Camp memories stick with us forever

Shoes and towels sit on the porch of a cabin on June 20 at YMCA Camp Kern in Oregonia, Ohio. As the first heat wave of the season ripples across the U.S., summer camps are working to keep their children cool while still letting the kids enjoy being outside with nature. Joshua A. Bickel/ap

Mid-August is approaching, which for our teenage offspring means the summer camp season is drawing to a close. All that remains of the summer is perhaps a late-August stint at the beach with the family before heading back in early September to the rigors of another school year.

For many of us, the summer camp experience ended decades ago. And yet the memories of camp, some proud, others painful, prove how much summer camp impacted our lives.

I recently spent some time tent-camping in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, not far from where I had attended summer camp. I was in those woods to reprise experiences I had suffered at summer camp — woodsmoke, rain on the tent fly, a rock-strewn mountain trail, hearing Barred Owls hoot after dark. One day on this recent trip, to refresh the ice in my cooler, I left the woods to visit the nearby general store, situated in a picturesque Adirondack village by a gorgeous lake studded with shoreline cottages and the bucolic campus of a boys’ camp founded more than a century ago.

The wonderfully decrepit general store I entered was packed with fishing gear, canned foods, salty and sugary snacks, and compasses and trail maps — the necessary goods to power a summer in the woods. As I was checking out, a swarm of jostling boys streamed into the store, their T-shirts emblazoned with the name of the nearby summer camp. They were on their once-a-week visit from camp to the store, to stock up on treats to offset the mediocre camp food that these camps serve in abundant portions. I was suddenly overtaken with memories of summers long past, transported back to July 1963 — underweight, unwashed, experiencing my first time away from family. Those jagged-edged memories grew fresh once again.

I spent 12 summers at camp, ending in 1974 — now 50 years ago. My recent Adirondack camping sojourn reminded me how important camp was for me and others fortunate enough to have had the experience. Go ahead … ask a friend over an evening cocktail about the summer camp he attended decades ago and stories will be told with humor and intensity. Those tales are part of who we are today. Here’s why:

Separation. The most important achievement of summer camp is separating the child from the comfort of family. This can be filled with uncertainty and fear, akin to “pulling off the Band-Aid” — a first step on the necessary road to adulthood.

Fellowship. Summer camp forces us to forge friendships with new acquaintances and requires reaching out and making contact with strangers, perhaps for the very first time.

Challenge. Being knocked down and pinned to the ground by a larger camper is part of the camp experience that teaches you to accept pain without the sympathy of a parent. It is about learning to get along in a rough-and-tumble world.

A novel environment. Being “away” is obligatory to growing up. The days of rain with only the protection of a canvas tarp overhead, or the icy water’s harsh grip during the daily early-morning plunge into the lake. We are forced to find our own solace in an environment distinct from home.

Accomplishment. Summiting a mountain for the very first time. Portaging a heavy canoe from one lake to another. Passing the junior lifesavers swim test. Such achievements help us develop a sense of self in the wider world.

The ephemeral. So many little experiences at summer camp form important memories. Glimpsing a family of otters playing in an isolated forest lake. Having to pull off a blood-sucking leech attached to your calf. These scenes are painted onto the ever-filling canvas of your life.

The eternal. The friendships kindled at summer camp can last a lifetime. And canoeing or mountain-climbing are hobbies that can be pursued for decades. I am 72 and I still enjoy sleeping in a mountain tent. Doing this today transports me back to a previous century — that’s a sort of magic that holds mortality at arm’s length.

These experiences are all elements in the march to adulthood. What could be more important in a child’s life? Summer camp offers this pathway, though you would never know it from watching the idiotic movies based on Hollywood’s wacky vision of the summer camp experience.

Summer camp introduces us to a place unique on Earth. For me, this is in the heart of the Adirondack Mountains. For others, this might be in northern Pennsylvania, the Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina, or some special lake in western Maine or central New Hampshire. Because of the critical life experiences we had there over a series of impressionable summers, that place becomes like no other. It rests within us, a place we can visit year after year via a nostalgia-filled summer road trip or a memory featured in an afternoon’s daydream. The intensity of those childhood experiences combined with the memory-rich sense of that special place leap across decades to find us here today in our very imperfect present. That’s the glory of summer camp.

Bruce Beehler ([e-mail]) is a Maryland-based naturalist and author of 15 books, including “Natural Encounters” and “Birds of Maryland, Delaware, and the District of Columbia.”