Notes on Camp

Milford Mill Swim Club, the center of my summers from 1987-1995.

One may never feel more loved than she does as the summer camp she runs nears its last day. The camaraderie formed at summer camp is amazing. Kids who never met, go to different schools, in different grades, are thrown together into this weird situation, and absolutely fall in love with each other.

I had a major camp flashback the other day as I rode the bus to...well, camp. Yes, I was riding a WMATA bus instead of a classic yellow. And yes, I'm the Camp Manager, not a camper. But still. The LED sign on the front of the bus was busted and the driver had taped a white piece of paper to the windshield to let us know what route he was driving. And it reminded me so much of the signs on the buses at my camp telling us we were riding the "Red Bus" or the "Green Bus" or whatever. It's weird how something so simple can elicit such a visceral reaction.

The camp I manage isn't all that different from the one I went to when I was a kid. They're both theatre camps, four weeks long, during which you put on a play and also take classes in drama, dance, music, and art. The major difference is that the camp I manage is completely an indoor camp (save outdoor recess, when it's actually cool enough to get out there), and the camp I went to was an outdoor camp. In addition to all the artsy activities, we also had sports, and two kinds of swim: instructional and recreational. How did we do it all?

I'm constantly amazed by the kids in my camp. They have so much fun, and we put on a play in four weeks! Less than four weeks, if you count the time before they get their scripts, and the last day of camp, which is just fun-and-games. And, of course, I'm amazed by the staff--I'm not in the classroom all day like they are, and what they do is astonishing to me.

I've just been flashing back recently to singing in the music room with the dingy orange carpet (especially during the impromptu talent shows when it was raining outside), the overpowering smell of chlorine in the indoor pool, learning our blocking in the blazing heat under a striped tent, the counselors hauling our lunches in garbage bags out of an industrial-sized refrigerator, pretending to be "sick" during sports so we could play cards, spreading my towel out on the grass with my friends so we could eat lunch together like "cool kids"...and bug juice. Lots of bug juice. Flashbacks.

Camp ends tomorrow, and I'm really going to miss the kids--especially the ones who have been with us for three years and are "graduating" to our camp for older students. Good thing a new session starts tomorrow.