Memories of Summer Camp

I mentioned that I saw a movie last night. It was Startup.com, a documentary about the rise and fall of an Internet company and the strains on the friendship of the two co-founders, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman. I was kind of bored at first, because the whole dot-com thing is so passé, but the film turned out to be an absorbing business story and a good human drama.

Halfway through the movie, I realized in shock that Tom Herman’s parents used to run my old summer camp! They appeared in a scene, and I recognized them immediately. The memories started flowing… I loved that camp.

But I used to have major homesickness there — and I mean major homesickness. It was so intractable that one day one of the camp directors, Susan Herman (Tom Herman’s mother), had a talk with me. In her New England voice (which the movie brought back to me in startling recognition) she told me it was best for me to keep busy, and she suggested that I help wash dishes in the dining hall. I didn’t see how manual labor could make me feel better — in fact, I thought it would make me feel worse — so I declined. My homesickness went away eventually. Oh, did I mention I was twelve at the time? Twelve years old and still getting homesick.

Located in bucolic Hillsboro, New Hampshire, Interlocken — not to be confused with Interlochen, a music camp in Michigan — was not your run-of-the-mill sleepaway camp.

The camp schedule was unusual in that you had a choice of activities. Each week was divided into two three-day blocks with four activity sessions each day. At the beginning of every week there was a big meeting where all the counselors creatively presented explanations of the activities they were going to lead, and you’d fill out a sheet, checking off your first, second and third choices for each block of time. The next day in your mailbox you’d find your schedule, which contained some semblance of your preferences.

It was pretty cool. If you weren’t a sports person (which I definitely wasn’t), there were plenty of arty or cultural things to do. One of my favorites was working on the Interlocken News, which would be performed once a week at Morning Meeting. I got to be the anchorman twice. I remember when the tetherball mysteriously disappeared from the tetherball court, and I wrote up a little story about it that I was going to present during the news. The night before the news, the tetherball mysteriously reappeared. So the next morning, I did the stolen-tetherball story anyway, but at the end, I pretended that someone handed me a sheet of paper, and I said, “This just in… the tetherball has been returned. I repeat, the tetherball has been returned. So never mind.” Everyone laughed. Ohhh… the Interlocken News.

Another of my favorite activities was going on the medieval quest. There was this big guy on the staff named Howard (beer belly, mustache, mop of hair) who was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism, which means that he was really into medieval history and heraldry and so forth. Every summer he’d organize this quest. If you were lucky enough to be part of it, it was a blast. We’d spend the first two days inventing identities for ourselves and learning how to wield “boffer swords,” these big swords made of foam and covered all around with duct tape. On the third day, he’d take us into the woods to complete a particular quest, usually finding some sort of treasure with the help of clues along the way. A few other counselors would play characters or monsters that we’d meet in the woods, and sometimes we’d have to fight them. Howard himself played a few different roles. You’d be walking along and suddenly you’d realize that he was gone, and a few minutes later he’d appear in a costume, pretending to be someone else. Creepy.

(Howard also could sing a three-minute version of Hamlet, which I loved it so much that he gave me the text. I memorized it, and I can still recite it to this day. Ask me about it sometime. Preferably when I’m drunk.)

Interlocken was big on multiculturalism before multiculturalism became a buzzword. The counselors came from all over the world. It was such a folky, granola, Ben-and-Jerry’s, 1960s-but-hold-the-marijuana-and-double-the-idealism utopia. We learned so many folk songs. It’s where I learned Blowin’ the Wind and Rocky Top. Isn’t most of rural New England like that? I love New England. But that’s for another post.

I learned so much at Interlocken. I learned how to perform “California Girls” in sign language. I met a blind woman who loved animals and played the banjo. I got to see the sun rise at 4 in the morning at Bacon Ledge. I ran in a 5K race and got to the finish line at the same time as Melissa Herman, Tom Herman’s sister. I had my first real crush on a boy. Oh, and counselor hunts. Remember counselor hunts? There was the legendary Joe Cornberry, who, if you found him, was worth 200 points. But he didn’t really exist.

Now I’m an adult, and I spend my summer days in an office building. I type at a computer. I go to lunch. I come back to my office. I answer the phone. I look out the window. I hop onto the PATH train at the end of the workday. Just like I do on every other day of the year.

Right about now, I really wish I was back in summer camp. I miss it.