share your summer camp stories

[lazygood4nothinbum]

how fun! my old summer camp is online www.camplakota.com

looks like our head counselor, gilly, now owns the place. i've got to visit on my next roadtrip north.

every summer for 8 weeks mom got rid of us kids sent us off to camp. i still remember crying the first time. mom saved many of my letters from camp so i have them now. "send money" "send food" "here's a list of things to send me" "when are you coming to visit" "when you visit bring food & money" pretty much sums up my letters home.

for the last few weeks of summer, camp divided into teams. "the blue is for honor and the grey is for glory and they both unite lakota" song still sings in my head. neither team wanted me on their side. they had all these rules and i was never good with rules so i tended to lose my team points. they actually expected me to show up for planned activity. and then when i'd show they'd expect me to participate. i've been coming here for years, have you met me yet?

during color war we'd have these silent meals and i'd be like "pass the ketchup." and some large counselor would run over and point and me and yell, "what team!" and my team would lose 5 points. amazing though i always managed to get the ketchup.

here's me at summercamp sporting my black hightops and laughing at the system...

 

[unclemick]

Duh - talk about interesting memories.

YMCA, Boy Scout camps, Dear old Dad taking family over the years fishing/picnicking on Spirit Lake/Mt St. Helens. Even as late as Junior College went tubing with the girls/guys on the Toutle(Early 1960's).

Glad the volcano waited till May 1980. Vaguely remember some mention that it was considered an active volcano growing up.

Heh heh heh heh - I noticed last summer Kelso had a 'Gateway to the Volcano' sign near one of the I-5 exits. I guess it's no longer the Smelt Capital of The World - a little fish I was never impressed with.

 

[Zipper]

I remember this fat kid that we always used to beat up.

Then he went home and threatened to shoot us so we didn't bother him anymore.

 

[MikeD]

Until my black lab died in '94, Camp Joslin (diabetic summer camp) was the worst experience of my life. I went there for three weeks between second and third grade back in 1962. I still can get tears in my eyes just thinking about it.

I miss my dog.

Mike D.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I used to be a camp counselor here http://www.capecodseacamps.com/default.htm many, many years ago. I used to teach sailing, soccer, archery and marksmanship. Occasionally I'd do some beginner tennis lessons.

That was a great summer job, which ended quite abruptly when the camp director discovered me teaching his daughter the finer points of CPR down by the pool late one warm summer evening.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

I remember this fat kid that we always used to beat up.

that's kind of funny but i'm gonna respond with this instead: aw zipper, you poor thing. everyone knows that's a lie. you would have needed friends for that.

 

[grumpy]

Re: Share Your Summer Camp Stories

As a teenager I went to a great camp in the Pocono Mts. run by the Big Brothers Association. Many of the campers were boys without fathers from tough city neighborhoods. This suburban boy had to pick up some street smarts real fast! The camp was heavily sports oriented. We played baseball (not softball). We had a full court basketball game every day. Swimming was in the Delaware river. The junior counselors were all highschool athletes and the senior counselors were college varsity jocks. I loved it. After three years as camper I moved up to being a junior counselor.

During college I worked three summers as the waterfront director of an overnight camp for retarded and emotionally disturbed children. The first summer I began a romance with one of the female life guards. We were married 1 week before the start of our third summer at the camp and have now been married for 37 years.

Grumpy

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

That was a great summer job, which ended quite abruptly when the camp director discovered me teaching his daughter the finer points of CPR down by the pool late one warm summer evening.

The first summer I began a romance with one of the female life guards. We were married 1 week before the start of our third summer at the camp and have now been married for 37 years.

grumpy, what a great story. isn't it something the difference a summer can make. you got a wonderful 37 years, and el guapo got 37 years to life.

 

[Linney]

YMCA, Boy Scout camps, Dear old Dad taking family over the years fishing/picnicking on Spirit Lake/Mt St. Helens. Even as late as Junior College went tubing with the girls/guys on the Toutle(Early 1960's)
.
.
.
Heh heh heh heh - I noticed last summer Kelso had a 'Gateway to the Volcano' sign near one of the I-5 exits. I guess it's no longer the Smelt Capital of The World - a little fish I was never impressed with.

The smelt are still running strong. As a kid we dipped them from the Cowlitz and then grandma would smoke them Finnish-style and we'd eat 'em by the bunches. Just a couple years ago they ran so thick that my nephews and nieces could catch them by reaching into the river and closing their hand. But now we just do catch and release.

4H camp at Mayfield Lake in Mossyrock! Also did tubing down the Toutle. But I would have been a little girl playing on the river banks when you were a free-wheeling young adult in the early 60's. All good memories for me too. After 15 years away in San Jose / Silicon Valley, I came back "home" to this area a few years ago.

(Dang but it is RAINY and COLD right now. I somehow seemed to have forgotten about those parts....)

 

[Payin-the-Toll]

Went to a church camp for 2-3 summers. They had a brutal water-ball game where the counselor threw a ball way out into the lake, and about 20 teams of 4 guys would swim out and pummel each other for an hour trying to get it to shore--whoever was in possession when the ball finally got to shore won. So I turn to my 'nerd' buddy and say, I'm a great swimmer--you stay on the shore. Game starts, I swim out and beat everybody to the ball, throw it over everybody's head to my buddy, he walks onto the beach--game over in about 40 seconds. Counselors were really p#ssed. Still get a chuckle when I remember this--thanks for the thread.

 

[Moemg]

I went to day camp in Frackville,Pa. .$1.00 a day to do arts & crafts plus swimming lessons in the morning . Those were the days .
Actually I think being retired is kind of like being a kid when school lets out .Endless freedom !!

 

[dt123]

I went every summer as a kid, then as a teen worked summers at a Y camp in Texas. On a big lake (Possum Kingdom Lake) with 150 foot high cliffs at the water's edge. It was half a mile across the lake from the camp to the cliffs.

On the last night of what I knew would be my last summer at the camp, me and two friends swam across the lake to the cliffs in the pitch dark with a waterproof bag of M-80s, climbed to the top of the cliff, and dropped lit M-80s over the edge. The booms and flashes at the rock wall reflected back at the camp, and we had enough to carry on like this for 10 minutes.

The next morning, somehow everyone knew we had done it. We had broken every rule in the book, but the camp director was not only stunned but also absolutely powerless. I like to think they still tell stories about us, but doubt it.

 

[MikeD]

I went every summer as a kid, then as a teen worked summers at a Y camp in Texas. On a big lake (Possum Kingdom Lake) with 150 foot high cliffs at the water's edge. It was half a mile across the lake from the camp to the cliffs.

On the last night of what I knew would be my last summer at the camp, me and two friends swam across the lake to the cliffs in the pitch dark with a waterproof bag of M-80s, climbed to the top of the cliff, and dropped lit M-80s over the edge. The booms and flashes at the rock wall reflected back at the camp, and we had enough to carry on like this for 10 minutes.

The next morning, somehow everyone knew we had done it. We had broken every rule in the book, but the camp director was not only stunned but also absolutely powerless. I like to think they still tell stories about us, but doubt it.

Gawd, I love M-80s.

Mike D.

 

[FinanceDude]

I guess it's no longer the Smelt Capital of The World - a little fish I was never impressed with.

Our family used to "smelt" when the fish ran wild as a kid. Of course, my uncle would drink a lot, and bite the heads off them to annoy bystanders.........

Smoked smelt, or deep fried battered? YUM!!

 

[laurence]

I went to three different types of summer camps. One was your traditional Camp Iwannagohome that was a terrible experience of angst ridden boys looking for weakness in others so they could pounce on it. After the first time I got picked on ( I was 8 at the time) I became a ghost and just avoided everyone. Mom picked me up after two weeks.

Second summer camp was YMCA, and I had a great time, there was a real hambone councilor who everybody liked and made everything fun. Later I find out he gets arrested on child molestation charges. My Dad does that whole, "It's o.k. to tell me if anything happened..." conversation, and my thought was, "Dude! I would kick him in the n*ts if he tried anything!", I was ten at the time and didn't understand.

For the rest of my youth I was an attendee of Boy Scout camp, and that was the best of all. When I got older I became a Boy Scout Camp Councilor myself. Boy Scouts was a wonderful experience. To this day I can still tie knots I don't remember the name of.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Smoked smelt, or deep fried battered? YUM!!

Same cornmeal batter I use on fried clams and deep fried.

 

[Martha]

Same cornmeal batter I use on fried clams and deep fried.

Here where the smelt run each spring people use a beer batter. Basically stale beer, flour, egg, baking powder, salt and pepper.

The alcoholics fry them in crumbled cheese crackers which is excellent (though poison) as well.

 

[unclemick]

Beer wash - Then Zatarain's Seasoned Fish Fry.

heh heh heh heh - and yes in ancient days I've eaten smoked smelt - BUT I didn't inhale.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Here where the smelt run each spring people use a beer batter. Basically stale beer, flour, egg, baking powder, salt and pepper.

I always liked a very thin, crunchy batter on my fried seafood.

# 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
# 1/4 teaspoon pepper
# 1 egg, well beaten
# 1/2 cup half-and-half or milk
# 1/4 teaspoon salt
# 1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
# 1/2 cup flour
# 1/2 teaspoon baking powder