The colder it gets, the warmer our thoughts

The weather outside might be frightful, but the cold always gets me thinking about warmer days.

How did you spend the summers of your youth?

For many of us, summer signaled the camp season. For me, for many summers, that meant a trip to Maine, where I spent eight weeks in an idyllic setting by the side of a lake.

At the all-girls’ camp my parents chose for me, there were open fields ringed by woods, and plenty of tennis courts and other sports venues to tempt this completely non-athletic child. The camp had a history dating to the 1920s, and there were photos of campers lining the walls of the lodge where the camp community gathered for programs and activities.

It really didn’t seem idyllic to me at the time. Camp was my parents’ idea. For many of the six years I attended overnight camp, I would have preferred to have stayed at home, where I could visit my school fr iends.

But my parents’ decision led to me developing friendships with campers from across the country. And I was forced to participate in sports I never would have tried if I hadn’t gone to camp. I got a chance to act in plays. I learned about photography. And, in my last year, I became a co-editor of the camp newspaper – I suspect you can guess how that influenced my career choice.

Once a summer, we had a social activity with a nearby boys’ camp. I remember being completely uninterested at the time. But that was not the case at other camps where some of the campers met their true loves! We talked to a few for this issue, see page 16. If we left you out of this fun feature, our apologies. Let us know who you are.

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