When I was young and in grade school I desperately wanted to attend a sleep-away summer camp. Hollywood movies made it seem as though my post-classroom days would be filled with zany hijinks, adventure, campfires and hot dogs for dinners and no parental supervision.
Eventually, one summer when we could afford sending me away for a long weekend, I regretted the reality of going away with strangers to a place I had never been and being at the mercy of people who were not friends or family the moment I watched my mom fade into the background as she waved farewell to the bus that took me on a summer of unknown adventure.
The weekend did not end soon enough. The experience was not quite “Lord of the Flies”-esque, but enough boyhood alliances and cliques were established that I was left fretting which group I would belong to and then fretting that neither would have me and that I and the other awkward misfits would be shunned and victimized for eternity.
Years later, as an adult reading about summer programs and camps for kids, I realize I’ve developed an appreciation and affinity for camping. I don’t believe it was because of that experience. Getting away from the sounds, chaos and responsibilities of adulthood and people is restful and energizing.
But there are not many summer camp activities I would like to revisit now that camp is no longer an option.
As a kid growing up without access to a swimming pool in the backyard, I understand the attraction of wanting to spend all day surrounded by friends splashing each other with cannonballs and toppling each other in chicken fights in between rounds of Marco Polo.
But now, all these decades later, rather than a pool filled deep with mirth and excitement I see the potential for sickness.
My mind’s eye pictures the millions of bacteria sailing and floating along, waiting for the right orifice in which to harbor.
There near the lap line is a battalion of E. coli hoping to find its way into my sinuses so that it can bring nausea and headaches to me for an hour or more.
Out near the diving board is a band of rogue salmonella hoping to find a way into my mouth so that my next 24 hours will be spent hunched over the toilet bowl begging for a merciful death and relief from vomiting and diarrhea.
Though chlorine does its best to combat these and other bacteria of mayhem and destruction, the war can never be fully won. Some strains of diseased bacteria always find ways to survive chlorinated attacks. Further, chlorine does nothing to get rid of the bandages, short curly hairs and other mysterious floating objects.
I do not begrudge children their summer camps and getaways. I hope they provide a lifetime of pleasant memories.
But now, all these years later, I realize my ideal summer camp might be one where I am isolated from people with a stack of books and magazines looming over me as I lay oblivious and napping.
