Wednesday, July 3, 2002
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Wednesday, July 3, 2002 |
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Missing the freedom of summer camp By MICHAEL
BOYLAN
I miss summer camp. Being latchkey kids once we started school, my sister and I went to day camps in the summer while our parents were at work. The camp we went to was the YMCA's Camp Tahdawasa, which we were told was Native American for "ten days well spent." The campgrounds behind the YMCA had a basketball court, swings, a murky pond that may or may not have had several cars in it and was definitely considered by the staff to be out of bounds, a wall to climb, a natural amphitheater, hiking paths, a swimming pool, an arts and crafts area and a tetherball pole. There were so many trees that the grounds behind the Y were almost always entirely in shade. The light that did make its way through cast wonderfully intricate designs on the ground or the people it landed on. There was a complex of playing fields nearby for big games of kickball or soccer and there was also a larger pond for canoeing adjacent to the playing fields. Each day started and ended with a song, like "Rig-a-bam-boo" or "Boom Chika Boom." The camp day was filled with different activities and there was always a field trip one day a session. Each group moved from activity to activity during the day. The one activity that everybody had every day was swimming. Beginning swimmers were called Polliwogs and advanced swimmers were called Barracudas. I think I made it to minnow. The pool was shaded by the YMCA building and the water varied from very cold to just cold. The campers were also divided into groups by age. Each age group had a different name of an Indian tribe. Chippewa was the youngest and Mohicans was the oldest. After you were a Mohican you could become a C.I.T., a counselor in training. I became a C.I.T. and then moved up the following two summers to be a junior counselor. While I liked the fun and games of being a camper at camp, I had the most fun as I made my transition from Mohican to junior counselor. I had the coolest counselor when I was a Mohican. Lisa was what would now be considered alternative. She wore Doc Maartens and black concert t-shirts and she listened to bands like The Dead Milkmen, Violent Femmes and Skinny Puppy. I started to listen to these bands as well because I thought she was so cool. In fact, I still listen to several of the bands she got me interested in regularly. I think I decided to become a C.I.T. and then a junior counselor because I wanted to be as good a counselor as Lisa was. What I didn't really realize at the time is that C.I.T.'s are actually considered to be another level of camper. C.I.T.'s get more and more responsibility as the summer progresses and they show more maturity, but there were a few bad eggs that were really just old campers. Everyone experiences a setback, though, and all of the C.I.T.'s the year I was one experienced it the same night - the C.I.T. sleepover. Nobody slept, people were making out all over the place and the C.I.T.'s walked the campgrounds the following day like zombies. I became a junior counselor the next year and did it for one more year after that. The pay wasn't great but I got paid to go to camp for two years. I really liked working with kids and playing games and having a few kids each year really look up to me, even though I was only a few years older than them. I made a lot of friends during my years at Camp Tahdawasa, including my best friend, Chris, who was my best man at my wedding last year. The hardest day of the year was always the last day of camp. Many friendships that were forged during the summer came to an end. Campers would miss their counselors, counselors would miss their campers and everybody had thoughts of school dangling over their heads. As people headed for the buses that would carry them home that afternoon, it seemed that everybody had a tear in their eye or a lump in their throat. To this day it is still one of the most emotionally trying days I have experienced. Today, I'm sitting at a computer in this air-conditioned office. Outside it is bright and beautiful. There are campgrounds hidden from the streets of this city and neighboring towns. Children are laughing and singing and playing and they are not thinking about the end of summer. Such is the magic of summer camp. |
