dual personalities

Perhaps because it is summer, I have been thinking often about my days as a camp counselor. Sometimes this personal history comes up at work, because I’m surrounded now more than ever by students who obsessively professionalize from day one of college. (Graduating Honors College students have résumés that are twice as long as my own.) I find myself proudly explaining that I was “just” a camp counselor every summer in college — and it was the life! (Cue “three meals a day, for which you didn’t pay…”) I miss being paid to teach 10 year olds how to french braid (an important life skill!), having rest hour built into your daily life, cultivating a deep but natural tan in the Michigan sun, and spending days off on Lake Michigan. And, inevitably, at Walmart.

I recently regaled DN with tales of the 4th of July at camp: we had a parade that consisted almost entirely of the coordinators riding in the bed of a pickup truck, and we got to eat donuts freshly baked on premises. We wore kitschy American gear and, apparently, short shorts. It was a simpler time.

Another category of camp memory consistently pops up when I hear certain songs. Each summer, the counselors chose one song to theme the camp sessions, and eventually, we taught the campers a “flash dance” to this song. My first year, it was Katy Perry’s “Firework,” and another, it was One Direction’s “What Makes You Beautiful.” I was recently in a WaWa gas station bathroom and nearly burst into grapevine steps when the chorus to “Firework” began. I was always terrible at these dances, but I could probably remember the choreography in two minutes if necessary. I can’t help but wonder what this year’s “song of summer” might be!

Finally, I shouldn’t leave out the central message of camp, an “MSRP” way of life that does not refer to manufacturer’s suggested retail price. The acronym refers to four categories: mental, social, religious, and physical. We were encouraged to practice and develop these “folds” in a balanced manner. Is there an area in which you could be standing taller?

From William Danforth’s I Dare You

All in all, a formative experience for sure. I don’t think I would have learned more about myself or about the world in an internship, do you? Now I just have to figure out how to get back there!