Summer time, and the living is easy . . .
I knew this place I knew it well . . .
Can it be that it was all so simple then . . .
It’s life’s illusions I recall . . .

Say the words “Summer Camp” and a flood of thoughts, memories and feelings come flooding in, and perhaps we would be wise to explore some of them.

Yesterday, as I drove to a client’s office, Frank Deford was offering his commentary on National Public Radio about summer camps. For him, they were wonderful places where you spent time outdoors learning such essential skills as making potholders. Now, it seems, many of them are highly specialized resume building camps, quarterback camps and the like.

So, I thought I would try to dredge up some of my memories of summer camps long ago. I have vague recollections of a camp in Williamstown, where I grew up. It was a day camp and I only have the vaguest of memories. There was the pond where we swam. There was arts and crafts. I think I learned to play steal the flag there. Beyond that, I don’t have much for memories.

The first overnight camp I went to was Camp Takodah in New Hampshire. It was probably after third grade and I stayed there for a week or two. I remember the cabin, a large field, making a trinket box with a bronze portrait of an Indian chief on top. I remember the lake. I think we had buddy tags, little markers we would hang on a board to indicate who our buddy was in the pool. This was to make sure that every camper had at least one other person paying constant attention to them as they swam.

The whistle would blow for a buddy break, and we needed to find our buddy and raise our joined hands in the air. If you weren’t with your buddy you lost your swimming privileges.

Years later, I would go to Camp Chesterfield, a Boy Scout’s camp in Massachusetts. I was in Troop 9, a troop that enjoyed doing lots of things together, but wasn’t really focused on advancement. One night at camp Chesterfield, they were talking about some insect borne disease that had made a few people very sick at a camp in New Hampshire.

I remembered a girl at school who had contracted Eastern Equine Encephalitis and had substantial neurological damage as a result. I wondered if it was Eastern Equine Encephalitis they were talking about. I wondered if the camp was Camp Takodah. It put me into a funk which others took to be homesickness.

There were other years that I went to day camp. I think a lot of it was because my parents’ marriage was falling apart and they needed some place to put the kids during the tough times.

So, no, the memories, for me of summer camp aren’t all that idyllic, their I still recall, and perhaps long for, their illusions.

Which brings me up to today. Last night, Kim and I went to parents night at Camp Mountain Laurel. Fiona is camping there and loving it.

The head of the camp looked very familiar, and I finally remembered, I had had a good discussion with him at a party up near Hartford as he was just leaving a job up there to come down to run this camp. He is young and idealistic. The staff he has surrounded himself with is all young and idealistic as well.

At one point, all the counselors, parents and kids sat in a circle in the pavilion. The counselors were all wearing red t-shirts which said Staff on the back, and then below it, “Professional Role Model”. It was great to see a bunch of people committed to being positive role models.

Each person was asked to say a little something; the kids were to speak about what they liked most about camp and the parents about what their hopes for the kids at the camp were. Unlike the quarterback camp that Frank Deford spoke about, the kids and the parents here were not interested in resume building. The closest anyone came to that was hoping that their kids would become better swimmers.

Perhaps some of the people there were looking for a little time away from their kids as they dealt with their own problems, but the most common sentiment expressed by parents was a desire that their kids would have a fun time, a great summertime experience outdoors as part of a happy childhood.

The counselors, several of whom are teachers during the school year, spoke about the importance of developing and nurturing friends, about kids learning more about their commonalities and what it means to be part of a caring community. They talked about the importance of this kind of learning, which gets lost in the world of standardized achievement tests. Some parents talked about coming to this camp when they were younger.

It was all so idealistic, a small local day camp, where people cared about one another, where they cared about enjoying life and not just getting ahead.

As I write this, my mind drifts back to politics. Who do we have on the political landscape that will help us return to these ideals of caring for one another, enjoying life and not just struggling to become wealthy?

Perhaps this is a good way of thinking about the ‘beer primary’. The idea of the beer primary is to ask which candidate you would must enjoy having a beer with. Perhaps what we really need is to judge our candidates on which one would be the best counselor-in-training, the person you would want to help twist the pipe cleaners to make your simple little butterfly., the person you would most want to share your snack with at the rickety old picnic table in the aging pavilion.

An Arts and Crafts Butterfly, originally uploaded by Aldon.

No, it wasn’t all that simple then, and it isn’t now, either, but perhaps, if we can all recall a few of life’s illusions, a simpler life, a more caring life, a day at a local day camp, we can help make a few of those illusions a little more real.