A Letter from Grandma

Every camp needs a dock, right? Camp Hagan had none.

Dear Leah,

I can’t wait to hear all about your summer camp.  Glad it has been fun so far…when I think about summer camp, my feelings are somewhat mixed. I HATED my one camp experience with sort of an unhealthy passion!!! Absolutely everything about it. Maybe going as a counselor could have been different than going as a camper…but after my ‘camping’ experience, no way was this ever going to be a summer job for me!!

I must have been about 10 when I got shipped off to a camp in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania.  My parents were from eastern PA, my mom’s brothers and sister still lived there, and I guess my aunt had heard of this ‘great’ church camp. Lutheran, I think.  It was good on morals but light on liturgy.   My mom and I traveled by train from Pittsburgh to visit her siblings (another story sometime).  My cousin, Tim (my age), and I were both shipped off for two weeks…me, to Camp Hagan (the girls’ camp) and Tim to Camp Miller across the Delaware river, the camp for boys.  One drive to the Poconos…and both of us could be dropped off, leaving my mom and her sister two glorious weeks without kids. 

Growing up as an only child…and living on a busy street with practically no other kids…was so different than anything you can imagine.  My idea of a great summer was signing up for the public library’s book club, walking to the library every week, checking out as many Nancy Drew books as I could carry home, and sticking my nose in one after another, living my adventures with Nancy and HER friends.  And no need to feel sorry for me or anything…I LOVED to read. I loved my summers. This is what I wanted to do.  As a family, we always spent the last two weeks of July on the beach at Stone Harbor, NJ…the beach AND my books!  Life absolutely couldn’t get any better than this.  (Some things never change!!)  Believe me, I didn’t need—or want—camp.

So, camp.  First there was the ‘uniform’.  It looked like a one-piece gym uniform that fortunately went out of style long before you had to endure that humility.  And the camp uniform was BROWN.  Lovely.  We also had ‘bucket hats’ that completed the look. 

We had a very strict ‘schedule’ every day which always included time in the river (because that is where we took our ‘baths’---there was something wrong with the camp shower). The river bed was full of giant rocks, some nearly boulder sized…and I didn’t know how to swim …that was two strikes against camp before we ever really got started. 

There were 12 girls in each cabin…and about 120 flies and 2 thousand mosquitoes.  It was hot and humid.  We had ‘inspection’ every morning to make sure our cots were made up perfectly and we hadn’t thrown our clothes everywhere.  We had ‘rest’ time every afternoon and twice a week we had to write a letter home during ‘rest’.  My letters consisted of ‘I hate camp…I hate camp…I hate camp so much please come get me’.  I probably could have been even more emphatic had I realized that my Uncle Harold (mom's brother) was so upset with my letters that HE was ready to come get me.  My mean mom wouldn’t let him.  I think I could have worked this better, in hindsight.

We had the rest of our day divided into ‘stations’…the craft station was my favorite if I had to choose a favorite, and I must have made dozens of lanyards although one was more than I wanted or needed but they were fun to make; we created lots of assorted things out of popsicle sticks, usually having to do with birds, like bird houses and bird feeders.  Then, there was Game Time, which I hated with a passion. The games always involved running and getting sweaty, unless it was raining and then we got to go to the cafeteria and play board games which it seemed everyone hated but me.  It didn’t rain nearly enough.  You can tell, I really felt like the square peg trying to fit in the round hole.

 The Nature Station was slightly better, because sometimes we went on nature walks.  We had items on cards that we had to get checked off like a scavenger hunt and we had to find something to add to the nature center.  The icky bugs I thought would qualify never did.  I don’t think I ever passed ‘Nature’.  The night nature walks were the worst…all I remember about them were the mosquitoes. 

And then there was the food.  Literally, nothing to write home about.  We did get a chance to go to the ‘commissary’ if you timed it right.  It was open about a half hour before supper.  Our parents   put some $$ in a little account so we could get ourselves a treat during our stay.  Most of the ‘stuff’ had Camp Hagan written on it—you know, like postcards and pencils-- and I really didn’t need a reminder of my nightmare; the food was mainly candy I didn’t like (Mounds Bars---coconut. Yuck.) and anyway, why would I eat that when we were having supper?   Maybe I thought my hunger strike at the commissary was a statement.  Who know?  In any case, I never spent any of my money.  I know this is a crazy thing to remember, but my cousin, Tim, apparently spent all his money on day 1.  My mom and Aunt Dolly made a big deal of this. 

My counselor’s name was Lexie.  She was tall and blond and beautiful and fun and she was the counselor everyone wanted because she was just simply so darn cool.  At the time, I vowed should I ever have a daughter, her name would be Lexie.  She was perfect.  She had been a counselor for years.  We knew this right away because her little corner of the cabin—she had the space immediately to the left as you walked into the cabin, I guess to keep anyone from escaping in the middle of the night-- was decorated with all kinds of cute campy stuff, most of which had to do with skunks.  She collected them.  She loved them.  She was over the moon about skunks.  Maybe you can tell where this is heading.

One morning we woke to a substitute counselor in our cabin.  What had happened to Lexie?!?  Was she sick?  Where was she?  Our substitute counselor was more than a little worried, too.  She said Lexie was supposed to be back hours ago.  It didn’t take much to worm the story out of her.   Lexie and some of the boy counselors from Camp Miller took someone’s truck and went hunting for a skunk.  Lexie had found someone (probably a townie veterinarian?) who could remove the scent sac and turn a skunk into a pet.  For some reason Lexie thought this was a really good idea.  The guys must have thought this was a great adventure or they just wanted to help the prettiest girl at Camp Hagan.  No one was using any common sense, obviously.  

So, here's how the story slowly unraveled: did you know, a skunk must have its back legs on the ground before it can spray?  This motley crew of teenagers trapped a skunk.  Lexie and the skunk were in the back bed of the truck.  The truck went over a bump; Lexie lost her grip on the squirming skunk and got drenched in a full blast of stinky skunk spray.  And the skunk scampered away.  Obviously, there was no sneaking back into camp.  I have since read that tomato soup does NOT remove the smell of skunk effectively, but that seemed to be the ‘solution’ at the time.  We never saw Lexie again.  (Our two weeks was almost over, though.  I’ve always wondered if she lost her job over this?)  Tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches had been a staple at lunchtime…and for the remainder of our stay, we had just toasted cheese sandwiches.  

There is a moral to the story somewhere here…I’ll let you find it!

Someday, if you ever happen to be around my cousin, Tim, you’ll have to ask him about his memories of Camp Miller.  He LOVED every minute of it.

Really, the moral to my story is…make lots and lots of memories at camp!  And someday, share them.

Love you!!!

If you have a ‘commissary’…have an ice cream cone on me!!

XOXO

Grandma 

Leah is a counsellor this year at a summer church camp. Can you believe a 19-year-old sent me her snail-mail address so I could write her a letter? And yes, she writes letters to me, too. Great letters. I feel like Sibyl in The Correspondent. I'm blessed.