I Got Peed On At Camp:
Some of my most vivid summer memories are from camp. It's sort of a thing in the Jewish community to send your kids off to summer camp where they can hang out with other kids, play, learn songs and learn some of the hows and whys of being Jewish. There's also the idea that it teaches independence, but probably more important than all of these is the chance for parents to get rid of their kids for 2, 4, 6 or 8 weeks and enjoy some child-free peace and quiet!
A lot of the fun of camp is the unfettered freedom. You're mostly being supervised by teenagers!
Here is a sampling of things I learned at camp:
1) How to swim and especially how to dive
2) How to play card games like "spit" as well as American, Chinese and Israeli jacks
3) How to play Newcomb and Volleyball
5) What a hickey was and how to give one
6) How to "moon"
7) What all the "bases" are and how to french kiss
8) That the girls in G-3 "did pot" although I think I learned what "pot" was much later on.
9) How to put someone in a "trance," how to hold a seance and how to use a ouija board.
10) bats like the rafters of rec rooms and sometimes like the very curly hair of counselors - ew!
In my youth, I went to a lot of different camps: day camps, sleep-away and even a teenaway camp when I was in junior high where we went someplace cool in the city every day.
Unfortunately some of my camp experiences were better than others and the very first camp I went to was a girl scout camp when I was seven. This is where I got peed on. It's really not that much of a story, but here's what happened:
A girl in my bunk wet her bed and her sleeping bag needed to be washed. While her sleeping bag was at the laundry she couldn't use it and for some reason they couldn't get her stuff washed before we all had to go to sleep that night. My counselor had the brilliant idea that we should just stick her in my sleeping bag with me and she'd get her bedding back the next day and all would be ok. Well, this kid was a bedwetter and so, she wet the bed, but this time it was MY bed. I don't really remember much of what happened next, but I have some vague recollection of them maybe sticking me in her sleeping bag the next night while mine was being laundered. It seems far fetched so maybe it didn't happen that way, but I think these girl scouts were that stupid and it really may have.
I stopped going to that camp. It was lame and there were no boys either!
Links:
Jewishsummercamp.com
Newcomb Ball
1 comment:
I just read Wifey, by Judy Blume. They sent their kids to summer camp in that book too, and they're all Jewish. I thought it was just the book. I now realize that it's the Jewish thing to do. Thank you SO much for opening my eyes!
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