Not a Happy Camper

                                 

Well, it's that time of year again!  Time for Summer Camp.  The two most hated and dreaded words I could hear as a nine year old.  I can't tell you how homesick and miserable I was.  The time dragged, the activities were never-ending,  the food indescribable (and indistinguishable.)

I cleaned latrines.  I didn't even know what a latrine was until my arrival at camp.  I cleaned firepits.  Why does an outdoor firepit need cleaning?  I served the other kids at meals.  They called us hoppers to make it sound like it would be fun.  It wasn't.  We learned songs that I still can't get out of my head to this day.   My favorite was "Just plant a watermelon on the top of my grave and let the juice run through".  I am not making this up.

We took swimming lessons first thing in the morning in the coldest lake this side of a glacier.  We would get out with our teeth chattering and go straight to rowing class.  I was so bad they never actually allowed me to handle the oars.  I had to use my imagination and pretend I was feathering the oar.  I never learned to do it, but I remember what it was called.

This is me except without the oars.

I wrote so many letters to my parents, I could have published a book.  Of course, how many times can one read over and over,  "Please come get me.  I'm not going to make it!  P.S. Please send clean socks."

Finally, the big day came.  Pick-up Day!   I had forgotten what my parents looked  like.  Would they remember me?  What had I done to deserve this interminable sentence?  I saw them walking up the dirt path when they still appeared as dots.   I ran with arms out-stretched sobbing with pure joy!  As I ran closer,  I saw a horrified look on my 11 year old brother Ned's face.  That's when I realized everyone in the camp was watching me.  My brother swore that I had staged the whole thing just to mortify him.   I didn't care.  Do prisoners get embarrassed when they greet their families upon release from jail?  Do soldiers get embarrassed when they first greet their families after years in a POW camp?

Ned did not understand.


                        THESE WERE THE WORST 2 WEEKS OF MY LIFE!