete hell. I don’t even like articulate, well-behaved children all that well, much less those three. Shudder.