It's 'I hope we never part!' Get it right or pay the price!

Over the weekend in the drunk thread Nettdata was explaining how his Mom used to rub her boobs against his underwear when he was a kid, or something like that. Anyway, he compared it to my time at Math Camp.

I lamented that I had never been to Math Camp, or any sort of camp really, when I was a kid. I don't think I'm particularly worse off for it, but I've always found the whole concept fascinating. I probably wouldn't have known how to enjoy it as a kid, but I sure as hell wouldn't mind going now. Too bad they don't make summer camp for adults.

FOCUS: Did you go to camp as a child? What kind? What did you learn there? How did it form who you are today? Did you have your first experiments with the opposite sex there? Or the same sex? Do tell!

 

Oh man. I loved camp. And I bet there's at least one "alumni" from my camp on this board because it's turning out to be like this secret society where I run into them everywhere: Frost Valley. Anyone? Anyone?

Anyway, I don't have any juicy stories about it because it was all pretty wholesome, but it was a great experience. If I have kids, I am absolutely sending them to sleepaway camp. Not only was it great to just get away for a couple of weeks (and I'm sure my dad appreciated me being gone too), but it totally helped me break out of my shell because I was really shy when I was younger. Along with being left home alone/taking care of the house from an early age, it was a big factor in my independence and ability to handle myself/take care of myself when I left home too.

Then when I was too old for that camp, I went to a writing workshop at a college for a couple of weeks the next summer and that was basically heaven because at that point I couldn't wait to go to college and it was pretty close to the real thing.

The day camps I went to were torture though. Fuck them.

 

I went to a girl scout camp. It was an all girls camp where we rode horses and I wrote my first play. I went every year until I was 16, and it was only enjoyable every other year. I eventually got my certification in camp counseling and worked for the JCC summer camp. Now, I have nothing against Jewish people, but their kids are assholes. They're spoiled brats. All of them. At least all of them at the camp.

 

They kinda do. Most "conventions" are about 10% legitimate industry stuff, and 90% dicking around with a bunch of like-minded strangers. It just doesn't last as long as camp, and you get to stay in a hotel instead of a bunk.

 

I went to church camp, one week duration, for three summers in a row. My parents (Mom, mostly), being ultra-christian, figured that being around christian youths would shape me right up. She failed to realize everyone else that sent their kids there was thinking the same thing.

My first third base experience was at church camp right before 7th grade with a girl named Tiffany Kruse. Super sweet semi-religious cheerleader from a small town south of me. Her parents sent her there for the same reason, and it benefited all.

I can honestly say that the only effect my Mom intended that actually happened, is that when I was still superstitious enough to pray, the Kruse family is one I prayed for every night.

Oh, and I saw her several years later at a car show her parents brought her to, before they actually brought out most of the show cars. Do you know how awesome it is to fuck in the back of a '57 Chevy? I do. It's like a big leather couch you really don't want to stain.




Still awesome.


Oh, and the summer camp for adults should be more like this

 

I was a camp kid. I went for my first summer when I was 10 and my last was when I was 17. (Cheley Colorado Camps, on the off chance someone here went there as well.) The first summer I went for a month, every summer after that I went for 2. I still keep in touch with 4 or 5 people I met there.

I met the girl I lost my virginity to there. Unfortunately, it was not actually at the camp where that happened.

The summer between my freshman and sophomore and sophomore and junior years in college I worked as a counselor at a camp in North Carolina. I met the woman who would later become Mrs. Noland while there. Our oldest son will be going there this summer.

 

I attended Bible camp, naturally. Most of my memories of camp are of the hot male counsellors I had crushes on. I was so obsessive about one said counsellor that upon my return home and finding that my cat had given birth to a litter of kittens, I decided to name mine after him. The name? Warren. Yeah, I was a weird kid. Later on, I actually worked at the same camp and realized that I would have definitely been a camper that counsellors made fun of.

 

I just spent the last 20 minutes typing a lengthy, heart-felt answer to this thread, only to clumsily delete it by accident.

Focus:

I attended two camps growing up:

1) UBC Hockey School (Attended six summers. Age 10 - 16)

- Three hours of hockey a day.
- Tons of fun outdoor activities.
- Great food.
- Great staff.
- At age 10, I could barely stop. By age 16 I was the captain of my Midget AA team. This place deserves a ton of credit for helping mold my talent and my leadership.

2) Christian Summer Camp in Washington State (Attended eight summers. Four as a camper, Four as a staff member)

- First kiss. (Her name was Laura, she was from Eugene, Oregon and she loved the same music I did. 8th grade romance at it's best.)
- Discovered faith in God.
- Great staff.
- Great activities.
- Good food.

My four summers spent on staff were four of the greatest summers I could ever imagine. I am still friends with many fellow staffers and I give that place a TON of credit for the many positive influences it had on my life.

Granted my perspective on faith and God has changed drastically over the past five years, but I still credit the camp for at least giving me the knowledge, experience and fulfillment that still sticks with me to this very day.

My kids will attend both camps should they want too one day.

 

The one upstate? I've been a few times, but never during the summer.

 

I went to scout camp once. We were all about 12 years old. One lad shit himself one night and just left his undies with shit in them in the middle of the bedroom floor. The next day we chased him throwing stones, eventually one hit him and the scout leader had to ring an ambulance.

That's all I remember from the trip, although it lasted a couple of weeks.

 

"This one time, at band camp..."


The only camp I ever attended was with Boy Scouts for 2 weeks. It was alright. Got me out of the city for a couple of weeks, got to shoot .22 rifles, do some fishing, and practice pyromania. One summer we reconstructed a footbridge that crossed over a small creek using logs we cut from felled trees and lashing them together with leather cord which was pretty cool.

 

I went to a lot of camps as a kid. They were cheap and got me out my parents' hair.

I went to 4-H camp, which is your basic overnight camp with cabins and girls and arts and crafts.

I went to Boy Scout camp, which is your basic overnight camp with tents and no girls and guns and guys fucking with you every way they can think of.

I went a couple nerd camps, which were your basic overnight camp with dorms and nerds and math.

I went to a Church service camp in high school, where we would travel to some place with other youth groups and fix up homes of poor elderly in an area.

I also went to cross country camp in high school, which is the big week of your summer training and lots of fucking around with your teammates. Because they couldn't make us do hours and hours of drills, we had way more free time than the other sports and found the most inane ways to fill it.

All in all, I enjoyed them all.

 

Oh man, I LOVED summer camp. I went to Camp Olympic from the age of 5 until 13. It was a day camp that had three 2-week sessions throughout the summer. I went for all three sessions, I loved it so much. In the morning, you played games with your age group, then swimming lessons, lunch, and in the afternoon there was free time. During free time you could do arts and crafts, ride go carts and minibikes, watch a movie in the movie barn, do archery, canoeing, street hockey, and whatever the "game of the day" was. After free time was free swim and then you got picked up. You had the option of going cray fishing during free swim if you wanted.

At camp, I learned that I loved minibikes, LOVED canoeing and basically loved any outdoor activity. I also had my first kiss while on a solo canoe ride. Suave, I know. Camp Olympic was the highlight of my summer. I'm genuinely upset that the camp had to shut down because I was looking forward to sending my kids there. They also had sports camps and I attended their basketball and volleyball camps.

I eventually became a junior counselor when I was too old to be a camper. Then I had to get a real job because I wasn't allowed to come back one summer since some uptight mom complained I cursed around her child. Bitches.

 

I went to a couple basketball camps, the most notable of which was 5-Star my sophmore year of high school. I got to meet a bunch of players who were much better than I am. For some reason, I was at a meal table with a bunch of the best campers, including two who now play in the NBA.

Whatever, I'm sure they're telling their hookers and piles of cocaine how much fun they had swiping my chocolate milk.

Basketball-wise, it was good; I played 9-12 hours of basketball every day, from as soon as it was light enough to shoot around, to until was too dark. I wound up with the darkest (and possibly only) tan of my life; I didn't really feel like I got that much better, but all the coaches at my high school did, so I guess I improved.

 

Band camp.

And not the kind where girls are sticking flutes up their pussies. An utterly sexless, overly-chaperoned, nerd plagued week held at a some Christian youth camp so all those little weiner kids could piss me off too.

WELCOME TO BAND CAMP:

-wake up at 5 am.

-march around 6-8 hours a day in the middle of summer. Hot. Humid. The chafing between your legs gives you swampbutt. The skin in your gooch is raw and peeling for the next week.

-Enjoy the terrible food. Any food that is fit for humans is limited. One chocolate milk. They cut the granola bars into thirds so you can't steal them effectively. Campy christian sing-a-longs before and after every meal.

-As the sun starts to go down, it becomes pleasant outside. The mosquitos come out and make it intolerable.

-All of the band nerds take this with optimistic, overly-enthusiastic cheer. This is their Mecca.

I can't say there weren't a few positives though. Most of them involve laughing at repressed, alienated nerd-cult band kids.

-This one girl was so fat that she couldn't march, but really wanted to be in band. They had her play triangle and tambourine and shit in the pit (people who just stand on the sidelines).

-One of my friends told her that Dumbledore dies when she hadn't read Harry Potter yet and she started bawling. I cried too, it was that funny... then I just felt like an asshole though. Hey, I didn't tell her!

-At the beginning of the day we ran 1 (one) lap around a soccer field. There were numerous people who struggled with this.

-One of these strugglers was another fat girl who I have no sympathy for. She would fake injuries for attention. She would wear increasingly anguished expressions throughout the day until the band director would come talk to her. Then she would heroically perservere but still letting everyone know how much pain she was in. When we were done I'd see her absurdly ridiculous exaggerated limp off the field. Then she'd be fine by dinner.

So basically, making fun of fat kids was the highlight of band camp, everything else sucked.

 

I went to Miami University basketball camp two years in a row. One straight week of basketball. We basically did 3-a-day sessions, one after each meal, of drills and games with Miami's players, coaches, and managers as counselors. The camp in 1997 was especially fun. The NBA draft occured in the middle of the week, and there was a lot of excitement that one of Miami's players, Devin Davis, might get drafted. He didn't, despite serious consideration from the Atlanta Hawks, but he still signed autographs for everyone the next day. I think he's still enjoying a good career in Europe. Wally Szczerbiak was also one of the camp counselors, but I don't remember him being there...this was a year before he really started to blow up.

The big highlights for me were winning my age group's free throw competition (Yes, I am white) and nearly toppling the high school age champion in the camp-wide competition. I also challenged Ira Newble to a game of one on one, and he blocked all of my shots.

What I really struggled with was ball handling. Every day we did drills on each aspect of the individual game (jump shooting, rebounding, passing, ball handling, and defense), and I hated the ball handling drills. In a stationary position, we had to dribble through and around our legs in a figure-8 motion. Miami's head coach, Charlie Coles, who is still there and is the MAC's all-time winningest coach as well as the coolest coach in college basketball, noticed me struggling and said something to the effect of "We'll be here all night before this guy figures it out." That's what Charlie does....a Charlie press conference is usually a lot of fun to listen to because just like he did with me, he will make fun of his players to everyone around him, as you'll see below. Even though I attended Miami's rival school, I've been Charlie fan ever since.

 

We had vastly different band camp experiences. We all slept on a gym floor at one of the universities in Ohio. Get up at 8:00, have 3 different rehearsal blocks (9-12, 1-5, 6-10) every day for 3 weeks. The nights were mostly an exercise on how to sloppily fornicate in sleeping bags. We'd get one evening off a week to do laundry and head into town for some time off, which was usually spent drinking.

Ah, the good ol' days. Then again, it was DCI, so I'm not sure you can quite call it "band camp." Close enough.

 

My parents shelled out coin for all sorts of camps for me as a kid. I went to regular daycamps, hockey camps, canoe & kayaking camp, horseback riding camp, sailing camp, camp camps (outdoorsy types), etc. Eight out of the ten weeks of practically every summer as a kid I was at camp, and I liked it. I tried to become a counsellor in my teens, but I fucked my supervisor (my virginity termination, truthfully) and we were fired. Probably explains my attraction to (slightly) older women.