1.    Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUP) was offered as a brand new activity.  It proved to be incredibly popular with the campers of all ages and the staff too.  No doubt we’ll be adding more SUP boards and paddles next summer.   The possibilities are endless – think  SUP trips on the Mississippi River ☺.

2.     Mad Science was another popular addition to Kamaji’s instructional program. The brainchild of Rebecca Langsam, (a Kamaji Junior Counselor) attracted over 200 campers between first and second sessions.  Whether they were making gloop or disappearing ink or nail polish or exploding volcanoes(!), every class was filled to capacity.

3.    We added a brand new canoe trip to our Wilderness Trip Program.  Campers going into the 7th grade spent three days canoeing the very beginnings of the Mississippi River.  It’s a beautiful unspoiled part of the river.  We hope the campers enjoyed their adventure.

4.    The drama program was strengthened by the addition of “KamaGlee”.  Each week campers had the opportunity to learn and perform a different song.  From  “What is this Feeling?” from Wicked to “True Colors” it was hard to know who enjoyed the performances more — the singers or the audience.  Seriously, the campers were great.

5.    The swim program offered a “junior” Lifeguarding class.  Participating campers participated in a shortened version  of the same course our counselors take to earn their Red Cross Lifeguard certification.

6.     During second session, some of the Pine Manor campers asked if they could choreograph and then teach a dance routine in the regularly scheduled dance class.  They did just that during the past week and will be performing their dance for the rest of camp on Wednesday.

7.     Basketball was offered as an instructional activity.  While this wasn’t exactly the first time basketball was taught, it was the first time this century.  Welcome back!

8.    Although not exactly a “first”, 2011 ranks number 1 in the percentage of cabin counselors who are former Kamaji campers: 41 out of 57.  That’s over 70 percent!  We are flattered that so many Kamaji alum have returned to “give back” to current campers.  And if you throw in the counselors who weren’t campers, but who have worked here before, that percentage jumps to almost 80%.

Wow!  Kamaji may be 98 years old, but every June it is reborn.  Just wait until our 99th camping season.

More Kamaji News
Here are some program highlights of the past few days.  Our regular instructional activities have been carrying on since the last Adventure Day and will continue through tomorrow afternoon.  Last Thursday’s evening program was the 4th of August Kamaji Goofy Field Relays.  The truth is that we usually have these races on the 4th of July, however, a thunderstorm that evening  forced their cancellation. We have now proclaimed the 4th of August a new holiday at camp.  (Look for pictures on Smugmug.)  On Friday night, campers and counselors gathered in the Lodge to hear Mike give a Kamaji history lesson.  The campers seemed to enjoy hearing about the “good ‘ol days” of no flush toilets and pine needle skiing.  Saturday we were treated by the drama program to a wonderful performance of “The Wizard of Oz”.  (Pictures on Smugmug.)  Last night’s evening program was a real favorite — All-Camp Capture the Flag.  (Pictures on Smugmug.) This afternoon we are hosted about 30 Camp Chippewa campers (they are boys) who are competing with Kamaji campers in tennis, archery, sailing and swimming meets.  Tonight’s evening program is the last Council Fire of the session.  Tomorrow’s evening program will be the big Staff Show, a real camper favorite.  Wednesday morning is “Packing Time”.  Remember the day before your daughter left for camp.  Imagine packing 145 campers (and 14 CITs) all at the same time.  Whew!  Anyway, Wednesday afternoon will feature Kamaji’s Variety Show followed by Final Banquet and Candlelight O’Naug She Nodin.  Thursday is the day you’ve had circled on your calendar since your daughter left for camp.

Travel Information for August 11, 2011
August 11th will be a long day for campers traveling home!  We’ll have a 6:00 a.m. wake-up bell with the buses leaving camp bout 7:45 a.m. for the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport.  We are sending campers to 20 different cities around the country.  We’ve already sent you a travel schedule, but it would probably be a good idea to check with your daughter’s airline to see if there are any last minute changes.  If you have any questions about your daughter’s travel home, just write or call.

If you are meeting your daughter at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, you should pick her up at the Transit Center of the Lindbergh Terminal between noon and 12:30 p.m.  Your daughter and her luggage will be there.

If you are picking up your daughter at camp, you MUST be here at 8:00 am.  Your daughter and her luggage will be waiting for you.

If your daughter is flying on DL 789 to St. Louis or DL 2207 to Chicago O’Hare she will be escorted by a Kamaji parent.  You should plan on meeting your daughter outside the secure area of the concourse where she arrives or at baggage claim. You may want to ask a Delta ticket agent if you can have a security pass so you can meet the flight at the gate, however, don’t be surprised if the ticket agent says “No.”  The parent escort will bring the campers out of the concourse and to baggage claim and remain with them until all parents arrive.

If your daughter is on a flight other than the ones mentioned above and is flying home as an “Unaccompanied Minor” you should be able to obtain a security pass from the airline which will allow you to meet your daughter at her arrival gate.  Plan on arriving at the airport in plenty of time to obtain your security pass.

Again, if you have any questions about travel, just ask.

End of Season Information
Here are some final details about the end of your daughter’s stay at Kamaji:
1.    If your daughter is missing clothing or equipment items, please notify us as soon as possible.
2.     Your daughter’s store account refund or bill will be sent to you in the next two weeks.
3.     Information about Kamaji’s 2012 camping season will be sent to you next week.
4.     We’ll be sending a link to an on-line evaluation form in a few days.  We hope you’ll take a couple of minutes and complete it.  Thanks in advance.

Some Thoughts About The Session From Ye Directors
(Ed. Note: This section of the letter may sound familiar to many of you.  The concepts are not new, but we’ve freshened it up a bit.)

Be prepared!  In a few days your daughter will be hanging out with you.  The second session of Kamaji’s 98th season will be history.  We want to warn you that your daughter may, at any time during her first few days at home, fall into the “Kamaji Zone”.  You will immediately notice a change in her behavior.  Don’t worry as these changes will only last a short time.  Right after your daughter eats breakfast don’t, we repeat don’t, panic if your daughter suddenly jumps on the kitchen chair and sings at the top of her lungs.  That’s what we do at meals.  And after breakfast, YOU had better sit down.  We don’t want you to faint if your daughter runs to her room to make her bed and straighten up her closet.  Don’t worry.  We are confident that THIS behavior won’t last more than a few days.  If you are sitting at the dinner table and you would like her to get something from the kitchen, just tell her that it’s her turn to be “hopper”.  And if you go out to dinner at a nice restaurant, please remind her NOT to put her chair on the table when you leave.  And be prepared.  Your daughter will expect you to have 4 or 5 different activities planned for her each day.  (How about paddleboarding, horseback riding, Mad Science and sailing —  just to start.)  There may be certain words missing from her vocabulary — words like “TV”, “texting”, “facebook”, “download” and even “hair dryer”.   Don’t worry.  Most girls will pick up these terms quickly.  There are other behaviors — too numerous to mention — that you may observe during the first few days your daughter is home.  If you cannot interpret any of them, feel free to call the “Kamaji Kommand and Kontro Center”.  Trained camp personnel will be on duty 24 hours a day to answer your call.

Another way to ease your daughter’s transition into the “other” world is to show her the “Smugmug” pictures.  She hasn’t seen any of them and what a great way to re-live the past few weeks.  We suggest that you go through the pictures with her.  We don’t want you to miss the chuckles.

We’ve written over the past weeks how enthusiastic the campers are about every aspect of camp. Some of the most memorable events of the past season seem to be times when the campers break out in spontaneous “joy”.  (Just ask your daughter about “Little Sally Walker”.)

This season just zoomed by thanks to the campers. Why is camp better than ever?  Well, just think about your daughter’s life here at camp.  No matter what the campers do here, they do it with other people who can hear, see, and touch.  We eat together, sing together, learn how to do new things together.  We know each other’s names.  We laugh together, swim with “buddies”, sail with a crew, set tables with our tribe, clean cabins together and sort laundry with our porchmates.  We have a shared language (Metigs, Za, Za 2, O’Naug, keylog, gooey rolls), a shared history (“We were here in ‘2011, ‘2011…”), our own rituals (Boy, oh boy, what a day it’s been!), and most of all, shared experiences (remember our canoe trip, Tribe Day, Adventure Day).  In simple terms we are a “community” where each camper is connected to her porchmates, her counselors, her tribemates, her “Kami Sister”.  We touch, see and hear each other a million times every day.  Yup, Kamaji campers seem to have more invested in camp than ever before!  Maybe they have figured out that sleeping in a bed right next to your best friend is a whole lot better than being a “friend” on Facebook.

One Last Favor . . .
We were thrilled to welcome 71 new Kamaji campers this summer.  Wow!  That’s a lot.  Most new Kamaji families hear about camp from friends or relatives so the large number of new campers is thanks to the support of many of you.  Looking ahead to 2012, if you know families who might be interested in hearing about Kamaji, please let us know.  Referrals can be friends of yours, friends of your daughter’s, relatives from another city or business contacts.  We’re never get tired of talking about camp, so please send the names and contact information for anyone who may want to hear Kamaji’s story.   Thanks in advance for your help.

A Final Note of THANKS
Lastly, thanks to you for trusting us with your daughter.  We know what a leap of faith putting your daughter on that plane represents.  We promised you that we would treat your daughter as if she were our own.  We hoped we lived up to that promise.

We can only imagine how excited you will be to have your daughter back home. We wish your family the very best for the rest of the summer and the upcoming fall.  We hope that your daughter enjoyed herself as much as we enjoyed having her here.  We equally hope she’ll return for Kamaji’s 99th camping season.  “Boy, Oh Boy, What a Summer It’s Been!”

Campingly yours,

Mike, Kathy and Kat

Today is Adventure Day.   If you are a new Kamaji parent, you might be wondering, “What is Adventure Day?”  Let us explain.  Most days of the week, your daughter spends a good part of the day participating in four different instructional activities.  Because campers are programmed into activities individually, they don’t often find themselves with their porchmates during the instructional times.  That’s mostly a good thing.  Through the instructional activity program, campers meet and get to know a lot of different people because of shared interests.

But we digress – back to Adventure Day . . .

On Adventure Day, the porch groups spend almost the entire day doing things together.  After breakfast, the adventure begins with a big time cabin cleanup, including changing sheets and LAUNDRY.  Imagine trying to collect the entire porch’s week’s worth of dirty clothes, towels, sheets, etc, putting everything in huge laundry bags and carrying the huge laundry bags to the laundry room.  Whew!  Talk about an adventure!  Needless to say, this super cabin cleanup takes the campers and counselors a good portion of the morning.  After an early picnic lunch, the porch groups head off for a variety of activities.  Today’s adventures included a trip to Itasca State Park for the Nutshell (all three porches) as well as Cocoon and Tikinigan.  Itasca State Park is the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi River.  Campers can actually walk across the river as it leaves Lake Itasca because the river is only about 7 feet wide.  Lake Itasca is beautifully breathtaking . . . and there’s has a wonderful beach.

For those cabin groups who elected to stay in camp on Adventure Day, porch groups could choose to go waterskiing, sailing, climbing on the wall, horseback riding, swimming, and playing softball.  Cabin 1 Porch 1 had the most unusual Adventure Day activity today.  The spent an hour giving three of Kamaji’s Rainbow Boys extreme make-overs. (See picture immediately below.)

Adventure Day’s dinner is always a Rainbow Burger Bar-be-que. After dinner, all the porch groups worked on their projects for the big Kamaji Kraft Fair to be held next week.  The second Adventure Day of second session was clearly a success.

Katie Thoresen, one of the counselors in Cabin 3 Porch 2, took her camera with her this afternoon and chronicled her porch group’s afternoon Adventure Day activities.  Those pictures are on Smugmug.

Here’s some other headlines from the past week.

The Weather Report

In a word — “Great.”  Temperatures remain near normal.  That means highs near 80 degrees and lows near 60.  Just like we advertised.  We have had some rain, but the National Weather Service has officially classified them as “Camp Director’s Showers”.  That’s a technical meteorological term for rain which occurs between 10 pm and 8 am.  Let’s hope there is more of the same in the days to come.

From the Health Desk

The medical news during the past week has been mostly good.  That’s not to say that there hasn’t been some colds, some bumps and bruises and a few rashes. The good news is that all of these ailments seem to take their course pretty quickly. Trust us, if your daughter has been treated for anything out of the ordinary, you would have received a call from us.  No news on the health front is good news.

Last Saturday, our friends Drs. Jeff Neil and Terri Inder returned home to hot, humid St. Louis and were replaced by Adam Blonsky.  Adam is a pediatrician from St. Charles, IL and dad to camper Jordan.  This is Adam’s fourth rotation as Kamaji’s Camp Doc. Adam, Lynn, son Ben and daughter Olivia will be here until this coming Saturday, when Adam’s place will be taken by Alan Braverman, a cardiologist from St. Louis.  This will be Alan’s 6th summer as the Kamaji Doc.

Trips, Trips and More Trips
Since our July 20th note, the Wilderness Trip Program has been running at full speed.  Cocoon has completed their 3-day canoe trip to Lake Andrusia.  Nutshell Porch 3 went on their 2-day Mississippi River trip and a combination of 4 week campers from Cabin 2 Porch 2 and Cabin on the Hill finished up their 3-day Crow Wing River trip.  On Monday, Cabin 4 Porch 1 left for their 4-day trip to Voyageur’s National Park and Cabin 3 Porch 1 left for their three day trip to the source of the Upper Mississippi River.

Tuesday’s big Wilderness Trip event was the return of the Canadian trippers who completed their week long White Otter Wilderness Area trip in northwestern Ontario.  It sounds as if they had a spectacular experience.

Today, Wednesday, the Hatchery girls headed off their big 2-day Adventure to Webster Lake and a group of eight lucky campers left for a three day rock climbing trip to the amazing North Shore of Lake Superior.  Tomorrow Nutshell Porch 1 is scheduled to head to Webster Lake and a group of advanced riders will trot down the road for an horseback overnight.  By the way, if you use the computer program “Google Earth”, you can visit all these places by clicking on the “My Places.kmz” .  You can also get a birds-eye view of Camp Kamaji.

Well, that’s about all for Adventure Day.  We hope your Wednesday was as full of adventure as ours.

Mike, Kathy and Kat

This is the first “news report” of second session. We’ll be writing you every few days. Our hope is that between the “Smugmug” pictures and our ramblings, we hope you’ll have a good idea of what’s going on here at Kamaji. So, here’s a summary of the first few days of second session.

Saturday’s Opening Day came off almost flawlessly. Most flights were on time and the buses arrived at camp right on schedule at 5:00 pm. After dinner and a little time to unpack, it was time for a big game of John-Jacob-Jingleheimer Schmidt, followed by a trip or two down the famous Kamaji waterslide. The warm weather made the waterslide a very nice way to end Opening Day.

Sunday morning was warm and cloudy. While the 8 week campers participated in regular instructional activities, the newly arrived 4 week campers participated in health checks followed by the Kamaji swimming safety check. The plan for the afternoon was regular instructional activities for everyone, however, a pretty good summer rain led to a change. Porch groups spent about an hour in their cabins preparing lip-syncs which were then performed in the Lodge. The rain ended by dinner time, so Sunday night’s Tribe Initiation came off without a hitch. If your daughter is a first year camper, you should have already heard which tribe she is in.

Monday morning we distributed camp clothing and took those porch pictures you saw on Smugmug. Monday afternoon was the 2nd session kick off of Kamaji’s regular activity program. We posted more Smugmug pictures showing Monday’s activity classes. Monday’s evening program was Country Club Night. Campers dressed in their finest Country Club attire to play croquet, visit the club spa, and play golf on Kamaji course. At the end of Country Club Night, everyone gathered by the waterfront for a special ceremony to announce this session’s Tribe Leaders. And here they are. For the Ishkadays, Grace Miller and Alex Dorfman; for the Waubuns, Ariana Michel and Jordan Blonsky; for the Mundahmins, Olivia Morison and Talia Worth; for the Metigs, Julia Addis and Alexa Farris; for the Geshigs, Emma Stanicek and Sylvie Stolar; and for the Nanahtahgas, Erin Blumenthal and Amy Rogin. Congrats to them all!

As mentioned earlier, on Tuesday, we got a break from the heat. Regular instructional activities were the order of the day until late afternoon when we had a bit of rain. No worries. The Manor campers (who are all 8-weekers) organized a wild game of Pillow Case Bingo for all the other campers. The rain let up by dinner, so Monday evening’s Council Fire program was a big success.

As mentioned above, today is Adventure Day. It’s hot and humid and as we speak almost everyone in camp is now on or in Wolf Lake. That’s the place to be.

So, What’s New at Kamaji This Summer?
We’re glad you asked. A lot of new things greeted the 2nd session campers on Saturday. Two new instructional activities have been added since last summer. One is something called Stand Up Paddling or SUP. “What’s SUP?,” you might be asking. Well, you stand on this really big windsurf-looking board and paddle around the lake using a really long sort of canoe paddle. Well, we purchased 8 SUP boards and paddles this spring. Word is that SUP is the latest rage on the west coast and it was a huge hit with the campers first session. The other new activity, which also received rave reviews 1st session, is Mad Science. Mad Science is the brainchild of junior counselor, Becca Langsam, who spent the spring preparing camp-appropriate science experiments. Last session some of the Mad Science projects included making rainbows in a glass by layering liquids, making homemade lava lamps, making volcanoes, blowing up balloons using baking soda and vinegar and, a real favorite, making slime.

What else has changed at Kamaji? Well, Kamaji sailors have a brand new Yacht Club building and a new X-boat to sail. The climbing wall also got a complete make-over which adds about six new climbing routes. The pontoon boat, which is used for the fishing activity, has been torn down and reassembled. The biggest winter project was replacing Kamaji’s Swamp. The Swamp is where the men who work at Kamaji live. The old swamp was built in 1930 and sort of falling down the hill. We hope all these additions and improvements will make Kamaji better than ever..

Medical Report
Here’s the news from Kamaji’s Club Med. (Zzzzzzzzzzzzz) That’s great. It means that the campers are healthy. If you are new to Kamaji, you should know that Club Med is Kamaji’s health center. Club Med is staffed by Katherine, Sarah and Kelsey, Kamaji’s three nursing assistants and Kamaji’s camp doctor. This week  two, count them two, Camp Docs on duty. Terrie Inder and Jeff Neil, both pediatric neurologists from St. Louis and, more importantly, parents to camper Eliza Inder are staffing Club Med this week.. Our policy is to call you if your daughter is admitted for an overnight stay in Club Med or is taken to see a doctor or dentist in town. (We do NOT call if your daughter spends a few hours just resting in Club Med or if she visits for a scraped knee, sore throat, bug bite, applied band-aid or Tylenol request). Kamaji’s policy assures you that if your daughter receives anything more than routine health care you’ll hear from us. No health-related news is good news.

Out and About
Kamaji’s Wilderness Tripping Program is running at full speed. On Tuesday morning campers and counselors from Cabin 4 Porch 2 left for a 4 day trip to Voyageurs National Park on the Canadian border and Cabin 1 Porch 1 took off on a three day Upper Mississippi River canoe trip. Very early this morning, 7 Pine campers and 2 Kamaji Wilderness Trip Leaders set off for their seven day Canadian canoe trip to the White Otter Wilderness area north of Atikokan, Ontario. The White Otter is a huge wilderness area, where the Canadian trippers will paddle for hours in a row and portage their gear and canoes over long and rocky portages. They will see amazing scenery and wildlife and learn what a true wilderness experience is really like. Later this morning, Cabin 2 Porch 1 left for a three day canoe trip on the Crow Wing River and Tikinigin left Kamaji’s shores for their three day canoe trip to Lake Andrusia. We hope all the trippers have a wonderful time.

As mentioned earlier, it’s hot and humid today. Wolf Lake awaits. More later….

Mike. Kathy and Kat

Every Tuesday, Kamaji takes a break from its typical day schedule.  On Adventure Day campers spend the entire day with their porch mates and cabin counselors.  From a major cabin clean-up to sorting through a week’s worth of laundry to send out to the laundromat to picnic-ing at lunchtime, Tuesdays mornings through lunch are somewhat routine.  The afternoon is when the fun begins as cabin and porch groups plan and participate in  activities of their own making that are, in a word, adventuresome.

Following is a video produced and edited by Cabin 2, Porch 2 recapping their July 27th Adventure Day antics.  We think it best describes ‘a-typical’ Kamaji Adventure Day activity far better than we could ever put in words!!

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah,

Thank you for the priceless gift you gave me this summer – the gift of summer camp!!

Thank you for the glamour . . . and the mystique of summer camp.

Thank you for a place where I could create a new world on a blank slate. . . to invent my best self . . . and make first new impressions.

Thank you for placing me in a unique setting that allowed me to feel a sense of connectedness, belonging and safety . . . and an acceptance of and appreciation for me.

Thank you for turning me loose to play freely – and, in so doing, I have acquired a sense of playfulness that hopefully will survive well beyond my youth.

Thank you for sending me to camp – a child-centered environment where the hurry, stress and demands of life away from camp were almost totally eliminated.

Thank you for providing me with a place where I could make my own fun and most importantly, make my own choices.

Thank you for allowing camp to teach me what positive things to say and do when I made mistakes and faced challenges – without feeling bad about or unsure of myself.
Thank you for giving me the chance to choose my own activities instead of doing what was expected.

Thank you for sending me to a place where I could make new friends, enjoy the outdoors, short-sheet my counselors’ beds and try and try and sneak candy into my cabin.

Thank you for staying “connected” with me this summer through your handwritten letters.

Thank you for indirectly teaching me an important life lesson that  will surely stay with me through adulthood: even though at first it was a scary experience  being away from you, I know now that I can take care of myself.

Thank you for letting me go which I know is not always easy for a parent to do.

Thank you for the fond, fuzzy memories of a summer where I lived with camp friends in bunk-filled cabins in the woods.

Thank you for the opportunity to take canoe trips down remote stretches of river and help pitch tents, collect firewood,  prep and cook some of my own meals. Thank you letting me sleep underneath the stars.  These experiences have given me a kind of self-confidence I am not sure I could have gotten any other way.

Thank you for sending me to camp where I learned that I was competent in ways I never dreamed possible.

Thanks for not coming to get me when I begged to come home.  As a result I learned that you have faith in my abilities to adjust to whatever comes my way.

Thank you for the opportunity to live in a cramped small living space with a group of girls – many of whom I did not know until camp – who are now some of my best friends . . . and surely will be for the rest of my life.

Thank you for the lessons about responsibility, teamwork and leadership – skills that I can now take back to home and school . . . and beyond . . .

Thank you for the chance to learn that requiring all kids to do everything equally well is a mistake – and that, instead, my individual talents and interests – found, tapped, nurtured and applauded at camp – set me apart in all ways good.

Thank you for providing me a place where I could develop my independence and grow in confidence.

Thank you (I think??) for allowing camp to make me clean the cabin, hop and clear at meals, sort and fold my own clothes.

Thank you for the opportunity to live with girls whom I didn’t always get along with but with whom I learned to deal with our differences in a productive positive way.

Thank you for putting me into a situation where I could really test my limits . . . and expand my horizons.

Thank you for allowing me to develop resiliency – by learning, when I sometimes fall short, how to bounce back from everyday challenges.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make my own decisions . . .  discover my own strengths . . .

Thank you for allowing my cabin counselor to do her best to help me get through it when I was homesick, upset or sad.

Thank you for the opportunity to be embraced by unique and special traditions and customs  – the “secret codes” of my camp.

Thank you for a chance to experience new adventures.

Thank you for the ability to surprise even myself when I found that I could achieve results in spite of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Thank you for providing me with an experience that will surely reap benefits for a lifetime.

Thank your for allowing me to step out of my comfort zone, to spread my wings and learn to fly.

Thank you for the gift of camp.

Love,
Your Happy Camper

Seriously – when was the last time the corners of your mouth turned up . . . and you found yourself smiling . . . giving way to a giggle . . . and then letting loose with a belly-aching, side-splitting, tears-streaming-down-your-face laugh-out-loud laugh?  Just when was the last time you found yourself on a laughter high??!!

Seriously – do you know that a child laughs 400 times a day on the average, while an adult laughs only 15 times each day?  Lord knows we weren’t born serious!!  While I may be chronologically challenged, I remember being a child – a time in my life when most everything seemed funny!  My mom would gum her lips together and pretend to be toothless as she innocently asked if anyone had seen her teeth.  My uncle would burp after a holiday meal and say “My compliments to the chef.”  (When not relentlessly teasing me as only older brothers can!) My older brother could simply make a face and say something that was not even remotely funny but in its delivery would send me into a fit of laughter.

Seriously – when did we adults stop laughing??  Why did my mother’s “toothless” banter become insensitive?  My uncle’s belch not proper etiquette?  My brother’s jokes and goofy faces – in a word – juvenile?  When did I  – along with all those other grown-ups who have neglected their birthright to gut-wrenching laughter – become so serious??

During the Great Depression of the 1930s it is estimated that people laughed approximately 16–18 minutes each day; in 2009, grown-ups (on the average) laugh but six, out of a total 1440, minutes each day.  We adults have become much-too-much terminally too serious!!

Why are we so serious when no one can deny that laughter is good . . . laughter is healthy . . . indeed, laughter begets laughter??!!

Case-in-point: Just last week I was having lunch in one of my favorite local “haunts” with me-myself-and-I when, over the hustle-and-bustle of typical customer and service noise, the sound of an infant caught my attention.  I don’t know what the baby’s mom said or did that prompted what first sounded like a meow . . . which chorused into a baby’s giggle . . . which crashendoed into a gasping-for-air-legs-and-arms-flailing kind of laugh as only a baby can laugh.  What I do know is that the baby’s laughter became infectious as it sent up a chain reaction from those within ear-shot.  Seriously there wasn’t a person who did not stop and listen to the magical sound of laughter as it literally tsunami-ed across the restaurant.  Within moments there was not a down-turned mouth to be seen – not a serious face in the crowd – as patron after patron succumbed to the domino-effect of a child’s laugh.

What’s that expression about “out of the mouth of babes”?  As proven to me last week, one of the sweetest sounds in the world is the laughter of a child.  Clearly spending time with kids is a guaranteed, sure fire, funny bone tickling way to add humor and laughter to our daily lives — to help us take ourselves far less seriously — to enjoy the funny side of life.  How fortunate I am to spend every single summer day — all day for eight weeks straight — at Camp Kamaji in the company of kids . . .  the true “experts” on playing and taking life lightly all the while laughing.

Seriously – steal some time with kids each day and you’ll be surprised at the laughter that effortlessly bubbles forth from them . . . and from you!

Seriously – let’s all get serious – about laughing!!

To help you get started click here to get high on laughter.

For better or worse, for most campers – regardless of where they go to camp –  the academic school year is stretched over 9+ months; summer camp is, at best, anywhere from a week to 8 weeks. And yet so much learning takes place at camp . . . maybe not in “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic” but – in my opinion – an equally invaluable education as that which takes place in a desk-ordered, teacher-led, textbook-driven classroom.

Okay, Okay – I’ll admit my description of a school classroom may be a bit harsh but imagine my dismay when I read the following article – How to Spend a Productive Summer – written for high school students and offering advice on preparing for college admissions.

SUMMER DON’TS *
• Camp:
Unless you are a focused athlete and you are attending a sports camp, sleepaway camp and camping trips should end before the summer preceding ninth grade. The only exception to this rule is if a student has the opportunity to take on a leadership role such as a CIT (counselor in training), and even then, the summer before ninth grade should be the last year at camp. Colleges are not looking for experts in the arts of s’more-making and spin the bottle!

Obviously whoever wrote that “sage” advice never went to camp. . .or on a Pine Manor Canadian Canoe Trip!!  “The art of s’more- making and spin the bottle”?? How can someone who clearly has never realized the gift of camp generalize and trivialize the value – the educational value – of summer camp??!!

In search of expert opinion to support my case for the educational value of summer camp, I came across an article entitled Why Camp?.  Authored  by Andy Pritikin (owner and director of Liberty Lake Day Camp in Columbus, NJ and board member of the American Camp Association of which Camp Kamaji is a member)  I took the liberty of liberally excerpting, paraphrasing and repurposing Why Camp? and offer the following:

1.    In today’s world, kids often struggle in a clock-driven, “made over,” adult-oriented world where they are “fast tracked” to adulthood . . . where they are pre-programmed from sunrise to sundown.   Think about it: between the hours spent in school and extracurricular activities, participating in sports and attending to homework, studying and research projects, our children put in a longer “work” day than most American adults!!

Childhood should not be a dress rehearsal for adulthood.  Whatever happened to letting kids be kids?   Where is the time to simply “hang out” with friends or even family?  Truth-be-told, society makes it challenging for (a lot of over-stressed, over-programmed) kids to become the kind of well-adjusted adults we really want them to become.  Camp can be is an oasis by providing a safe, relaxing, playful environment for children free from pressures they have during the school year.  Camp can be is a place where kids can forget about the worries of everyday life and live simple, uncomplicated, child-friendly, child-centered lives that make more sense than their over-scheduled ones at home and school.

2.    Summer camp offers creative and athletic activities which keep the brain and body working at peak performance.   The group setting and activities of camp provide a real-life, hands-on, experiential classroom where kids and young adults learn the skills of developing relationships and making friends, negotiation, compromise, conflict resolution, cooperation, self-advocacy, group teamwork and decision-making.  Kids explore and learn new activities.  Supervised by trained staff within a safe, structured, positive, child-centered and fun(!) environment, kids at camp are respected, trusted, encouraged, praised and loved, valued and inspired.

3.    Camp is real . . . and it’s magical.  It is a place where children are inspired to believe that anything is possible and that their potential is limitless.

4.    Camp provides a safe environment for children to attempt risks, fail, try again, and succeed!! All without the fear of a failing grade or embarrassment or “academically imposed tracking”.

5.    At home  parents (with only the best of intentions) micromanage their kids from getting them up in the morning to making their beds, from cooking and cleaning up after them to chauffeuring  them from place-to-place, from helping them with their homework to running interference when things don’t go their way.  At camp, where  mom and dad are not around to act as a safety net,  kids are empowered to make their own decisions – decisions that directly impact them, that have consequences. . .  Kids love camp – because they get to feel like grown-ups.  And campers actually do grow up  –  little-by-little, day-by-day.

6.    At camp everyone has the same stuff:  a T-shirt, a pair of tennis shoes, a bathing suit, a flashlight, a sleeping bag . . . and little else.  (Okay maybe Kamaji campers pack a little more!!)  Judged solely by their behavior rather than by things of superficial value, kids learn things of real value – personal responsibility, independence, self-confidence, respect, social awareness, and cheerfulness:  skills  sought after by both fine colleges and future employers – life skills needed to become a happy, successful adult.

7.    Camp not only brings out the best in a person, it brings out the “real” person.  It peels back all the layers that everyday life adds and reveals a camper’s true identity.

Okay, I could go on . . . and on (as well those of you who know me know I can!!) but I’ll get off my soapbox now.  However, before I do I would ask the author of the list of  Summer Don’ts for College-Bound High School Students:  Have you ever met anyone who has gone to summer camp?  Ever listen to them go on and on about that amazing counselor, or their close “camp friends” that they still speak to years later? Ever read an essay by a Kamaji Pine Manor camper who has canoed into the horizon of a dawning sun, lugged canoes and backpacks across portages with mud-up-to-her-hips and laughed about it, set up tents in a whirlwind of  flapping nylon in the advent of a summer thunderstorm and then curled up in a sleeping bag as the lightening flashes white-and-orange over Canadian lakes?

Have you ever felt so alive, so empowered, so together with campers – friends and peers – and counselors and trip leader – mentors and role models –  forming a bond of unified strength, courage and love. Have you ever instilled in those who undertook the challenge of a lifetime at 15 years of age (as rising high school sophomores) “the inspiration and confidence to chase down their dreams and ride them out?”

For you without this experience, it must sound quite strange – as obviously you think “camp” is just a bunch of kids and counselors running around playing games (like Spin the Bottle) and making s’mores?  But if you talk to any camper, camp parent, camp counselor, camp director, you’ll be told endless stories filled with memories and life-altering experiences.    Truly camp is one of those things in life that, unless you’ve lived  it, you cannot even begin to appreciate its impact.

That said, I respectfully urge you – author of the Summer Don’ts –  DO GO TO CAMP!!