The recent rebroadcast of the summer camp episode of This American Life has me thinking this week about Jew Camp, which will be my name for the camp where I spent the five summers prior to this one. Jew Camp is an odd Jewish summer camp because all of the campers–participants, as we called them–are in high school. Jew Camp is meant for leadership training and fun, but it’s in a typical summer camp setting, as you can see in the picture. Before Jew Camp, I spent five summers at another Jewish summer camp closer to home in Texas.
The weirdest thing about camp is that it’s the rare place in this world where you’re a customer at first, but where you enjoy working more. Everyone always told me that being on staff is more fun than being a camper and I never quite believed them. I’m not sure I even appreciated how great being on staff was until I wasn’t a counselor anymore.
A couple of weeks ago, I started hearing from friends on this summer’s staff at Jew Camp. It’s totally absorbing to hear about. Camp, as one staffer in a segment on “This American Life” pointed out, is a soap opera. I’d even say it’s a gigantic, immediate soap opera hopped up in 16-year-old hormones. It also proceeds at breakneck speed because it only has one month to see all the plots to their conclusion. What’s worse is that some plots are left as loose ends–the kiss that never happened for one camper or staffer, the ticking time bomb lunatic faculty member that never quite blew up, or the job left unfinished.
I don’t even have to be there to get wrapped up in the drama. One friend, a fellow former staff member, was visiting Jew Camp for a couple of days recently, hooked up with one of the girls on staff this summer and I found out about the whole thing over the phone with another friend. And for reasons I can’t fathom, it seemed to me like one of the most important pieces of news I’d received in weeks. But the whole thing is the seasonal opposite of a season of television. Rather than waiting all summer for the thrilling conclusion, the series  runs only in the summer, leaving the rapt voyeurs guessing at the ending for the next 10 months!
In real life, you can put things off. You can leave your colleagues unimpressed for another week, a project incomplete for a few days more. But a few days stretches into many days and another week into another month–and so on. But at camp, the project always had to be done now, and done in the most completely over-the-top way you can dream up.
“We’ve only got a week left, so this concert has to be the best one ever! Let’s get the climbing gear and go up on top of the theater, temporarily bolt expensive stage lighting to the roof and do the concert outside!”
“Instead of clearing out this garage full of crap by piling the crap into the back of the pickup truck, let’s fill the truck and this boat that we’re gonna throw away! We’ll affix wheels to the boat and attach it to the back of the truck! Quick someone stand on the back of the boat with a pirate hat! OK, let’s go!”
And so on.
Last summer wasn’t my best at Jew Camp–I don’t think it was anyone’s best. But I keep feeling the pull this summer, now that I’m away from it. Jew Camp, it seems, I wish I was with you again.
