This is one of my husband David's favorite stories of all the childhood stories I tell, from time to time. And, like the best of jokes, he never gets tired of the punch line.
The story came to mind one night recently when I was lying there in bed, the clock telling me it was almost 12am on a work night, and I was trying to will myself to sleep. Among all the random things that came to my still not-sleepy-yet mind was the thought about how great it was that I remember the lyrics to all these old camp fire songs. Who remembers this one?
Oh, Mr. Moon, moon
Bright and shiney moon
Won’t you please shine down on me?
Oh, Mr. Moon, moon
Bright and shiney moon
Won't you come out from behind that tree?
Right over there there's a man with a gun -
Dananana - he's gonna shoot you if you try to run
so Mr. Moon, moon
Bright and shiney moon
Won’t you please shine down on
Talk about your shine on
Please shine down on me
(for the both of us - yeah!)
Maybe it's the implied jazz-hands at the end or the fact that you've got to pretend to swing a rifle for the "Dananana" moment, but I still love this song, will sometimes sing it to David, if he gets enough drinks in me and the mood strikes.
This other one came to mind - specific to a certain Pacific Northwest camp*
We're out at Camp Sealth
the campfire of our dreams
where the ocean just ripples
and sparkles and gleams
so come on and join us
for we are never blue
be a member of our happy laughing crew
- you too!
At night round the campfire
we laugh and we sing
give a cheer for Camp Sealth
and make the echoes ring
we'll cheer for our leaders
our counselors campers, too
we'll cheer for you and you and you
we do.
Are there any memories quite like the ones of camp?
For horse camp, at Camp Sealth, I was probably all of nine years old, and I just had no idea of what I was getting into. Enamored of horses since reading Black Beauty and seeing "The Black Stallion" movie, like a lot of girls my age I had those glass or plastic figurines adorning my windowsill or bureau like a badge of belonging to that secret tribe of girlhood. But, as a city kid, I had rarely been subjected to the harsh reality of these actual living breathing huge animals.
When I was finally faced with real horses, embarrassingly, I completely froze. They were so big and scary! We were expected to groom the horses, including picking their hooves! Which involved going around the back of these great big beasts which was a sure invitation for getting kicked, in my fearful opinion. There was a girl - I still remember her name, it was Shane, a strange name for a girl - who did get kicked by a horse, and she STILL wasn't afraid of them. But I was, from the get-go and never got over it. (That's the punch line, in case you missed it.)
I did enjoy parts of horse camp, but the memory I have is mostly of how I was traumatized by not quite being up to the reality of the experience and that it failed to match my expectations of how great it was going to be, that I formulated beforehand, while reading the camp brochures and talking my parents into it. (Thanks mom and dad! And sorry it didn't work out so well, I know that was hard-earned money you spent on spoiled little me.)
It's a really good life lesson, actually. Had I only internalized that lesson then, I hazard to guess I could have saved myself a lot of suffering since, around expectations, knowing your limits, how to handle fear, being in the present etc. But who becomes so sage at the age of nine? Maybe that's expecting too much again. Hmmmm.
At the end of my horse camp experience, I got a patch like everyone else (it being a Camp Fire camp and me being a Camp Fire Girl, it was all about the patches back then). The patch was ocher-yellow with a horse head emblazoned on it, but other campers had ones with a rope around the horse head and mine had none.
I noticed this and it bothered me. Talk about a kick in the self-esteem! I had always done well at most everything...but knew that in this case I didn't deserve much more. I had failed at being a true horse-girl, despite my fantasies and my ambitions. But I did the best that I could with what I had in me at that time. And what a great story it has given me to tell years later!
*It's so cool to see that my very first summer camp is still in operation. See hyperlink below and note the Specialty Programs section which mentions Horse Camp! (in its sugar-coated version)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Sealth
