Friday, July 11, 2008

Friday Five: Summer Camp!

Mother Laura over at Revgalblogpals brings us this Friday Five:


We're settling into our new new apartment, and after a lifetime at Montessori Katie is having a fantastic summer at YMCA day camp. Meanwhile, Nicholas is packing up for a week at Camp Julian, shared by the Episcopal dioceses of Los Angeles and San Diego. His lists of supplies and rules--except for the ropes course available to the teenagers and the ban on IPODs and cell phones--bring back memories of my own happy times weeks at Y camp Ta Ta Pochon, funded by selling countless cases of butter toffee peanuts.


So, in celebration of summer, please share your own memories and preferences about camp.


1. Did you go to sleep away camp, or day camp, as a child? Wish you could? Or sometimes wish you hadn't?
I went to Girl Scout Camp (Day camp) one week, which was fun, and to Church camp every year starting when I was about in the 5th grade! I was pretty nervous the first time, but I had a good time and decided I wanted to go every year. The first year I went, our week was over the 4th of July, so there were a very small group of campers. The whole camp went canoeing! After that, I thought we would do go canoeing every year, but alas, it was not to be.

2. How about camping out? Dream vacation, nightmare, or somewhere in between?
I'm not a big "tent camper." We did tent camping for a couple of weekends every year as a family, and it's fun if you are a kid, but a lot of work if you are an adult. A cabin vacation is about as rough as I like it.

3. Have you ever worked as a camp counselor, or been to a camp for your denomination for either work or pleasure?
In High School, I worked for a week at my church camp as an Assistant Counselor. We didn't get paid, but we got to go to camp for free.

4. Most dramatic memory of camp, or camping out?
Hmmm. One exciting weekend of tent camping, there were severe weather warnings at the lake where we were camping with several other families. I remember huddling in another family's camper during wind and hail. Luckily, no tornadoes.

Also, I have a couple of wonderful memories of sleeping under the stars at church camp.

5. What is your favorite camp song or songs?
We had a number of favorite songs "of the time," like "He's Everything to Me," and "Pass it On." But we also liked to sing a song called "Today". The only version I can find on you tube is on a John Denver tribute:

11 comments:

Sally said...

ouch huddling into a camper- sounds fun and romantic but I guess the reality is different!

Jan said...

You hit it when you said it's more fun to go camping as a kid than one of the adults who has to plan and organize everything. Though I haven't done that--just imagining.

The rainstorm by the lake sounds miserable.

Dr. Laura Marie Grimes said...

Same song I picked!

Muthah+ said...

Diane,
As I said over at M. Laura's. John Denver was in the class ahead of me in highschool. I really liked him. But he was in choir and I was in the band and never the twain was to meet

John died in a plane crash off the Monterey coast in CA in 1997 just before I went there to be rector of the parish. One of my parishioners was in the party of Civil Air Patrol who found him and his plane. He told me about it some years after John's death.

Thanks for sharing his music with us today.

Hot Cup Lutheran said...

alot more work for the adults yes indeedy! mochajava pup was introduced to Pringles on one of our early trips... I tried to open the can, while hubhc pounded in tent stakes and voila! chips went flying... the pup was very happy! (if we open them today, he goes crazy!!)

Dorcas (aka SingingOwl) said...

I have not thought of this song in a long time, but I loved it. Thanks for sharing John Denver's beautiful version.

Auntie Knickers said...

We're back in cool, not-too-stormy Maine (although some people in nearby towns lost power the other night). Enjoyed your play and thanks again for the conversation over coffee -- hope we can do it again next year!

Ruth Hull Chatlien said...

I did church camp for a few years. I once fell out of a top bunk at camp. I wasn't seriously hurt, but my feet stung from the abrasion of hitting the concrete floor for days.

I've never slept in a top bunk since.

Unknown said...

Nifty.

Paul said...

In summer of 1969 I was part of a group of Baptist youth in Europe for a month and we sang "Pass it on" (It only takes a spark to get a fire growing....) and "He's everything to me." You have thus taken me back, in an instant, to a very specific time in my life.

My own memories go back further, however. My family loved camping and I spent huge chunks of my summers from age two to twenty-two in the Sequoia National Forest area. The scent of kit-kit-dizze can take me back five decades in one instant. I love the yellow pine belt and it will always be one of my spiritual homes.

I have also worked in summer camp variously as a dishwasher, counselor, and cook's helper. I could navigate the path from the lake up to our cabin by starlight during a new moon, navigating by the silhouettes of familiar trees - a good fifteen minute hike with all the speed of youth, though in the silence of summer nights I probably took longer.

My memories of evangelistic fascism are not happy ones but my memories of the hills are deep and wonderful.

Anonymous said...

I really like that song, and haven't heard it in a while. I like a lot of John Denver's music...wish he was still around.