April 10, 2003
It's time for summer camp ...
Well, Chris, after long and sometimes heated discussions, your mother and I have decided to ship you off to a nice secular humanist summer camp in the Smokies. Maybe that will straighten you out. God knows, we haven't been able to.
Which gets me waxing nostalgic (I do that a lot, don't I?)
I remember my one brush with summer camp -- Camp Rosary. A nice Catholic retreat somewhere out in the woods of Pennsylvania. My brother Steve and I were loaded on a bus and whisked away from home for the first extended time in our young lives. I still have vivid memories of that place. Raiding other cabins. Sack races. The canteen where we bought snacks. The spiffy Jesus crafts. And these strange women who played folk tunes around the campfire each night. I remember them playing "Leaving on a Jetplane" over and over and over ...
It was only toward the end of camp that we found out these women were nuns. They sure didn't act like the sinister Sister Mary Lucille of St. Anselm Grade School fame. They seemed, well, normal. Even hippiefied, in a nice, safe Catholic kinda way. More Vatican II fallout, I guess.
Posted by Bob Benz at April 10, 2003 8:34 PM
Dear Mom and Pop,
Finally! A REAL home in THIS world. I LOVE this camp! Thanks Mom, thanks Pop. Ever since I found out you two were really Anglicans from New Zealand I haven't really felt, you know, connected to you! And of course all of those beatings for playing Fundamentalist Church at Episcopal Summer Camp w/Suzy Q (where I was the traveling revival preacher, she the church secretary) were, I thought, highly unwarranted! So bite me! Anyhow, I'm late for Exclamation Point Class, and it's my turn to mix the Non-Fundamentalist Cult-Kool-Aid!
Posted by: Chris at April 11, 2003 10:07 AM