Summer Camp Memories

The neighbor's 12 year old son, Mathew (who shovels our driveway when we are away during the winter)  has been shipped off to two week camp in NH.  Seeing the FB photo of Matt on his bunk, reminded me of the old Alan Sherman classic,  "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah"  The Youtube recording is linked below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea2EuozaJ7s

If it doesn't make you chuckle, you


A) ...Probably have the sound on mute
B) ...Are currently at camp and it's raining
C) ...Lacking a sense of humor
D) ...A grumpy classical music buff who does not like song parody


As a kid growing-up on the suburban streets of Watertown in the 50's, most of us did not get to go to summer camp.  We were not poor, but there were four of us and our parents did not think that middle class kids  needed to go to "away" camp, when the town offered a day program where kids could learn to weave gimp and play baseball and learn crafts.  I'm sure my parents did not intend for us to learn some of the things we actually did learn from the park instructors, how to play poker for money and how to smoke cigarettes.  I often thought that Jimbo got us all smoking so he could bum Lucky Strikes from us.    My older brother claims to have had a brief affair with one of the female park instructors who was at least 5 years older than he at the time.

Our kids were able to experience Summer Camp.  My older daughter was allergic to horses; she  wrote every day for us to come and get her when we finally did drive up to fetch her, she had met a friend, changed her mind and stuck it out.  I am proud of her for that, but I do not think she opted for camp again.  When I asked her recently what she recall from her camp days, she couldn't recall any details.  PTSD, I guess.
  My younger daughter went to a place she called Camp Rottonwood in NH.  I forget the real name.  We would get a letter that started out "They are making us write home.  Please send more stamps."  She hated camp too, but kept going back on successive summers, mainly because her best friend was going too..  One of my nieces suffered a terrible injury to her leg when her horse banged into a fence.  That cut short her camping career.

Still, I think I would have liked it if I had been able to go to camp as a kid.  I missed-out on the canoeing, diving, hiking, horseback riding, ghost stories around the campfire and adventures, nocturnal pantie-raids on the girls' camp, that sort of thing...Perhaps, I am romanticizing the Summer Camp experience?