Happy Camper

Happy Camper

Why me?

That’s what I ask myself every Friday at camp, every single summer. While all the rest of my friends rush to the gate to get their piping hot kugel, fresh laundry, and who knows what else, I’m stuck with whatever canteen has, just like the rest of the week. And forget about laundry. My clean clothes are unceremoniously dumped right in the middle of the bunkhouse, mixed up with the other unfortunates whose parents aren’t available to wash their stuff. It is not fun digging out your clothes from that mound, particularly when all those stick-on labels you thought were so easy to use keep falling off.

It’s not just Friday that has me in a funk. It’s also visiting day.

This is how visiting day goes for most of my friends: their parents arrive at the earliest possible time. They tip the counselors, pick up any more stray laundry, and make a quick exit to their bungalow colony, where they’ll spend a leisurely day at the pool, likely followed by a hefty barbecue.

This is how my visiting day goes: I wait at the gate for at least an hour (I don’t know why I haven’t yet learned my lesson), at which point I usually give up and head back to my bunkhouse and try to ignore all the visitors milling around. It takes at least until lunch time for my parents to make their excited entrance to the camp, and they always express their surprise that I have not been waiting at the gate. Then they talk about how much traffic there was, and then my little brother announces that he wants to see the entire camp grounds, and then my family eats lunch in the dining hall, which is the very last place I want to eat, being that I’ve eaten there a good 30 times by the time they visit. We walk around a bit, talk a bit, and before I know it they have to head home to beat the traffic so my parents can get up super early (as usual) for work the next day.

I know, I know – I sound ungrateful. It’s not that I don’t appreciate the opportunity to be in camp. And I certainly appreciate my parents schlepping all the way up to the Catskills to visit me. It’s just that sometimes it seems so unfair compared to how things seem to work for the other guys. I mean, we have plenty of boys whose families don’t spend their summers in the Catskills, but for some reason, I always find myself surrounded by boys who seem to have it all, including weekly visits and constant “surprises” that are dropped off at the camp office.

I express this sentiment to Shmuel, in not so many words, when I catch him sorting through his meager stash of nosh one Friday afternoon. Shmuel hails from the Midwest, and he is far less lucky than me. He doesn’t have any visitors all summer long, not even a package.

“Gosh, Shmuel, we’re the only ones in here,” I grumble.

“Yeah, so?” he responds, rifling through the mess on his shelf.

“Don’t you think it’s pretty lousy that the entire rest of our bunk will be parading in soon with hot kugel, cholent and brownies from their mother?” I ask.

“Who cares?” Shmuel says. “Good for them. Besides, everyone shares.”

I care, I want to answer, but don’t say another word.

A couple of hours later, Yosef plops down on my bed, holding out a steaming tray. “Want a piece?” he asks.

I reach out and take a slice of deli roll. “Man, you’ve got it made,” I say.

“Yeah, I guess,” he says. “Truth is, I wouldn’t mind a break from all these visits…I just can’t bring myself to tell my mother. I don’t want to insult her.”

“Are you crazy?!” I nearly shout. “I’d kill for a delivery like this.”

“Sometimes, I just want to feel like I’m on my own,” Yosef says. “I mean, isn’t that the point of camp? You never have anyone babying you, so you just don’t get it.”

I’m still thinking about what he’s said later that day as I put on my white shirt. And I’m thinking about Shmuel’s nonchalance about the whole thing – the very thing that has really bothered me, ever since I started camp.

I think about all that as I make my way to the shul, past the verdant grounds I dream of all year, past the basketball courts and baseball diamond, past the football field I love so much.

A light breeze rustles the leaves as I wind through the trees lining the path before me, and I inhale its scent. It’s the scent of freedom. Of independence, the kind that Yosef talked about. And I think, there will always be guys who seem to have it better than me. But I’ve got it pretty good too.

And with just a few weeks left to savor it here, I’d better focus on that – steaming kugel or not.