Summer Camp

I remember summer camp. Sort of. I remember being about 10 years old and wondering why my parents could banish me from their lives into a snake-ridden, mosquito-filled hell, surrounded by screaming girls.


What did I do to deserve this? And why did they talk it up and make it sound like a once-in-a-lifetime rare privilege? And why, for gosh darned sake, did they make me go without my sisters? All these questions flooded my mind as I watched a four foot long, fat, and probably poisonous, snake slither from the rafters of my cabin and drop down to the wooden floor. "Why had I chosen a top bunk", I thought in panic? At the time, I had solely focused on crawly things on the floor, not even dreaming of the dangers that lurked in the ceiling.


As I rack by brain trying to think about more of the details of that summer, I only get snippets. The snake, of course, but also other first-time moments in life. The first time I had been in close proximity to someone "of color". She was blacker than an 8-ball and I was absolutely fascinated by her. To say that I grew up in a white upper middle class neighborhood would be stating the obvious at this point. Anyway, she was beautiful; with her glistening kinky hair (that she treated with vaseline) and her mesmerizing eyes. We instantly had something in common: we both were petrified of snakes.  As I recall, maybe her fear was a bit more than mine because after the snake-dropping-from-the-rafter incident, I don't remember that she remained in our cabin. I'm not sure that she even remained at camp.


Another first was cooking a complete meal over the fire in only one sheet of aluminum foil; every camper's necessity. It was a meat-stewy sort of meal; mushy with bits with hard-cooked bits. And oh, so delicious. I was certain. at the time, that if only my mother knew of this crockery-saving meal, that we would be eating it every night in the future. Fortunately, in hindsight, we didn't usually cook our menus over campfires at home, so this dinner was not destined for our dinner table.


I cannot remember where this Girl Scout Camp was located; even which state it was in. I do remember that it was dusty, hot in the daytime, cold at night, offered no privacy, exposed me to sleepless nights listening to sniffling and crying girls as they lie tucked into their bunks, and that we got to have a pocket knife as part of the required gear.


No doubt today's camps are a bit different. Surely no knives are allowed and they probably send each happy camper through a metal detector on their way to the great outdoors. But each of us takes some unique memory or lesson from these experiences. My lesson was that when I became a parent, I would not subject my child to the indignity of a shared bathing facility. But, to each his own. I'm sure that I ended up creating some other horrifying childhood experience for them.  I mean, what is parent-hood good for, after all, if you can't leave some indelible mark on their psyche? My only consolation is that I know for sure that it did not involve snakes or knives.