I need to clarify a bit because more recently (about 7ish years ago) I went to a great summer camp for two years in a row. It was a music camp and I played piano and I ate tater tots. It was an overall enriching experience.
But the camp experience I am about to expound on did not include playing the piano, or music, or anything great like tater tots.
I was 9 years old. I had barely started sleeping over at friend's houses but I was pretty excited, me and my sister both, to go away for one WHOLE week.
The whole way down to West Virginia my sister, who was 7, and I could barely keep from peeing our pants. We were so excited to be "on our own."
I admit. I choked back a few tears when dad and mom drove away but the camp director assured my sister and I we would have such a fun time we wouldn't want to leave.
Yeah.
The days all sort of blurred together but there is one phrase I remember very clearly. It was our marching, that's right marching, chant.
Oh yeah. Did I forget to mention...this camp was on it's maiden voyage as a girl's camp. It was originally a boy's brigade camp. Like military, push-ups-for-sneezing-during-drill, endless marching through the extensive West Virginia woods BRIGADE camp.
Now imagine my sister and I, two little sheltered ginger home-schooler girls with stirrup leggings and big glasses standing at attention with all the other campers, chanting:
Director/ Drill Sargent: YES I AM A WILDFLOWER (Girls/soldiers: Yes I am a wildflower)
NO THAT AIN'T NO MILD POWER (No that ain't no mild power)
WE DON'T NEED NO GARDEN HOSE (We don't need no garden hose)
WE GET OUR RAIN FROM THE HOLY GHOST (We get our rain from the Holy Ghost)
SOUND OFF (one, two)
SOUND OFF (three, four)
So beyond the obvious theological and grammatical issues with that chant I suppose it was a little fun to pretend we were little soldier wildflowers.
No. Actually. I'm still confused. WHY THE HECK WERE WE WILDFLOWERS???
So many questions. So few answers.
Anyhow, we had the normal camp activities...crafts, shooting, archery, fishing (in a field), and spelunking. Ok, the spelunking was pretty awesome and drinking bug juice and singing "Greasy Grimey Gopher Guts."
I did enjoy that.
I did not enjoy the morning "taps" to wake us. I did not enjoy the older girls who told us there was a body buried by their cabin. I did not enjoy falling off the obstacle course. I did not enjoy tripping over plywood Leviathan (long story).
I remember a girl named "Eve" who my sister introduced me to. I thought she was so cute and tiny. She used big words and was shunned by pretty much all the "cool" girls at camp.
The cool girls were the ones who braided each other's hair, talked about the ghosts that were in the woods (probably had something to do with the dead body near the older girls cabin), and purposely threw their marshmallows in the fire.
They called Eve names and told her she was stupid. Because Karryn and I stood up for her with such clever comebacks like "You're stupid for calling her stupid," our popularity at the military barracks only diminished.
I was basically friendless at camp (you could see it by the lack of braids in my hair). I think if I had taken even one shower that week it may have changed my experience a bit. It might have helped a little if I wasn't so shy and insecure. Maybe if I had tried talking instead of instantly bursting into tears my camp experience wouldn't have been as much like an internment camp.
Maybe.