Camp

Slate has a whole mess of articles devoted to that great crazy (apparently American) phenomenon that is summer camp. I'm not talking cheesy little one week sports camps or—shudder—Vacation Bible School. I'm talking full-on-weeks-at-a-time-sleeping-in-damp-cabins-with-other-campers-and-pinecones-and-sand-everywhere-and-loving-every-minute-of-it sleepaway camp. Now, granted, I admit that the camp I went to is a bit cultish. But I loved it. LOVED IT. I stayed as long as I could every summer—one year I made it eight weeks. That's a lot of oatmeal and crafts. But my closest friends came out of my summers at camp, and I was a rock star there, which is more than can be said for my everyday adolescent existence back in the real world. So yeah, I loved it.

I guess that makes me a camp cultist like Michael Eisner (see Slate camp article 1). Scary, but I deserve it... though, to my credit, my eyes don't go faraway glazey when Miniwanca is mentioned and I did not meet and marry a camp boy, which cements you as someone destined to ruin your children (ah, so I should amend the earlier claim—I was a rock star in Girl's Camp. Once the boys came around I was reduced to grouchy Gidget status while they drooled over friends who were either blond or able to wield bikinis. Actually, that's the story of my damn life. But anyway...).

Two films capture the atmosphere of my camp: The Parent Trap (the 1961 classic with Hayley Mills—eleven year old Lindsay Lohan was breakout childstar great in the remake but it is its own weird universe and nothing like my camp) and Indian Summer (an admittedly schmaltzy yet endearing parade of b-listers that came out in 1993). We had all that faux-Native-American-wonka-how-how stuff—Navajo blankets, tribal customs, council circles, moccasins... they'd been peddling that imitation culture to privileged white kids since the 20s. Changing times had seen a few darker faces (though they were pretty damn sparse. All the African-American kids who attended during my seven year stint can be counted on one hand), and kids like me were there on *shhhh*... scholarship, but basically it was the same gang of pale troopers year after year (considering that the two movies I just mentioned were made 30 years apart but still reflect the same demographic tells you something). To be honest, this strange vanilla world was part of the reason I loved the place. My other reality was about 90% African-American and often tense. Racial differences were a constant presence. When I went to camp for the first time at 14, I'd never seen so many white people in my life, and for the first time I was able to disappear into the crowd, which was an odd relief, especially to an awkward teenager. I know that's flawed, but that was my warped little adolescent reality, for better or worse.

Take away the uniforms, and the Slate slideshow could have been shot at my camp. Just imagine all the wholesome looking youth with early 90s hair, wearing rugbies and boxer shorts (even the girls, baby—fellow campers used to pay me in candy and quarters for the chance to borrow my much-coveted orange daisy-print J. Crew boxers) and Teva sandals. As younger campers, we reveled in the novelty of being filthy, competing to see who could go the longest without hitting the showerhouse (pretty gross when you swim in a lake everyday, let me tell you) or brushing their teeth (mmmm). As older campers, we developed our own little camp fashion culture—"Evie locks" (basically a friendship bracelet in your hair) were all the rage one year, and of course the more stickers on your trunk the better. As counselors, it was about being tan and hooking up with the guy counselors—hopelessly fair-skinned and just as socially awkward, I failed on both counts year after year, but had fun trying and racked up adventures along the way (the Slate article about counselors pretty much sums it up).

The Slate articles, in general, are all right on (though Timothy Noah, probably better off for not being a camp cultist, clearly doesn't get that we aren't all insane). I fucking hate s'mores too. The only article that doesn't hit home for me is the one about the camp movie genre, but that's probably because I was only allowed to watch PBS at home, and we certainly didn't watch movies about camp (much less horror movies or sex comedies about camp) at camp (though I do dimly recall seeing Sleepaway Camp at a friend's sleepover birthday in third grade and being totally traumatized by the "murderous trannie" and gore. Eek).

I'm also a big fan of Space Camp, but that's because it rocks, has nerd romance, and they all get to go to space... I admit, went to a couple nerd camps before I ended up at Miniwanca. The Slate nerd camp article paints a decent picture of what that was like, and I definitely relate to this: "I attended an artsy 'school for the gifted' in Brooklyn, New York. My family didn't have a television, and I had pretty much listened only to classical music until the third grade. When I was 7, my dad had taught me some Latin, and I thought it was fun. My idea of summer entertainment usually involved trying to read 100 books by Labor Day." Um, put that girl in St. Louis and switch on the scheduled 7 hours a week of PBS, and that's me (why don't adults do those reading programs, eh? Hell, maybe I'll do my own 100 book challenge). I went to gifted kid camp—we did stuff like climb into barrels of water to displace our body weight, perform Shakespearian monologues, go spelunking, learn Italian, etc. Actually, it's probably good that I got out of those types of camp when I did and went to the outdoorsy camp, otherwise I might have been lost forever to the photography darkroom, the chem lab, the thea-tah, or the strange and clearly socially-stagnant world of hand drawn calligraphy. Well, I take that back. I'd have been alright, and likely a bit cleaner in those early teen years. But still...

Camp rocks, and three cheers to Slate for the camp showcase. How how!!