"Ooh, ooh, and in September, . . . I will remember, . . . my camping days and friendships true. . . And as the years go by, . . I'll think of you and sigh. . . " Camp Mowana, Ohio, 1975-1979.
Sighing now, with a smile. Thank you!
16
Kids going off to camp in suits and dresses, Mom in heels! Everyone is thin! Sitting on the grass without fear of ticks and Lyme disease! I wasn't around for any of it but makes me nostalgic just to look at it. Love these pictures. This is why I subscribe to the New York Times.
35
“We welcome you to Golden Chain,
We’re mighty glad you’re here...”
Summer camp was, and I’m not exaggerating, life-changing for me. Away from West Philadelphia and my severe and overly critical single Mom (who was doing the best she could), in an environment that was supportive, learning about nature (human and otherwise), I returned from a two week stay with improved health, confidence and lessons in kindness.
I am still grateful, 58 years later.
34
My three summers at Boy Scout Camp Siwanoy in Wingdale, New York, were the best ever but I wish I had understood at the time that I was gay. Some of the boys I had a crush on were gay, too, but none of us knew anything about this sort of thing at the time. Such a shame. I'm glad today's pre-teens and teens have a vocabulary, a context, for self-understanding that we didn't have in the 1950s and 1960s.
15
One summer we had a Belgian head cook who made the great French fries, put batches of 'em in cones of butcher paper, and roller-skated around the dining hall handing them out.
I mostly loved it. 57 years later I can still hear the sound of the oars in oar locks and see the sun's rays refracted in lake water.
"Civilization" was when you heard the humming of the wires strung along poles on the state road.
What also comes to mind:
One-Two-Three, Quiet Please!
Colored Indians" (nothing to do w/race)
The Sing
Candle-Lighting
The Cropsey Maniac
Inspection
Stacking
Lanyards
Skully
Buddy System
Salt Tablets
Sugar Cookies
Salt Water Gargle
Mercurichrome
9
These photos really bring back the feeling of summer stretching on endlessly -- long long days playing outside until we had to go in for dinner. There was no adult supervision and no one expected children to accomplish anything in the summer, either. We just played. One summer we went to Waccabuc Country Club Day Camp -- which unlike away camp (too many organized activities!) I loved -- all afternoon we were on or in the lake: swimming, canoeing, sailing. In the morning we sometimes had tennis lessons -- but mostly we just played. Children now don't seem to have this kind of unstructured outdoor time and they're missing a lot, I think. I wonder if summer still seems like a long, long time to them?I am 68 and to me now it seems so short -- but that of course is age.
25
Not all children love sleep away camp. I detested it, and was sent for 3 weeks I think for 3 consecutive years till I absolutely refused to go. I was about 9-12 years ...mid -late1950's. I hated being herded along, having to do whatever the bunk residents were scheduled to do at any given time, the total lack of privacy, loathed the mandatory swim in the ice cold lake at 10 in the morning, the peculiar counsellors. I missed my room at home, my friends there, my books, my ballet classes in Manhattan. I could not have cared less about volleyball and toasted marshmallows. Horrid memories.
23
I went to Camp Alhambra, held every summer in the 60's at the Ramona Convent in Alhambra, California. We had all the activities you would expect, horse riding, swimming, softball, arts & crafts, sleepouts under the stars on the convent's 15 acres. For those girls who took piano there were daily lessons, and near the end of each session there was a recital on the Bösendorfer grand in the convent's high-ceilinged formal parlor. Each girl, dressed in Sunday best, entered alone and faced a line of 6 or 8 nuns in starched white wimples and black habits and seated on delicate chairs. You played your piece, prayed to get through it without embarrassment, and exited in silence. Terrifying. And yet, it was my closest brush with Fellini, in a room full of summer sunlight and hints of mystery I haven't fully decoded even to this day.
14
Thank you for this uplifting article, Mr Giles.
It just made my day.
I am sick and tired of listening to Presidential drama, every single morning. Something rotten is happening somewhere else and we don't get to see, talk about the everyday life pleasures and laugh.
The photographs have something to ponder... children even today do almost exactly the same stuff, play and fun in the outdoors is the same. You can see the camaraderie between them.
And Claudia's photo is not just precious, it is for posterity.
Good memories.
14
I met my husband when we were both counselors, in 1963, at Camp Wel-Met, in Barryville, New York. Five couples (counselors) from that camp, got married in 1965....and we have been married for 54 years...and still keep in touch with some of those couples!!!!
29
Camp Pinnacle, Hendersonville NC 1963 1964 as camper and counselor 1970, I was the loudest and most annoying brat. And I loved it. Camp gives a kid the first blush of true independence and a shared memory that will light up old age. Adult camp is catching on, as it should. To relive golden times and to know that you are not alone. Simply wonderful!
5
Sleep away camp is the greatest invention on earth. We live 10 for 2. My camp memories and friendships are such a huge part of my life then and now. I can’t say enough good things about it. My children were also lucky enough to enjoy the experience. The photos in the article bring a smile to my face.
8
Jeff - I can’t believe you found that photo from 60 years ago. My mother passed away last year, and she had a laminated copy of the original article in her possessions.
Among my closest friends all these years later are my Camp Onota former bunk mates
30
Me:
1957-1959,1961 - Blue Mountain Camp East Stroudsburg,PA
My son:
1989-1991 - Pine Forest Camp - Greeley, PA
So many fond memories!!
1
What struck me about the photos is that everyone, parents, children and counselors, looked so "pulled together." They made me homesick for the days when people wore colorful clothes and expressed some individuality in the way they dressed. Now everyone wears the same drab uniform of jeans, tee shirt, and sneakers, and there's so much dreary black.
14
Hmmm,
"For vigor and vim come to Camp Buckskin!"
Long ago and far away I won five dollars in the 1950's for use at the camp trading post. Candy bars cost five cents then! Six weeks of bliss!
Memories spent on the shores of Donnel Pond at Franklin, Maine.
A city kid lost in the middle of the Maine Woods!
3
Thank you for the headline reference to Allan Sherman.
16
Hit it “S H A R P A R O O N. - Sharparoon, Sharparoon , Hurray!! I can recite every camp cheer as if it were yesterday.
This article brought back such wonderful and warm memories for Camp Sharparoon, sponsored by the New York City Mission Society. The highlight of each summer (1950’s/60’s) was leaving the projects in Spanish Harlem and heading up to Dover Plains, NY for fresh air, pine trees, frogs, hiking, camping, lanyard making, blueberry picking and new friends. You shaped my life and instilled in me a love of nature that stays with me to this day as I continue to hike and take in the scent of pine trees in Colorado. Thank you for transporting me back to those wonderful days.
15
I lived for my 8 weeks of summer camp. Eleven summers at Berkshire Hills Camp in Salisbury, CT. Friendships from the 1950s-1960s that have lasted all these years and many rekindled thanks to Facebook. Camp gave me independence, taught me camaraderie and leadership. I counted the days from when I returned home to when I would return the next summer!
10
Claudia's dear brothers also have tags on them, prpbaly with name and parent's phone number!
3
I went to day camp for years. I enjoyed it. When I turned 12, my parents finally convinced me to go to sleep-away camp. They were anxious that I experience that which they never had an opportunity to do-like live with 9 other tween girls (the worst age for girls, ever!) in a bunk, awake at 6 to the evil sound of recorded revelry, dine on mediocre food and go crazy for color war. I felt like I was in the Army. Too regimented, too over-planned. I'm athletic and love swimming and horseback riding and archery and had a lead in the summer play but... I wasn't happy. I loved the freedom of summer, to be able to fill my days in a leisurely fashion. I know my parents needed a break (I'm an only) and that they were sorely disappointed when I came home vowing never, ever to return to sleepaway camp again. They were hoping I'd keep going till I became a CIT and then a counselor...uh, nope. I hate sleepaway camp with a passion!
5
I was painfully shy, not athletic and extremely uncoordinated, so my memories of six years of camp are not good. I was always in a bunk with four other girls who knew one another from home in Scarsdale. Consequently, our counselor was my partner whenever we needed one. She liked us so much that we had her for three years. Fast forward 35 years later: my daughter was rejected by an arts camp, and I sent her to my old camp. My counselor was still there, as the head of camp! My daughter didn’t like it more than I had. Some things never change.
7
Went to 8 week Summer camp at age 11. Northern Ontario and became friends with others and we cried on the last day. There about 6 of us who went for several Summers and now are still in touch since 1957. We are scattered across the US and Canada but still get together when we can. I hope my grandchildren can experience the same fun.
7
Sleepaway summer camp, which my brothers and I were fortunate to attend, was the very best time of my life. We spent 8 weeks there in upstate NY at Camp Lenni Len a Pe. located in Salisbury Mills NY. When it was Parents day to visit, we used to cry because it meant the summer was half over already. Parents and grandparents drove up in the new car my dad bought. They went on vacation, had the house painted and really enjoyed their time away from their children. My mom wrote long letters which painted a picture of what was going on at home,our pets, etc. This was 1967 to 1969 and they really could not afford the 3000. to send three children to Sleepaway for 8 weeks but somehow they did. This was the greatest gift a parent could give to have us attend a wonderful camp. Girls hill, boys hill. The mess hall, etc. Our cousins were there and they helped pave the way being a bit older. We learned independence, new skills and how to bond with strangers in a short time. Sleep outs under the stars, Archery, canoeing, basketball, tennis, swimming, rowing, volleyball, track, free time after dinner, relay races and color war of course. There was pajama day. We got mail and occasional care packages from home. Arts and Crafts, weaving, candle making, etc that was the most memorable along with nature walks and nature learning and the most fun was going roller skating when it rained. We put on plays and had a counselor roast night. those were the most joyous filling experiences of my life.
14
LOVED the article- no surprise to anyone who knows me as a lifelong camper. Met my husband at Sprout Lake- mentioned in the article, was a camper and staff for many many years at Surprise Lake Camp, and Camp Tel Yehudah and maintain many friends ships decades long from both. When we lived in Israel we sent our kids to be campers back at Surprise Lake for the "real experience" and I was able to reconnect with friends I had made as a camper at age 11. LOVE camp and how it encourages children of all ages to grow.
7
I went to summer camp when I was 14 and met my husband by the canoes the last week of camp. Though we lived in different states we met up again his last year of graduate school. We've been married 51 years.
18
I never went to camp, and my parents didn't push it. Just as well as a shy kid.
But now, I think I'd like being out in the woods at a camp doing crafts and enjoying nature. Maybe I'll look into camps for old folks ...
39
I went to a small wilderness camp in Canada in the 1960s which could only be reached by boat--we lived in tents, no electricity, bathed in the lake, etc.
I never wanted to leave. I still hold camp as a cherished memory, mostly, I think, because I was away from my family. Kids from difficult homes get a real respite from strife at camp. No warring parents, no custody issues--they can relax.
10
I spent seven summers at Camp Siwanoy in Wingdale, NY a very long time ago (1975-81). Although this camp no longer exists, the friendships made there have continued to this day. Living in a camp environment allows you to become close to those around you. I went to camp with so many great people and am happy to still have many of them in my life.
7
My parents always took us camping and we took our kids camping I never understood why parents would want to send their kids away for the summer, since I enjoyed camping with them so much.
5
My mother died when I was two and my father remarried someone with some money. She wanted alone time with my dad so she sent me off to came each summer. We lived in Italy at the time, so I went to camp near Montreux Switzerland. I fell in love with the mountains. I had mostly great times. When we returned to the US, the summer pattern continued. My only bad time was when my stepmother lied to me and said I was going to be a counselor. I was 16 and the oldest campers were 12. I was also a camper, so I was way out of my age group and didn't have the freedom that the other counselors had. It was humiliating. But ... my love affair with the mountains never ended.
13
God bless the Knights of Pythias! I was lucky enough to go to their all boys "Pythian Camp" from ages 8-11 (early 1950's) for three weeks each summer, up in the Catskills. No money needed; we couldn't afford a thing. All it took was to be recommended by a member of the Knights. Mostly "underprivileged" kids from NYC, it was diverse. Plenty of outstanding sports facilities and equipment. Whatever you lacked - clothing, baseball glove, you name, they provided it. My lifetime love of hiking began there. We had to make our own bed each morning, called out for reveille in the morning; went to sleep with taps at night. Religious services Sat and Sun for whatever religion you were.
Here's the topper: I had acute appendicitis the last day of camp when I was 9. The camp rushed me to the local hospital, paid all expenses for the operation, brought my mother up, and got us both home. I am always indebted to them. Outstanding experiences all around.
34
I attended a number of sleepaway camps.
When my parents sent me to an athletic powerhouse of a camp, I didn't have all that much fun. I'm uncoordinated and on the small side. I was always an also ran, and I HATED TENNIS WITH A PASSION.
Eventually I landed at an all girls camp that mixed sports with other activities and didn't make everything last thing into a competition. I thrived there.
7
My camp experience was in the late 40's. I absolutely hated every second of it. I lived in a small town in the mountains and was sent to summer camp. It was worse than hauling coals to New Castle. I already had the same and more, with fewer folks. Yes, I loathed it.
12
Summer camp is where I got bad cases of poison ivy and had a kid carelessly throw a rock that hit me in the forehead. At Girl Scout camp my poison riden self got rousted from my own bed in a neighboring tent to remove a spider above someone's bed that the counselors could not bring themselves to approach and capture. Forgive me if I do not find the camp experience idyllic for reasons other than homesickness.
11
hated being a camper [berkshire, robindel, cornwall]. enjoyed teaching archery at two others. i was lucky to have been able to have gone, it likely saved my parents' sanity....
7
“Friends, friends, friends, we will always be. Whether in sunny or dark stormy weather Camp (INSERT NAME) will keep us together...” That was the magic of camp. Independence from parents and the ability to make friends with whomever we selected. Camp teaches you to become self-reliant and gives you opportunities to do things you would never do at home.
During two summers in the mid-sixties at a lakeside girls camp in Maine, I learned to sail, waterski, canoe, eat lobster and shoot arrows during Archery. I even had a role in the summer musical, Bye Bye Birdie, playing Hugo. I was a shy kid so this was definitely out of my comfort zone. My camp experience still ranks high as one of the highlights of my life.
Flash forward years later and I found myself face-to-face in college with one of my old camp friends. We picked up right where we left off, and still fly cross-country to visit each other from time to time.
Of course, once I became a parent and sent my girls to summer camp, I understood that the summer camp experience was as much about providing a wonderful time for my children as it was about giving my husband and me a much-needed break.
I feel very lucky to have been given the opportunity as a child and in turn to have been able to provide the experience for my children.
19
@Commentary. This sounds like my beloved Mataponi. By the way, note my mom de plume. That says it all.
I have sad memories of camp filled with homesickness. I lived in CT as a child and was sent to a girls' camp in VT for several weeks each summer around the ages of 10-13. I just couldn't shake the feeling of wanting to get out of there and get home despite the many activities offered. I wrote home every day telling my mom not to forget to pick me up. I returned a few times only because I sensed that my parents really wanted me to like camp and "succeed" at this time-honored tradition. When I became a parent I never pushed the kids to go to overnight camp-- just let them know it was an option if they were interested. My daughter decided to go for 4 or 5 summers here in CO and really liked it. My son was not all interested and that's fine with me. I'll never forget the loneliness I felt at camp.
17
What's great about these camp photos -- some nearly 90 years old -- is that any of them could have been captured this very day. Kids did all the same goodbyes to parents, all the same outdoorsy, arts & crafty, friend-making things they will do this morning in summer camps everywhere.
In a couple of weeks, I'll pack up my 13-year-old and she'll shove off to camp and sit cross-legged among friends after a long day before a cozy fire in a rustic lodge... just like the last shot.
19
My summer camp experience in the 50's and 60's, mostly at Forest Lake Camp near Warrensburg, NY, was a bit different from the nostalgic reminiscences in this article and the comments.
There were militaristic aspects that, in retrospect, might have been good for us, such as forced “instructional swim” in an ice-cold lake at 7 AM, and boot-camp-style inspections. Others, like sadistic initiation rituals ("branding") and a deranged head counselor who liked to pull little boys’ pants down and beat them with rubber galoshes if they cursed, perhaps less so.
Less offensive was forced attendance at “non-denominational” Sunday Chapel was surreal, especially for the small percentage of Jewish campers. Also, what I remember of the food mostly came out of 5-gallon cans.
On the other hand, a few experiences outside the camp itself — a 3-day overnight on horseback, a 10-day canoe expedition across the Fulton Chain of Lakes — were outstanding.
Not mentioned in the article: Parents got the kids out of their hair for a while to go on vacation or at least have some “alone time”. It’s hard to blame them for that.
6
This photo essay is heartwarming, but I am disappointed that it fails to provide any documentation of the African American summer camps to which Black families sent their children, starting during the Jim Crow era. These include Camp Founder Girls, Camp Atwater, and others. As early as the 1920s, these Black-founded and Black-owned summer camps provided community, enrichment, friendship opportunities, and a lifetime of great memories for attendees. Would that this article depicted the Black summer camp experience as something beyond the largess of suburban white families.
34
I went to Camp Owaissa, the sister camp to Camp Monterey, in your photo. The good byes at Grand Central were intense moments, at a special place place in the terminal, while the rest of the busy world passed by. We took to the train to Great Barrington, and then onto Lake Garfield. The train was a moment of passage, when friendships began to form, and the summer began to unfold. I remember those moments well.
12
As a nurse, I’ve done it all. Had many opportunities for which I’m grateful.
But the best? Being a Camp Nurse up in Fishkill for the Fresh Air Fund. Thank you Tom Karger for encouraging our employment there.
My daughter and I travelled from Wisconsin for the summer experience. I worked at Camp Mariah with a New Yorker, Queens Nurse. My daughter worked in the kitchen - the only female. We all lived upstairs of the infirmary. What a summer!
I learned more about diversity in those three months than a lifetime in Wisconsin. Joyfully! I was introduced to NYC, taking the train down on our one 24 hour period of time off/week. I knew camaraderie was a real thing, among nursing staff, counselors, kids. We worked, we laughed, we loved what we did.
Mariah Carey came one evening to our annual fashion show. I shared my infirmary rest room with her TV crew, a Shawano, WI debut! No one in my small town can ever claim that fame! I met Ms. Carey who was so sweet and she expressed sincere gratitude. She had donated $$$ to the camp’s Career Awareness program which still exists.
Last year I met up with my camp nurse partner in NYC. She had come back to NY from AZ to take care of her elderly mom for awhile. We laughed, we cried, we went over all those camp memories.
If anyone is debating - make Camp part of your life, or your kid’s life, or your grandkid’s life. There’s nothing like it. You’re part of the group, and that is the greatest feeling - even years later!
23
I grew up in NYC and went to what was referred to as "Sleep Away Camp" for 10 years, starting at the age of five! Every summer, I spent 2 months at some glorious upstate or Pennsylvania destination where the trees swayed in the wind, the birds chirped each morning, and the lake beckoned to me. I learned how to make a bed and make friends, how to play sports, and how to compete for the team I was on in Color War, how to clean a bunk, how to weather a crush, how to dance to Johnny Mathis, how to deal with rejection, how to lead and how to follow. I adored my parents, but I never was homesick. I was built for camp and camp, other than my parents, was the most influential part of creating the character I am today 60 years later.
23
@Simone
I too can say that the Sleep Away camp experience of mine from 50 years ago still influences me today. It was a great experience. We were not rich kids but our parents found a way and thank goodness they did. Many of the kids we went to camp with. lived in NYC and were of great wealth. Some were quite decent and shared when large care packages came from home filled with little games, Mad Libs and goodies. I learned so much about others and myself, that as I read the Fresh Air Fund accounts of children in the NYTimes, these days, I know what these children are experiencing and the great time they are having in this new environment which tests their own ability to cope with new things, new foods, new people, newe routines, new activities and become stronger being a stranger in a strange land at first. Camp, is the greatest especially for shy children to shine. They learn that they can and it becomes a life time lesson and the fondest memories to look back on.
8
Growing up, my mother used to tell us how lucky we were to spend summers at home, in contrast to our cousins who were sent to camp all summer in upstate New York. As adults, I asked my cousin about this and when she stopped laughing, she explained that the camps were fantastic and that they got away from their overbearing mother all summer. We did not. It changed my view of who had the best summers.
19
Camp Kiniya on Lake Champlain in Vermont.
The overnight trip from Grand Central was endless. The days there flew by and the trip home was the wink of an eye.
Memories have colored every year since then.
13
I was one of those kids who hated camp :) I remember having a calendar over my bunk that I used to cross off the days, one line at mid-day, one intersecting line at night, then counting and recounting how many days were left. I hated swimming in the lake, hated the food, hated the bugs and the smell of bug spray, hated sharing a bathroom with like 10 other people, hated the sound of reveille from tinny speakers too early in the morning, and basically just lived for my once a week grape fanta from town. But these photos brought it all back so sweetly. Lovely memories looking back.
29
I now realize how lucky I was to have spent a month every summer at the wonderful Camp Sloane in Lakeville, Conn. Growing up in the Hudson Valley, I spent plenty of time outdoors anyway, but learning ALL the water sports on a sweet green lake, singing camp songs (I made one up myself one year and got at least 4-5 other girls to sing it!!), making lanyards, and having that feeling of safe independence was just plain wonderful. And those day trips to Bash Bish Falls in Massachusetts! I was always the last one out of the water; and it taught me not to be afraid of cold water, useful as now I swim in Puget Sound—sans wetsuit!
14
@Starre Vartan
Bash Bish Falls. I remember going there with my family. Wonderful memories.
5
I went to an Episcopal Church boy's summer camp when I was eight, located on Lake Arrowhead, in the mountains above Los Angeles. Returned for two more years. In comparison to the North East, summer camps were not a big deal in the paradise of Southern California except to get out of the smog. It was fun.
Then my parents moved to a new home, costing about $200 thousand with a swimming pool, near the ocean. The best of both worlds. The smog started to clear and I didn't go camping again.
Flash forward sixty-five years. I'm still in Los Angeles, the smogs back, the city is overcrowded, poorly run, unbelievably expensive, citizens struggling only one paycheck away from eviction to homelessness and my parent's ranch style home, after another number of owners, became a teardown replaced by an atrocity costing $5 million plus.
Where's that camp in the mountains when I need it and would move there permanently?
23
I attended year-round school, so summer camp wasn’t an option even if my parents could have afforded it.
Playing street baseball after school, making up games — yes, even sometimes ones with toy guns, going to the pool, and just having unstructured fun in my suburban neighborhood were priceless memories. And best of all, I ate home cooked food and slept in my own air-conditioned bedroom!
5
Met my wife in 1956 at Pond Homestead Baptist Camp, Wrentham MA. I was a boy's councilor, she worked in the kitchen. I was 16, she was 15, wonderful memories.
Married in 1964. Been married for 55 yrs tomorrow.
72
My parents met when they were both counselors at Camp Cejwin. I was a camper, first at day camp at Camp DeBaun, then later at several camps in upstate NY (including Hillcroft, mentioned in your article). I finished my camping career as a counselor at a camp for special needs kids. My children were campers in Michigan. Living away from home for the summer was transformative in so many ways. I hope my grandchildren get to experience the same joy in learning and playing that I did.
9
I attended many camps as a kid, but the South Chicago YMCA day camp in the late 60s had the greatest impact on me, and my chosen career. Leaving our neighborhood, which was in the shadows of several steel mills for the forest preserves fostered my love of nature and plants. Today, I’m a professional gardener and horticulturalist because of that experience. Summer camp is important for children because it can foster curiosity and independence.
29
My fondest memory of Camp Sherwood in 1962 was meeting a girl who is still my best friend, through a half century plus; college, career, marriage, children and grandchildren and still the friendship remains.
27
I loved this article on so many levels. And as the youngest of three and the only girl during the fifties, I completely related to the photo of
the little girl crying as her brothers were bound for camp—without her.
Although I have no pictures of the actual departure downtown, those memories of the crowded station of excited children and doting (and perhaps anxious) parents while they waited for that train to camp, remains an indelible memory of mine.
As does the sound of the silence, when all at once, the train finally came, the doors opened, and children filed in.
And just like that, they were gone. And in moments, so were we—back to our mundane lives, waiting for those letters— until visiting day at the camp, reunited once again.
Thanks for the great photos— and a wonderful trip down memory lane.
11
These really are fantastic photos. Every one of them.
46
Wonderful nostalgic piece. Does anyone remember having to march around the dining room to a special song when you were caught with elbows on the table? Summer camp is where I learned there is such a thing as lumpy mashed potatoes...loved it!
13
In my family, each kid got exactly one opportunity for a two-week experience at camp, typically around sixth grade. Mine was at Girl Scout Camp Seven Hills in western New York. I LOVED it! One week we stayed in tents raised up on concrete platforms, and for at least part of the second week, we did “primitive camping” in self-constructed lean-to’s out in the woods. I could never understand the few girls who cried from homesickness. There were CANOES here, for crying out loud?!? And campfires, and s’mores and swimming and singalongs and crafts... I only wish that I could have gone back every year, but I knew that was not possible, so I made sure to treasure each and every minute. And I made sure that my own kids got the opportunity, as well.
28
@Camper Mom
I know! I feel bad writing what I did about how I hated camp, but it makes me laugh, the 10 year old me who was a meticulous, persnickety hater of it all, but who did eventually grow into a lover of all things outdoors and active and adventurous, but oof, not at 10 alas...glad you enjoyed it all at the time :)
7
I was lucky enough to go to idyllic Camp Arowhon on Teepee Lake in the stunning wilderness of Algonquin Park, Canada. We canoed, sailed, swam, windsurfed, rode horses, played tennis and went on canoe trips in the pristine waters, it was heaven on earth. This coming Monday, I am driving from NYC to Montreal to spend three days with two of my girlfriends from camp. We spent 10 very formative summers together from the ages of 10 through 20, and we try to meet annually. Thanks to Facebook, I have been reunited with many of my camp friends, many of which date back to 1968. We all shared an amazing, life altering experience at camp.
37
I love the joy and tenderness and nostalgia of these phots. And I'm delighted so many have benefited.
But two of our three triplets hated their summer church camp experience -- the third tolerated it, given her make-the-best-of-it attitude toward life.
Our sons reported that a handful of the other guys were bullying and over-bearing. The southern machismo of the whole thing began early in Georgia, and maybe our boys just were ill-equipped to deal with it, though they grew up to be healthy, happy young men.
Parents, if one summer of camp turns your child into a blithering loon begging to be beaten rather than return the next year -- you might consider alternatives, such as being apprenticed to a neighborhood blacksmith or shoemaker.
21
Happiness and love of nature and outdoor recreation is timeless and universal. So are the qualities of cooperation, leadership and sportsmanship that were consistentl coached and recognized at the day camp I attended for 13 years during the 1960s and 70s. (Thank you again, Grandma Bess, for footing the bill that made it possible for me to attend.) When in mind I time travel back to those summer times, my heart lifts, my burdens lighten and my spirit revives. Sure many of support universal Pre-K; what about universal summer camp? Imagine that. And TY NYT for the piece.
17
@jcherp,
Yes, well said. I go back fondly in my mind and those memories are the most vivid I have. I have been uplifted by the memories as well. Camp, sleep away, is a great experience. As a child in the 60s and 70s we lived next door to a Catholic school and Convent. We used to see the Nuns go on a bus for a weekends to a retreat for respite care. How can you work for others and put their needs first all the time without refilling your own mental tanks. The nuns used to do it and I wonder why Police, Nurses, Doctors, Firemen, and others in these selfless giving professions don't have respite trip to recharge their batteries. It should be required and free to thank these professionals for all they do every single day! There is not enough money in the world to do the job that these people do and see the horrors they have to see. They do it for the humanity and love. Thank goodness they do. I do not know how they can keep it up. Sleep away camp can be the model for activities and locations away from the daily grind of life.
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I'm from the Midwest, and no one I knew when to overnight summer camp. I get the sense that it's not as common outside of New England and the Mid Atlantic. Anyone know one way or the other? I can imagine that summer camp could have been wonderful, and I wish I had the chance to experience it.
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I have heard this from my partner, who grew up in Oregon; I don’t think that summer camp is as much of a “thing” in other areas of the country. I grew up in NY and went to camp in Connecticut and adored it!
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@Erica
Church camps were around in the Midwest...did it for several years at Crowder State Park in MO. and loved every minute of it! Lasted only a week...but it was complete with lake swimming, crafts, and of course, Bible study, skit nights, Canteen time, cabin inspections, etc.
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@fb
Oh yes, the cabin inspections. And junk food at the canteen. So special. I had forgot. If we got rated all tens across the items all week, we got ice cream at the end of the week. What an inspiration to make those hospital corners and clean the bathroom!! We got to go for ice cream quite a few times.Oh the memories!!! I am laughing out loud right now and don't have too much to laugh about lately. Good on ya!!!
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As I help my boys pack their duffels for the summer, this poignant photo essay and article couldn’t have come at a more delicious time. I am going to miss my kiddos, but this is not about me: camp is their happy place where they learn how to be independent members of the only utopian society left on planet earth.
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We couldn’t afford camp. Instead we left the house at daybreak and made our own entertainment. We played sandlot and Little League baseball, crawled under our pier and beam houses when it got hot, rode our bikes all over town, hung out at the bowling alley and the public pool. Nothing was off limits. You used your imagination to create adventures. I think sometimes we were the fortunate ones.
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@Bill A.
You were. Summer camp was awful.
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Camp was a wonderful experience. Learning things like lanyard, tying knots and cooking on a campfire were unique experiences back in the day. Camps were inexpensive and children learned how to tough it out. Children made new friends. It was their first experience away from home and forging a bit of independence. Not sure the camp experience today is what it was in the 50's and 60's, but it is worth it for every child if you can find the right camp that teaches about nature. There were no helicopter parents either.
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One of the only things my parents ever agreed on when I was growing up was that when in the summer after third grade, I was being shipped off to eight weeks of summer camp. I was never consulted because why wouldn’t I want to go? Although my dad spent his school days in a New England prep school and my mom did her time down south in a Georgia private school, during the school year they were gods amongst their classmates. They were the kids that kids like me warily avoided because unlike my parents, from the earliest age, I took school very seriously. I had friends. I had no enemies. But it was very clear to everyone around me I was there to work. This puzzled people and it baffled my parents, who associated school with the mindless adoration of their peers culminating in a grand climax each year that was summer camp. There, totally released from adult supervision, on different coasts, for 2 glorious months, my parents held royal court for two months from age 9-18. I was gone before I had a chance to even argue. There are few things in life I’ve ever truly hated. I truly hated summer camp. I like sports. I don’t mind dirt. I like the outside. I can make friends. But there are two kinds of kids in this world just like there are two kinds of adults, those like me, conflict avoidant and those like my parents, dominant. Throw them into 8 weeks of isolation, mix in a dose of homesickness and a taste of independence and you get Lord of the Flies. I’d rather read it than act it.
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@Samantha
Yea, I totally concur.
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Did you go to Camp Ba-Humbug? Flies are part of camp.
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@Gazbo Fernandez Lord of the Flies is a novel by William Golding about a group of boys marooned on an island where everything goes from bad to very bad as the dominant boys show an appalling lack of leadership skills. I think you might be missing the reference here.
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I got a special joy out of looking at the photos and trying to guess when they were taken -- then being astounded that they were almost all older than I would have guessed.
There really is something charmingly timeless about the summer camp ritual.
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These photos are wonderful. I love the sense of freedom and utter joy I see on most of the children's faces (little girl not wanting her brothers to leave, notwithstanding). Something about the sheer attention to the task at hand, be it a card game or smelling a plant, reminds me of the wonder of children.
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