The summer I turned 12 my parents offered me a choice. I could get the braces I needed (for mostly cosmetic reasons) or I could go back to camp for a 4th summer. They couldn’t afford both.
I chose camp.
As much as I’ve wrung my hands over that choice, I don’t regret it one bit. Camp made me. How else can I explain the fact that I remember almost every word to our Color War theme songs over twenty five years later?
Camp is one of the things that I’ve struggled with as a parent, particularly one on the west coast. Going off to camp was a common rite of passage back east where I grew up. Everyone came back to school with tales of bunk raids and mammoth mosquito bites. But here in Cali all the overnight camps I’ve investigated seem so specialized. They seem focused on a skill or a talent or cementing a religious belief… So much so that I’ve even investigated sending my kids back to my own Catskills stomping grounds just so they too can experience that bonfires burning, crickets chirping, lungful of sunshine summer camp feeling that was so much a part of my youth.
But man, it’s expensive to fly kids back east for summer camp. Particularly when they need braces!
This is just one reason I’m thrilled to have discovered Catalina Island Camps.
Let me tell you about Catalina. I’m not sure if time slowed down gracefully in the early 80s there. Or if there is just a different drumbeat. But when I go to Catalina, it’s like the world makes sense again to my east coast grown, old-fashioned vacation loving self.
You don’t have to kick the kids outside and force them to play on Catalina. If anything, you have to beg them to come inside.
People spend their days hiking, swimming and sailing on Catalina. They ride bikes and they watch stars. The kind in the sky. They talk to each other. They always have sand stuck somewhere, even after a shower. But that’s ok. It’s better than ok. It’s exactly what I’d wish for my 7 year old nature boy, as he turns 8. I wish for him to put down the books and computer games and be a kid, be a BOY, at one with sea and island.
It’s also what I’d wish for my daughter as she teeters on the cusp of teenagerdom. Spend one last summer being a girl. Get freckles on her shoulders even though she uses sunscreen, act silly and forget about brands of backpacks. I’d like her to spend this last summer of her childhood as far from the mall as humanly possible. I wonder if it’s possible to get a doctor to write a prescription for that?
Childhood is brief. Mine was, and it’s poignant to realize that my own kid’s will be too.
I’m sure that spy camp and computer game programming camp and commercial acting camps (all of which are popular back here on the “mainland”) are heaps of fun. But they aren’t worth growing up with slightly crooked teeth over.
But This… This is a camp. Shhh… It’s so awesome I think it might be even better than my own Adirondack experience. The Catskills have a shocking lack of snorkeling.
Browsing through Catalina Island Camp’s website I think I may have discovered a time portal. Or an intention portal. Could that be a thing? Finally, here’s a camp that could mean something to my kids when they grow up. They might even sign up for the Facebook page and find their old friends in 25 years, like I did. Note: My old friends remember the Color War songs too. They too suffer from dirty looks from spouses when they sing Oh ho ho… let’s Go Seminole! to the chorus of “China Grove”.
The photos and videos of the activities at Catalina Camps bring back so many memories for me. Kayaking, Sailing, Arts and Crafts and Ropes courses are just a few of the activities that I loved then & know now that my kids would love too.
I’ve shared a few of my old camp photos here. What are your favorite memories from camp? Do you send your kids to sleepaway summer camp?
As an adult and a mom I know the value of summer camp. But I also face the same sort of choices my parents did all those years ago. With two of my kids currently in braces and private school tuition, it’s a struggle to give them the summer experiences I want to give them. But I’m not going to give up trying. Camp is amazing. Camp changes lives! I think one of the things I learned and had reinforced at camp was “where there is a will, there is a way!”
I am entering to win a session of summer camp for a child at Catalina Island Camps from The SITS Girls! Below are the children I’d choose from!
can’t wait till my kids can go away to camp!! I did not go as a kid I was shipped to california because AZ was too hot. but when I hit highschool I went to work at sleep away camp in northern AZ. it was a place where I met the best friends I have ever had! and experienced a being accepted for who I was on the inside vs. the outside! till this day! my only regret that we did not have facebook and email back then to keep in touch!! just love it !! and hope yours can go!!!!
I enjoyed this article mostly because I never had the opportunity to go to camp as a child and in a way I feel like I missed out. My husband on the other hand went to camp in Colorado, where he grew up. He was also a camp counselor as a teenager and he still talks about camp to this day. He always says he wants our daughter to go to camp when she is old enough someday too. Thanks for informing us of this one, maybe we will send her there someday.
This camp looks fabulous! What an experience for the kids.
Aw how fun! I never went to camp- I avoided it like the plague… This is the first time I actually think I missed out!
Interesting. There was no camp in Tucson. Camp was only in movies and tv shows and sounded like such an adventure. Because I never went away to camp, I can’t imagine sending me kids off for a week.
I loved camp! I went every summer, i think is important for kids to be away from their parents once in a ahilé.
Awww…I love these old pictures – and the camp sounds amazing! I wish you luck and I hope you don’t have to choose between kids. ; )
I was not allowed to go to camp. My mom was firmly anti kids sleeping anywhere not home. That’s probably why I will send my kid to camp, cause I always watched those shows on TV (with all those 80’s and 90’s kid stars) about camp and I so wanted to be there. I’ll be living vicariously through my daughter in about… 7 yrs? 🙂
I remember camping at Catalina! Wonderful memories. Good luck to you!
I would have picked summer camp too! best memories!
Good luck my friend! I went to day camp. I’m so not ready to ship my babies off… YET!
I went to Musical theater camp but this looks like so much fun