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I cautiously reached into the dark, dank cavity and pulled out the filthy, wretched garments. Fearing for my safety, I pinched my nose shut and carried the contaminated bundle with an outstretched arm to be disinfected.
Our son, Hayden, was home from Scout camp, and I had the unenviable job of doing his dirty laundry. He, on the other hand, grunted at us and promptly went to bed.
It was 2010 and our family was stationed in Germany. Hayden’s troop had spent a week in the Alps, sleeping in tents, white water rafting, cooking over a fire and hiking almost 30 miles. Hayden had a blast.
Summer camp. There’s nothing quite like it. The anticipation, fear, physical challenges, new understandings and relationships formed. For a couple weeks every summer, a child is transported to a place where campers experience powerful emotions and form intense bonds.
Then they go home and give their mothers their dirty laundry.
But I never minded. I was a kid once, too, and I wanted our three children to have the same experiences I had.
Like the 1970s summer when I went off to camp in the Pennsylvania mountains. The two-week church camp attracted an intimidating mix of sheltered do-gooders from the country, preppy snobs from the Pittsburgh suburbs, and a few oddballs like me, all supervised by fresh-scrubbed, born-again college-aged counselors.
Upon arrival, we were randomly assigned to the Galatians or the Romans teams, pitted to wage a battle of biblical proportions through competitions in archery, swimming, canoeing, gymnastics, basketball, macramé and other events.
The first days of camp were hard for me. I thought my kelly green corduroy shorts were fashionably preppy, but they were no match for the city girls’ Tretorns, Izods and Docksiders.
When it came to Bible study, I couldn’t hold a candle to the country kids who had read the Old Testament by third grade. Little did I know that we’d all bond through unexpected trials and tribulations.
Like the night we packed into a farm wagon for a tractor-pulled hay ride. We were so excited to ride around the lake and sing camp songs. But as the tractor chugged up the embankment from the lake to the road, something snapped, and the wagon broke loose. Slowly at first, the cartful of campers rolled backwards toward the lake. As the wayward vessel picked up speed, counselors shouted, which triggered the campers to scream. I screamed too, believing that we’d careen into the dark water and all be tragically drowned.
Just then, we hit tall grass and inexplicably slowed, coming to a stop just before the water’s edge. It was a miracle! It was church camp after all, and my cabin mates and I bonded over seemingly facing certain death.
Although he still harbors a bit of resentment, my husband, Francis (or “Frank” as he was then), had similar experiences. He, too, was shipped off to the mountains for two weeks in the 1970s.
Quite a husky fellow, Frank was relieved that each camper was entitled to one daily candy bar from the camp’s cantina. The only problem was, he couldn’t find the cantina.
On the overnight hike, Frank’s flashlight went missing. He accused the kid he suspected of stealing it, who flatly denied the charges. The next morning, the boy returned the flashlight, which he had stolen after all, now with dead batteries.
At the camp’s Sunday religious service, a guitarist had a seizure mid-song and collapsed on the altar. The counselors rushed to his aid, shoving a wallet into the man’s mouth so he wouldn’t bite off his tongue. The traumatic event made quite an impact on little Frank. That night in his sleeping bag, all he wanted was a candy bar to comfort himself, but he still didn’t know where the cantina was, and his flashlight didn’t work anyway.
Fun and adventurous, or traumatic and humiliating, all summer camps offer the same benefit: a kid experiences emotions on his own, without his parents there to guide or comfort him. And by the end, every camper in the world brings home a new understanding of himself, a groovy macramé bracelet and a duffel bag full of dirty laundry for mom.
Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisa’s book, “The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.” Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com
