Camp, Part Deux

When I read that last Camp post, I decided that a few more things need to be added to my favorite memories of sleep away camp and a few things need to be explained. Here goes...Camp, Part Deux

Roller Hockey. Sleep away camp is where I first developed my love of roller hockey. When I first started at the upper camp, rollerblades had just come out and since I wasn't too into skating, I didn't have any. Nor did I really want them. This changed as soon as I witnessed my first roller hockey game at camp. A good number of guys at camp actually played ice hockey in the winter, so roller hockey was taken pretty seriously. We had real boards around our basketball court so that it was like a real hockey rink. The only difference was that our rink was square so you couldn't "push it around the dashers," as Craig Laughlin would say. There were also usually two or three really good goalies also (they did not have to wear skates to make the scores more realistic). Anyway, my second year at camp, you better believe I had rollerblades. From then on, I loved roller hockey. Also, since I had like the second rollerblades ever made and I have what doctors call "wide feet," I would usually need to take off my left skate at least a few times during each game. Afterward, I could barely walk. All for the love of the game.

Riflery. Jews and guns don't mix, you say? Nonsense! At camp, we had rifelry. Somehow, they allowed us to shoot real .22 caliber rifles. I know a .22 is pretty wimpy, but still. It was a real gun! I was pretty damn good at riflery. I even shot the little plastic thingy that holds the bullets at about 25 yards away (or whatever the distance was). The best thing to do in riflery was to fill up a soda can with water all the way to the top and then shoot it. When you hit it, the pressure would blow a huge hole out of the back of the can. Good times. The funny thing was that they actually made me teach riflery one summer. Come to think of it, they also made me teach archery (which I was terrible at). I guess they thought I was either really responsible or really violent.

Living in Tents. I mentioned in the first post that we used to live in tents. Well, this was the way it went. In the lower camp, we lived in cabins. In your first year in the upper camp (age 13), you lived in "dorms" and were called "dormies." These consisted of what looked like college dorm rooms, but with 2 bunk beds in each one. There were only 8 dorm rooms and 4 were for counselors my year.

The next year, you would start living in tents. This was much cooler than it sounds. The floor of the tent was a wood platform about 10 feet by 10 feet, raised off the ground by cinder blocks so that it wouldn't flood. Then there were posts about 10 feet tall in the front and back of the tent to keep it raised. The back post had a light and electrical outlets. The tent was made of a really thick material, that I can't really even describe, but there was a tent cover to protect against rain. So, these were not your typical tents. Normally, two people would share a tent and there was plently of room for a bed, cubby, fan, trunk, boom box, and whatever else you would want to bring.

Then, there were the "Super" tents. These were the same setup, but much bigger. Super A and Super B held 4 or 5 kids each and the Super Duper held up to 9. Normally, in your junior year, one group would get Super A and the rest would be in normal tents. Senior year, one group would get Super B and the rest would be in regular tents. CIT year, everyone would be in the Super Duper. Due to a lack of attendance my senior year, I was in the Super Duper and stayed there for my CIT year. I think I hold the record for most consecutive sessions spent in the Duper at 3.

Services. Seeing as this was a "jewish" camp, we were supposed to have some sort of services on saturday morning. I'm not sure if there were ever serious services, but by the time I was in camp, it had devolved into people reading out of Shel Silverstein poetry books and singing songs. The songs were typical camp songs and to this day, I have no idea why we sang them at services. They included such classics as: "Leaving on a Jet Plane," "Fire and Rain," "Cats in the Cradle," and "Country Roads." The only jewish part of the whole thing was that we would start off services with the song "Bim Bam."

Sing Out Timber Ridge. TR stands for the name of the group of camps I went to and has been withheld to protect its (my) identity.[I was going to do that, but since I later need to use the name in lyrics, I'll divulge it] Anyway, Sing Out TR was a yearly tradition where you would get together with all the kids in your age group and compete in a group sing off about how great camp is. The counselors would write lyrics about camp to popular songs and then we'd practice a lot (I used to hate this shit) in order to compete with the other camps. As much as I hated it, I still remember some of the songs from when I was young. Examples:

From when I was 10: (Sung to the Miami Dolphins song)
"We are the Timber Ridge campers, Timber Ridge campers, Timber Ridge campers number one.
We are the Timber Ridge campers, Timber Ridge campers, Timber Ridge campers, we have fun.
From east to west and north to south, we come from coast to coast... back to West Virginia to the friends we love the most...
(Chorus)"

From when I was 11: (Sung to The Rose, by Bette Midler)
"Some say camp, it is a trial, with many ups and downs
Some say camp, it is a burden that will drive you to the ground
Some say camp, it is a struggle, with no family around
Timber Ridge, it is a heaven, where friendships do abound."

From when I was 12: (Sung to Faithfully, by Journey)
"Summer camp, a place where friendships are born, three camps reunite to form Timber Ridge.
New faces come and they are joined with the old (I don't remember this part, so on to the chorus!)
They say Timber Ridge is a great place to make a friend
We create memories that will last till the very end
The love and the friendships made are what all camps 'sposed to be
Oh, can we stay forever?
Its so hard to say goodbye....TIMBER RIDGE"

Anyway, as you can tell, they loved to talk about friendship in these songs and as much as I hated practicing them, they still are stuck in my head.

Rainy Day Activities. Some of you may be saying, "Camp is fun when its sunny, but what about when it rains?" You're right, we did have some kick-ass thunderstorms in WVa, but not that many a year. When it rained, we usually played Bombardment in the gym (basically dodgeball) and/or watched movies. Camp was where I first developed my love of the movie Major League. I think it was an unspoken rule that the first rainstorm of the year meant that there was a mandatory showing of Major League. It basically got to the point where I could recite that whole movie without even seeing it. I remember also seeing Point Break one time. Its pretty funny that somoene owned that movie.

Late Night Eats. You weren't supposed to have food in your tent, but everyone had some sort of stash hidden away. Usually this was candy, gum, chips, and the best camp food ever: Ramen Noodles. Camp was the place where I honed and perfected my technique for cooking Ramen Noodles. I always brought a hot pot, which for those who dont know, is a pitcher that plugs into a socket and heats up whatever is inside it. The best way to cook ramen is fill it up, let the water get all hot, dump 1 or 2 packages of noodles in there and let them cook. When they are done, pour out most of the excess water and then (and only then) put the flavor packets in. Voila! A perfect late night meal.

Another great thing about living in tents was that if you had to take a piss, there was no need to walk all the way to the bathrooms (a truly stank-ass facility that housed shitters, a urinal trough, and a communal shower room). Pissing out the back of a tent, though frowned upon, was a time-honored tradition at camp.

British Counselors. Normally, there was a group of about 4-8 Brits who would be counselors at camp. They were always one-year counselors who wanted to come to the US for a summer to experience camp and then see the rest of the country. The tragic thing was that they would all arrive at camp thinking they were going to be counselors and two would always get stuck being the kitchen helper and the cleaner, respectively. The first day of counselor training, the director would always make the same joke about the brits turning red if they didn't use sunblock.

One year, we had a lot of british counselore. I guess there were enough to field a soccer team because we played Brits v. US in soccer. I don't remember who won the game, but I do remember one of the campers bringing his boom box to the field and playing Neil Diamond's "Coming to America" before the game to pump everyone up.

The Infirmary. Perhaps my proudest accomplishment in life is that I never went to the infirmary in 8 years of being a camper and a counselor. Sure, everyone had to do the lice check at the beginning (and end) of the summer, but I never went for any other reason. The only cool part about the infirmary was that it was air conditioned and it had a tv/vcr to watch movies on.

The only two things of note that happened at the infirmary that I remember were that one of my friends snuck in there to see a chick he was hooking up with and she gave him a hand job and secondly, the token crazy kid, Allan, went nuts in there one night and threw a chair at someone. He was sent home soon after that.

Boy's Leagues. Finally, we get to my favorite thing about camp. I mentioned it in the earlier post, but I don't think I gave it its proper explanation. Boy's Leagues was a competition in which the whole boy's side of camp was drafted and put on teams to compete in various sports. The way the draft went was that the counselors determined a draft order for the CITs to pick their teams (they were captains). The worst athlete got the first pick and the best athlete got the last pick and the draft would snake. They would choose from the seniors, juniors, and dormies for about 6 or 8 rounds and the rest of the campers would just get allocated to teams. After (or during) the draft, CITs could trade. Rumor had it that one guy got traded for another guy, plus a can of coke.

Once the teams were decided, they wold compete in 2 sports every other day (M,W,F as I recall). The sport combinations were Softball and Water Polo, Basketball and Hockey, and Football and Soccer. Wins and losses were tallied and a standings board was kept on the wall of the dining hall. At the end of the season, there would be a tournament and the first place team would play the last place team and so on. The winner of the tournament would get bragging rights and a trip to Tastee-Freez.

Incidentally, there were also Girl's Leagues. But they only played one sport each time and there was guaranteed to be at least one athsma attack in each game.