Bug Bites and Leeches...

With summer, comes camp.When I was a little girl, I attended Camp Cherith as a Pioneer girl. I learned how to canoe and swim, sing songs around the campfire, miss my parents, and pray. As a college student, I was a camp counselor and equestrian instructor at Camp Chateaugay, where I learned how to take care of girls who were homesick, kayak, start a fire, and flirt with the guy counselors (not much of a learning curve for that last one...) Those two summers were probably the best summers of my young life.  There are those of us who cherish those "camp" summers along with smokey smells, bug spray and juice. Camp was a magical place, a world so far removed from everyday life, a world where nature became our "growing up" guide. I loved camp.  Today, I had the privilege of dropping Jared off to the local YMCA day camp, not as a camper, but as a Couselor in Training! Makes you think of the "CIT" song from that Murray movie, Meatballs, doesn't it?..."We are the CITs so pity us...."  Jared will fill his afternoons for the next couple of weeks acting as a helping counselor in a group that consists of a bunch of  first graders, two of whom have special needs.  If this works out, he will have an opportunity to work for two more weeks later in the summer.  It is hard to explain how I felt as he and I walked down the dusty road to the main lodge.  I remembered my dad dropping me of at a similar gravel path so many years ago- anticipation welling up inside as each step took me closer to camp's big meeting house.  Was Jared thinking the same thoughts that traveled through my head that summer? "Will the campers like me? Will I know what to do if someone is sad or hurt? Will I make friends with the other counselors? Will I want to leave when it is all over?" I'm happy for Jared. I want this to work so that he too will know that spectacular feeling of being a part of something that has been around for so many years, summer camp.