Packing for Camp

Truth Thursday

The trunk was red, white and blue, and it was purchased at the Sears on Flatbush Avenue in the spring of 1975, the year that the Captain and Tenille were topping the charts. I had spent most of the winter and spring ogling the back of the New York Times Magazine, where, in those days, small black and white camp ads would run, starting around December.

The ad appeared each week, tantalizing me. Camp Hillcroft. A younger version of Buck's Rock, the camp my mother had gone to, and whose name and mental picture was seared into my mind. I was 12 years old, and after many years of spending my summers either shuttling out to Long Island for day camp or attending "Y" camps in Brooklyn, I was going to go to what I dreamed was the magical land of sleep away camp.

I spent a month at Hillcroft that first summer, nestled in the mountains of mid-state New York, near Poughkeepsie, and two months the following summer. Having grown up in rag-tag Brooklyn, landing at Hillcroft, which was populated primarily by wealthy kids from Manhattan and the suburbs, was akin to landing on Mars. There was a new language and a new culture to learn, so I put on my most determined social scanner and began my education.

One of the funniest things we did, at our Friday night dances, where the counselors spun pop music on the record player, was to make up hand movements to the songs. "Love Will Keep Us Together."  "Philadelphia Freedom." In retrospect, I realize that the girls, by adopting this practice week after week, in that cedar-smelling, barnlike structure, were avoiding the possibility of having to actually dance with the boys. The next summer, the summer of "Afternoon Delight" and being 13, there were fewer hand motions and more scrambling to see who would dance with who and who would "take a walk" in the moonlight behind the barn.

I had my first cigarette at camp (Viceroy), my first kiss (Keith Chernin.) I wore tube tops and played a lot volleyball and backgammon. I learned how to blow my hair dry and straighten it. I wore lip gloss. I had a crush. I learned the ways of teenage girls.

All of this has been coming back to me this week as I've been ironing on labels and beginning the bittersweet process of packing my youngest son's duffel bag for camp. He is 9 years old, and this week, he left for two weeks of sleep away camp for the first time. Unlike his older brother, who chose to wait until he was 15 and went for only one summer, and unlike his sister, who refuses to go because none of her friends from school are going, my youngest son is adventurous, and ever since we visited his older brother last summer, he has been planning his own launch into the world of camp.

I lovingly ironed labels onto shorts and t-shirts, marked socks and bathing suits and towels with a laundry Sharpie, and collected gear and packed for several days. We finished up on Sunday with the decision to type up an address list, instead of pre-addressing his postcards, which includes both sets of grandparents, his cousins and us – although i'm not really counting on his writing at all.

He is brave, my son. He doesn't have any friends who are going, and his older brother only went for the one summer – he has already aged out. The daughter of a close friend will be watching out for him, as it is the kind of camp where the older kids take good care of the younger kids, and everyone is very tightly woven. In Yiddish, it is called a "hamish" place – warm and loving, and the overarching theory behind this camp is inspired by the kibbutz movement in Israel, and it emphasizes sharing, inclusiveness, creativity and responsibility to the community. The kids who go and really get into it are almost cult-like in their zeal for the place, and spend the entire school year literally counting the days until they can go back. I have a feeling that my son, too, will start day-counting at the end of the summer.

I am thinking about my young son, and his marvelous ability to connect with people, kids and adults alike. I am thinking about his athleticism, and his love for anything that involves a ball. I am thinking about his newfound love for reading books about sports of any kind, and how we snuggle up in my bed at night, each reading our own books, and getting ready for the tuck-in, where we have our own secret goodnight kiss, which involves cheek kissing and nose rubbing and tickling. And I am thinking about his place in our family – the third child, the one who has been loud and present his entire life, because he has had to make himself known.

I know he is going to have a wonderful time at camp. I know he is going to be a little homesick, and we may receive a postcard that breaks our hearts a little. But I also know that in all likelihood, by the time we receive that note, he will have already moved on, found a new friend, gone on a hike, shot some baskets, jumped in the pool, and burrowed into his cot for a sound night's sleep, exhausted and ready to do it all again the next day.

Camp with a capital "C." No red, white and blue trunk, but new friends, new experiences, freedom and responsibility in a way he doesn’t yet have at home. It's all waiting for him. We will also wait, anticipating his return in two weeks, knowing that he will be a different kid. At 9, hopefully not one who has yet experienced his first kiss, but one who will have experienced an exhilarating new feeling of independence.

It will be quiet here while we're waiting. And when he comes home, there will be a lot of noise, and we will once again do our secret tuck-in and I will know that he will still have a few years where he will go away and come back to me, safely snuggling in my arms, all the while preparing for his full launch down the road.

 

 Photo by goldberg via Flickr

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Jim Zien]

This is a good story -- and an old one. For over 100 years now, generations of families have attended the Vermont girls' and boys' camps of The Aloha Foundation. And there's a first time for everyone. Read a little bit about that in our blog for parents:

http://blog.alohafoundation.org/camp-philosophy/four-generations/ AND http://blog.alohafoundation.org/success-counseling/the-right-time/

Jm Zien
Executive Director
The Aloha Foundation
Fairlee, Vermont
www.alohafoundation.org.

[Carol]

Karen, Forwarding this to Eric, who at age 31, would still go to overnight camp (as a camper and then a counselor) if the rest of life didn't get in his way. Good for you for knowing that the homesick letter will be a blip on his screen. And save every letter in case he writes. Priceless.