A few weeks ago, I told you that I’m spending this summer as a camp counselor and I want to talk about that a bit more. In my boyhood, I was a camper and in my youth, a counselor. That was in 1976. Since then, an entire generation has been born, gone to camp, spent a few summers as a counselor, went to college, graduated and is now out in the world. I’m sure many of those kids wish they were back at camp right now.
Not much has changed at summer camp. The food is the same. The silly songs, the practical jokes, the buddy board at general swim are all the same. Although the camp where I’m working this summer is not the same camp I knew in my youth, there is an eerie sameness, and I have the sense of being caught in a time warp. One arm of this time warp reaches back to the 60s and 70s, to my own camp experiences. I can still see my counselors, in crewcuts and sideburns, playing guitars on the beach, singing Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger protest songs around the campfire. Everything seems so old-fashioned and quaint. The other arm of my time warp reaches into the future. As I walk around camp, I get the distinct impression that everything I do is not in the present, but in the remembered past of 20 years from now. In the evenings, after the kids are in bed, the counselors sit around and talk. One common complaint is that the kids don’t get it; they don’t seem to understand what we’re trying to tell them. These counselors, who are themselves young, don’t understand how the time warp works. Of course, the kids don’t get it – they’re only 12 or 13 years old. Because of the time warp, a camp counselor is not talking to a 12 or 13-year-old child, but a 25 or 30-year-old adult, who carries the lessons of camp in a time capsule for ten or 15 years. In a dark and frustrating hour, sometime in the early 21st century, a grown child will suddenly remember something said or done at camp back in the summer of ’98 and only then will the message be received and the counselor’s job finished. Having seen that 30-year cycle through once, I wanted to come to camp this summer and watch it begin again. I wanted to plant a seed that will perhaps blossom in 2028.
The camp at which I’m working is 52 years old. Many of the original cabins are still in use. Our equipment is old and in need of frequent repair, most things are cobbled together from bits and pieces of similar, but not exactly the same, equipment. There’s a Frankenstein quality to everything.
A few of our campers come from wealthy families, most are working class. A few campers are from foster homes and come to camp on scholarships from the Catholic diocese. Many of them have known more sadness and hardship than any child should have to bear.
All my campers have one thing in common: they are all good kids. So far this summer, I have not found any drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. Not so much as a firecracker or dirty magazine. Perhaps they are just extraordinarily sneaky, but I don’t think so. Even if I do find those things, my opinion won’t change. This goes beyond cigarettes and firecrackers.
It’s easy for adults to click their tongues and say disparaging things about “kids these days,” but those kids are living in the world we adults made. And I don’t want to blow any sunshine up your skirts, those kids get under my skin and they don’t seem to listen, but at the end of the day, I have to remember that being a kid was the toughest job I’ve ever had in life. The kids at my camp this summer are doing much better with that tough job than I ever did. For that I salute them.
Crewcuts and sideburns are fashionable among camp counselors again this summer, but instead of playing Dylan on the guitar, they play Green Day on the boombox. How did camp go in the summer of ’98? We’ll find out in 30 years.
The Toughest Job
A few weeks ago, I told you that I’m spending this summer as a camp counselor and I want to talk about that a bit more. In my boyhood, I was a camper and in my youth, a counselor. That was in 1976. Since then, an entire generation has been born, gone to camp, spent a few summers as a counselor, went to college, graduated and is now out in the world. I’m sure many of those kids wish they were back at camp right now.
Not much has changed at summer camp. The food is the same. The silly songs, the practical jokes, the buddy board at general swim are all the same. Although the camp where I’m working this summer is not the same camp I knew in my youth, there is an eerie sameness, and I have the sense of being caught in a time warp. One arm of this time warp reaches back to the 60s and 70s, to my own camp experiences. I can still see my counselors, in crewcuts and sideburns, playing guitars on the beach, singing Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger protest songs around the campfire. Everything seems so old-fashioned and quaint. The other arm of my time warp reaches into the future. As I walk around camp, I get the distinct impression that everything I do is not in the present, but in the remembered past of 20 years from now. In the evenings, after the kids are in bed, the counselors sit around and talk. One common complaint is that the kids don’t get it; they don’t seem to understand what we’re trying to tell them. These counselors, who are themselves young, don’t understand how the time warp works. Of course, the kids don’t get it – they’re only 12 or 13 years old. Because of the time warp, a camp counselor is not talking to a 12 or 13-year-old child, but a 25 or 30-year-old adult, who carries the lessons of camp in a time capsule for ten or 15 years. In a dark and frustrating hour, sometime in the early 21st century, a grown child will suddenly remember something said or done at camp back in the summer of ’98 and only then will the message be received and the counselor’s job finished. Having seen that 30-year cycle through once, I wanted to come to camp this summer and watch it begin again. I wanted to plant a seed that will perhaps blossom in 2028.
The camp at which I’m working is 52 years old. Many of the original cabins are still in use. Our equipment is old and in need of frequent repair, most things are cobbled together from bits and pieces of similar, but not exactly the same, equipment. There’s a Frankenstein quality to everything.
A few of our campers come from wealthy families, most are working class. A few campers are from foster homes and come to camp on scholarships from the Catholic diocese. Many of them have known more sadness and hardship than any child should have to bear.
All my campers have one thing in common: they are all good kids. So far this summer, I have not found any drugs, alcohol or cigarettes. Not so much as a firecracker or dirty magazine. Perhaps they are just extraordinarily sneaky, but I don’t think so. Even if I do find those things, my opinion won’t change. This goes beyond cigarettes and firecrackers.
It’s easy for adults to click their tongues and say disparaging things about “kids these days,” but those kids are living in the world we adults made. And I don’t want to blow any sunshine up your skirts, those kids get under my skin and they don’t seem to listen, but at the end of the day, I have to remember that being a kid was the toughest job I’ve ever had in life. The kids at my camp this summer are doing much better with that tough job than I ever did. For that I salute them.
Crewcuts and sideburns are fashionable among camp counselors again this summer, but instead of playing Dylan on the guitar, they play Green Day on the boombox. How did camp go in the summer of ’98? We’ll find out in 30 years.
(C) Mark Floegel, 1998