i remember my favorite camp counselor miss annie reading "The Elephant's Child" every night after taps and lights out. i was enthralled. i adored all the voices of the animals - the high, stuffy squeak of the elephant's child before he got his trunk, the bossy broad aunt hippopotamus, the snide hairy baboon uncle, the shriek of the kolokolo bird and very best of all, the sly, hypnotic deep growl of the crocodile.
i still don't know after 45 years whether i loved or hated camp. i loved miss annie and most of my counselors. i loved hearing the elephant's child. i loved canoeing. i loved campfires, musicals, the camp store. i loved getting mail every single day. i hated how cold the lake was and how we had to go in no matter the weather. i was terrified of the spiders. i hated the dusty hikes. the food wasn't that great. i never finished a single lanyard even though i tried every summer to make one. i hated how homesick i felt. it really was about 50-50, equal parts love and hate, and i mean love and hate, not like and dislike. it might be the truest ambivalence i've ever experienced.
all six of us went to camp every summer, it was the same as church for my mom, you just did it because that's what children do in the summer. i went to camp kewano (campfire girls, of which i was one for 10 years) and newaygo (girl scouts, where i felt like a traitor but the food and activities were better). my brother doug went to a fabulous camp in wisconsin. and right this very minute i am wearing a camp manitou-lin t-shirt i borrowed from my brother john, a soft, ancient gray. i loved the silly camp songs, did i mention that? "two blue pigeons, one was black and white - POOM!" maybe that tips the balance the tiniest bit to the love side of the summer camp equation.
