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Bob Ditter ("Early Summer Letter to Parents: Camp -Fun, Friendship and Taking Time to Grow," 2005) wrote, "We don't get tomatoes tomorrow from seeds we plant today. Children are no different. Children may behave very differently at camp from anywhere else."
Thousands of parents receive letters from camp. One reads, "If you take me home, I'll give you all of my money for the bank and other stuff. Just take me home." He survived and later wrote, "I wasn't homesick for even one second." (FYI: The Yiddish word for homesick is "farbenkt.")
We'd all love to receive a short letter that says,
"Dear tate-mame"
I'm having too much fun to write!"
Love,
Eric
Mom and Dad must learn to read between
the lines as they study their much-too-brief
letters. Someone said that camp letters
are like an Egyptologist studying some
precious manuscript found in a pyramid.
One must learn/discover, for example, that
there is a world of difference between
"fine," "good," and "great." (In Yiddish, we
say "fayn," "gut," and "mecheiyeh.")
I recently had the pleasure of reading, "Humor for a mom's heart," stories, quips, and quotes to Lift the Heart."
(Howard Books, a division of Simon &
Schuster, Inc. 2002)
Richard W. Bimler and Robert D. Bimler wrote a piece titled, "Letter from Camp." The piece is just "vunderlekh" (wonderful), and I highly recommend the book.
Dear Mom and Dad,
We are having a great time here at Lake
Typhoid. Scoutmaster Webb is making us all write to our parents in case you saw the
flood on TV and worried. We are okay. Only one of our tents and two sleeping bags got washed away. Luckily, none of us got drowned because we were all up on the
mountain looking for Chad when it happened. Oh yes, please call Chad's mother and tell her he is okay. He can't
write because of the cast. We never would
have found him in the dark if it hadn't been
for the lightning. Scoutmaster Webb got
mad at Chad for going on a hike alone
without telling anyone. Chad said he did tell him, but it was during the fire so he
probably didn't hear him. Did you know that if you put gas on a fire, the gas can will
blow up? The wet wood still didn't burn, but one of our tents did. Also some of our
clothes. John is going to look weird until his hair grows back. We will be home on
Saturday if Scoutmaster Webb gets the car
fixed. It wasn't his fault about the wreck.
The brakes worked okay when we left.
Scoutmaster Webb said that with a car that
old, you have to expect something to break
down; that's probably why he can't get
insurance on it. We think it's a neat car. He
doesn't care if we get it dirty, and if it's hot,
sometimes he lets us ride on the tailgate.
It gets pretty hot with ten people in a car.
He let us take turns riding in the trailer
until the highway patrolman stopped and
talked to us. Scoutmaster Webb is a neat
guy. Don't worry. He's a good driver.
He is teaching Terry how to drive. But he
only lets me drive on the mountain roads
where there isn't any traffic. All we ever
see up there are logging trucks. This morning all of the guys were diving off the
rocks and swimming out in the lake.
Scoutmaster Webb wouldn't let me because
I can't swim and Chad was afraid he would
sink because of his cast, so he let us take the canoe across the lake. It was great. You
can see the trees under the water from the
flood. Scoutmaster Webb isn't crabby like
some scoutmasters. He didn't even get mad
about the life jackets. He has to spend a lot
of time working on the car so we are trying
not to cause him any trouble. Guess what?
We have all passed our first-aid merit
badges. When Dave dove in the lake and
cut this arm, we got to see how a tourniquet works. Also Wade and I threw
up. Scoutmaster Webb said it probably was
just food poisoning from the leftover chicken. I have to go now. We are going into town to mail our letters and buy bullets. Don't worry about anything. We are fine.
Love,
Ralphie
P.S. How long has it been since I had a
tetanus shot?
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Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe worked at Camp
Leonard-Leonore during the summer of
1959. She was a camp counselor for "pitselech" (little ones), and her
husband, Howard, was a group leader
for "tsenerling/yunger-mentsh" (teenagers).
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