Bound for Camp

Camp is in the girls’ blood in my family.  Tomorrow Carter goes off for three weeks to her camp.  It is clearly her favorite time of year.  Loving leaving home for the camaraderie of a cabin of girls is something I completely understand.  I loved camp too.  When I was in fifth grade my friend Tammy Mongé told me all about Camp Idle Pines in Bow Lake New Hampshire and I begged my parents to let me go with her the next summer.  Thinking about swimming in the freezing cold lake, canoeing at night among the singing loons, putting on skits and making tie dyed shirts all brings back happy memories.

Camp food was way better than home food.  First you always had dessert, something we never had at home.  Second we had milk from a farmer down the road.  The whole milk was like cream and the skim was like light cream.  It was a weight-gaining situation at every meal.  I think we were required to drink milk and if you were someone who did not like milk you might have been allowed to put Hershey’s syrup in it.

Sunday nights at Idle Pines were leftover nights and the cabin with the highest cabin cleanliest score got to go to the leftover buffet set up on the ping-pong table first.  If you were first you were ensured some leftover lasagna but if you were last Chicken a la king might be all that was left.  It certainly did not bother me because we also had the dessert buffet, which included such offerings as banana pudding with vanilla wafers in it, a molasses cookie called a Hermit with raisins or ice cream made by adding sugar to the skim milk and putting it in the ice cream freezer.  Just thinking about camp food makes me gain weight.

The other great thing about Sunday is that it was “store” night.  The camp store sold candy, stamps and toiletries.  We were only allowed to buy candy one night a week right before we watched an outdoor movie.  Our parents would deposit money in our camp bank and we could only spend what we had pre-deposited.  I learned the first year that at the end of the camp session we each would get a little envelope with the unspent cash from our bank.  The next year I did my best not to buy much from the store so I could take the cash home with me.  I think the only candy I bought that year were the penny fireballs, bypassing the quarter snicker bars.  That should have been a tip that I could withstand calories for money.  I’m sure that after the dessert buffet at dinner I had already had my fill of sweets.

I know that Carter will have great memories of going to camp.  Since she is staying over for two sessions Russ asked her if we could visit her during the bridge day.  She looked at him like he was crazy.  Getting to stay at camp with just a few kids and all the counselors to your self is the most fun day ever.  I have to admit I’m a little jealous, but thrilled for her all at the same time.