campsickness

Now that it is unofficially summer, I can’t stop thinking about summer camp–in the middle of the day, on the metro, in the shower… I swear I smelled s’mores last night.

This happens every year at this time– I start having olfactory hallucinations (usually involving campfires) and begin to imagine the logistical acrobatics that would allow me to temporarily leave my job, my house, my husband, my computer, and my cell phone for 2 months. Sadly, I am a pollster, and even I can’t make that math work…

If you are not a camp person, you probably won’t understand my desperate urge to return a place where it’s customary to sing in the middle of meals, gauge time by the sound of a bugle, and wear absurd costumes just because it’s Wednesday (or Thursday or dinnertime or raining…)

Fortunately, a handful of camp alumnae live in the DC area. We got together last weekend to laugh at old pictures, share stories, and reminisce about camp. Here are the cookies I made:

To An Old Camper
You may think, my dear, when you grow quite old

You have left camp days behind,

But I know the scent of wood smoke

Will always call to mind

Little fires at twilight

And trails you used to find.

You may think someday you have quite grown up,

And feel so worldly wise

But suddenly from out of the past

A vision will arise

Of merry folk with brown bare knees

And laughter in their eyes.

You may live in a house built to your taste

In the nicest part of town

But someday for your old camp togs

You’d change your latest gown

And trade it for a balsam bed

Where stars all night look down.

You may find yourself grown wealthy

Have all that gold can buy.

But you’d toss aside a fortune

For days ‘neath an open sky

With sunlight and blue water

And white clouds sailing by.

For once you have been a camper

Then something has come to stay

Deep in your heart forever

Which nothing can take away,

And heaven can only be heaven

With a camp in which to play

-Mary S. Edgar

1 Comment

Torrie

June 6, 2013 at 6:13 am · Reply

I remember Debbie Parker reading that poem the last year I was there. ('96)……does anyone have a time machine?

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