Camp Freewrite

(Chapter 2, Box 4 Action)

As Erin and I begin to work on our big Lake James project, I must think back to my childhood. For those of you unfamiliar with the topic Erin and I will be writing about, we are writing about the history of Camp Pokagon with a focus on some of the boy's and girl's camps in the Lake James area. Like many of the children who played on the beaches of Lake James, I, too, once spent a weekend of my summer at camp.

At age 10, I was a second-year member of the Campfire girls in Holland, Michigan. My particular troop originated from Maplewood Elementary School, which was located just a few short miles from Lake Michigan. During the school year many of us Campfire girls worked hard at many projects to earn patches and beads for our Campfire vests (similar to Girl Scouts). We learned about recycling, learned photography, practiced using our imaginations, visited a real news station in Grand Rapids and later filmed our own program on public television, and even learned how to make homemade candy. However, nothing beat preparing for our first weekend (well, at least my first weekend) away from home to earn our badges for learning real camping skills.

I remember learning to tie at least ten different types of knots, learning how to start a fire with sticks and brush and also with pieces of flint, and learning the different plants on nature walks near the dunes of the lake. I remember staring in amazement at the bunk beds stacked three high that wrapped around the room of our cabin, and I remember unrolling my green sleeping bag on a bunk that was literally less than two feet from the ceiling.

The most fun of all, as I imagine it is for all young children, was the nighttime. Outside we built a fire as big as we were and set out immediately making Smores. Even though I never liked Smores, making them was exciting. I'd see how long I could hold the marshmallows over the fire before they erupted into flame and oozed down into the glowing embers below. After Smores were classic campfire staples such as star gazing, rounds of "Koombaya" and ghost stories. Under the full moon we also carried our flashlights on a nighttime hike that was punctuated with the shrill shrieks of pre-adolescent girls who swore they just had heard an animal/murderer/ghost following us through the woods.

The last day of camp was filled with equal parts rain and sorrow. I had to leave this entirely different way of life and head back into the city where I'd be learning nothing other than reading, writing, and arithmetic in the fall; where nighttime would be filled with orange light pollution and random music from the cars that sped past my house; and where my bed was just another mattress covered in New Kids on the Block bedsheets. I wonder if all those kids who spent their summers on Lake James felt the same as I did.