Summer Camp

Here are a couple of pictures from Noah’s finial day of Cub Scout day camp. He had a blast this year. They built a camp chair and bird feeder; planted a soda bottle terrarium; participated in a camp wide baseball tournament; and honed their archery and BB skills. Noah particularly liked the latter task as he was able this year to score high enough to earn his marksman badge.

Yesterday, prior to leaving work and heading out to witness Noah’s Woop Dee Doo Review (a collection of skits and songs performed by each den at camp,) I was chatting with my friend Tommy at work about his summer camp experience. Tommy is a long time councilor at a Christian summer camp. He and his wife Becky take a week off every summer and head into the upstate of South Carolina to help organize and run a residential camp for children nine to nineteen. As you might expect, they have daily religious services and activities based on biblical teachings. But they also have a lot of just plain fun. Kids come from all over the southeast – with many enjoying the experience so much, they’ve become “repeat offenders” (Tommy’s words, not mine); often recruiting friends for subsequent years.

At some point in our conversation, the discussion came around to cost. I had said how inexpensive I thought Noah’s camp was at $75 for the entire week – at eight hours a day that works out to less than $2.00 an hour. That seems more than reasonable for the vast variety of activates in which they get to participate. Heck, that doesn’t even come close to covering just the time alone. But I was floored when Tommy told me his camp only charges $150 for their entire week of residential camp. They have kids show up on Sunday and stay through the following Saturday for what amounts to little more than $1.00 an hour. I mulled this over a second and blurted out without thinking, “Wow, I should send my kids to your camp.” Oh hell, now I’ve done it. I couldn’t take the words back, but what was I going to do? I had opened my mouth and firmly stuck my foot in it. Tommy reacted exactly as I had hoped he wouldn’t. “Yeah, you should. If you’re interested, I can get you some information,” he said. OK…..OK……how to respond? “Um….,” I attentively said, “I don’t think my kids would fit in very well.” “Why not?” asked Tommy. Oh no, lets not go down this road. Tommy then started into a litany of reasons why my kids would fit right in and how they had a wide variety of kids from many different backgrounds attending the camp. He said something about “goth” kids and something about an orphanage but to be honest, I didn’t hear much of it. There was this loud screaming voice in my head – “No….no……NO! My kids would be eaten alive by those other children. You’re just not getting it!” But I just bit my lip and smiled and tried to look like I was listening intently. Finally the noise stopped. Tommy finished his dissertation and we both decided that it was time for us to find some work to be done. And as he headed away, I really just wanted to come clean and tell he why I thought my kids might not survive a week at bible camp – “Tommy,” I’d say, “my kids…well….they wouldn’t really fit in……because…..well……my kids…..they’re kind of…..sort of….well… Oh hell, Tommy. My kids are LIBERALS.”