Camp Goof-Off

Kids today are so busy……they need a schedule to schedule their schedules. They may be more accomplished at younger ages than we were, but I feel sorry for them. I think they are missing out on having down time. Time unscheduled…time to be a kid.

Today if kids have down time…even an hour between activities suddenly they are bored. And can you blame them? Everything is instant…IM, text message, DVR, On Demand…Mommy on demand.

As a kid, I had lots of down time especially in the summer. A summer seemed like an entire year onto itself. Heck a day, felt like a week…..

During summers we would stay at the camp my Grandmother owned on 100 acres in Vermont with our cousins. Camp consisted of two log cabins, a bunkhouse log cabin, an outhouse…no electricity, and no running water.

Playing outside all day…was our job. And we took our job seriously. We’d pack our lunch and head for the hills….which was easy…cuz we were already there. On warm days we’d spend hours stone stepping through a brook…jumping from rock to rock until we’d get the lunch call for bug juice and sandwiches…pb and j, pb and marshmallow, deviled ham, olive loaf (no thanks!) We’d drink water that collected in a tub from a natural spring. We’d play horseshoes or watch our uncles play…who impressed us with their “throwing” skills.

We’d have camp fires…and run around at night catching fire fires and playing vampires. We’d listen to our aunts and uncles in the main cabin play cards, sing and tell jokes. We’d get rides on an old jeep up to the top of mountain. We’d pick apples…or crab apples and come down with an occasional belly ache. We’d take off on a hike with our supplies…climb trees, carve our names in trees, cut down trees, make log cabins, run through ferns as tall as us…and play hide and seek in them. We’d have running races and high-jump contests. We’d walk to the Girl Scout Camp down the road and swim (and sometimes bathe) in their pond (when they weren’t there.) And so much more…

What stands out the most….is not once did I mention a phone, computer, iPod, radio or television. Those were the days.

When Colinboy was in middle school we signed him up for a YMCA camp…two weeks on a lake….where he would swim, play games (that were not electronic), live in a bunkhouse …just like my good ole days. A neighbor asked me what our kids were doing for the summer and when I mentioned that Colinboy was going to a YMCA camp…he said, “Oh, a goof-off camp.” He wasn’t impressed…it wasn’t a basketball, baseball, foreign language, or a computer camp.

Colinboy LOVED Camp “Goof-off”….and I loved having him enjoy a taste of the type of summer I experienced…when I was a goof-off.