Off to Summer Camp

When I was a kid, I went to two different summer camps.  One was 4-H camp.  It was a camp that relied heavily on arts and crafts, an activity which I dislike, mainly because I have no skill or aptitude in these areas.  Endless days of leatherwork, macrame, drawing, and worst of all "pasta art" (literally, making paintings out of paint and wet noodles) made me associate the word camp with drudgery. And we did lots of singing.  Lots and lots of singing.  Of very nonsensical songs. "If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet. If you're happy and you know it stomp your feet.  If you're happy and you know it, then your face will really show it, if you're happy and you know it stomp your feet."  ("But, I don't stomp my feet when I'm happy," I told my camp counselor.) "The bear climbed over the mountain, the bear climbed over the mountain, the bear climbed over the mountain.....to see what he could he could see...to see what he could see, to see what he could see, the bear climbed over the mountain, the bear climbed over the mountain, the bear climbed over the mountain... to see what he could see."  ("Why won't the bear just hibernate already?" I wondered after the fourth stanza of this.)  "The mighty Duke of York he had 10,000 men, he marched them up the hill, then he marched them down again, and when they're up they're up and when they're down, they're down, and when they're only halfway up, they're neither up nor down." (No wonder the Duke of York lost so many battles, exhausting his soldiers with the constant climbing up and down of hills, the 10-year-old Erik thought to himself as he and his fellow campers had to physically replicate the up and down of the Duke of York's soldiers while singing this mindless ditty.) Endlessly, we sang these songs that made no sense. Endlessly.

Then there was Camp Lutherhaven.  Now that sounds particularly painful and medieval, a camp named after Martin Luther, but Lutherhaven was actually pretty pleasant. Most important was the fact that participation in all arts and crafts was optional.  Additionally, the staff and counselors gave us a great deal of freedom and we spent much of our days on the beach of Lake Coeur d' Alene swamping canoes and splashing about in the water, although we did sing Kumbaya a few dozen times more than I would personally choose to during an ordinary week.

Now, I am off to camp again, decades after my most-recent camping experience.  Instead of the role of camper, I am now one of the people responsible for providing an intensive academic camp experience to 77 high school students from Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. Sounds like great fun.

You won't be hearing much from me during the next 24 days.  The Wifi at our camp site isn't too spectacular.  And the designer of the camp has activities planned from 7 am until 10 pm.  And if my ancient, dusty memories are accurate, some of the most vivid memories I have of camping are the various troubles and difficulties possessed by my fellow campers: acute homesickness bordering on clinical depression, inappropriate or nonexistent bathing habits, propensity toward the bullying of one another, mischievous tendencies, pranksterism, bouts of spontaneous crying, intestinal troubles, an almost magnetic attraction to poison ivy, poison sumac, poison oak and any other plant causing severe skin irritation, general whining and complaining, and generous doses of either mania or hysteria depending on the phase of the moon.

Yes, you won't be hearing much from me in the next 24 days.  At least there won't be pasta art.