by Kathleen M. Muldoon
Dear Gran,
I hate summer camp.
I hate fresh air.
I hate sleeping under the stars and getting bit up by mosquitoes.
The other campers hate everything too.
Please send me a train ticket to come home.
Love, Kathleen
That is the letter I sent my grandmother after my first night at summer camp. It was during the summer that I turned 13 and my grandmother and I had been living with an aunt in New York City. I’d never been to camp before, but toward the end of the school year, I was selected along with a bunch of other kids to go to Fresh Air Camp. This was paid for by a special foundation whose goal was to get city kids into the country to experience nature and share summer fun.
I’d been excited as Gran and I packed the clothes, towels, sheets, and other items that were sent in a list telling campers what they’d need to take for the two weeks we’d be gone. I didn’t have a lot of friends since we hadn’t lived in New York very long, and none of the few kids I did know were going to the same Fresh Air Camp that I was assigned to. Still, I felt great boarding the special bus sent to pick up me and about 30 other 12 to 14 year old future campers.
It took about an hour of moving into a drafty cabin with a dirt floor and six canvas cots for me to decide that camp probably was not for me. Four of my cabinmates knew each other and they hung out together, to the exclusion of me and a skinny girl named Molly. So by default, Molly and I became friends-sort of. At least we did a lot of complaining and we both hated everything that first day, which seemed like a week.
It didn’t help that the first night as we dragged blankets outside to “study the galaxy,” as our perky camp counselor Miss Dotty called it, dark clouds obliterated the stars and everything else in the galaxy, and the only nature we encountered were hundreds of hungry mosquitoes.
The next morning after dining with about 300 other campers on lukewarm scrambled eggs and crisp-very crisp-toast, a group of us headed off in the camp bus and rode some five miles up the road to a farm. Yes, a farm. There, we were exposed to all the stuff we city kids didn’t even know existed. Who knew milk came from those finger-like things hanging beneath a cow? Miss Dotty and the farmer had us each take turns sitting on a low stool and actually pulling on the udder. To me that was totally gross.
Even “grosser” were the pigs-sows, the farmer said-and their squirming piglets wallowing in a pen of mud. I was amazed when the farmer told us that he raised these pigs for bacon! He even showed us the little stone building where he slaughtered the pigs and smoked the bacon. I’d never stopped to think where the bacon I loved came from. Now I was sorry I knew.
But as the two weeks wore on, I began to enjoy the fresh air and Molly and, yes, even Miss Dotty and the sows. Of course, we did other neat stuff too, like fishing, hiking, and singing around the campfire. I was sorry when the two weeks ended. My grandmother told me that the letter I sent her the first night was the only one I wrote from Fresh Air Camp.
I hope you’ve had the chance to go to summer camp. Do you have any camp stories you’d like to share? If so, e-mail them to action@unitedspinal.org or mail them to:
KIDS IN ACTION
United Spinal Association
75-20 Astoria Boulevard
Jackson Heights, NY 11370-1177
If you’re on your way to camp now, be sure to wait a day or two to write your first letter home because your impressions are sure to change-hopefully for the better!
Kathleen M. Muldoon is a children’s book author and writing instructor for the Institute of Children’s Literature. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.
