Camp was fun; that's no bologna

I called my friend the other day, and her pre-teen daughter answered the telephone.
"I'm going to camp!" Jenny said.
"Oh, are your parents shipping you off?" I thought instantly.
But, no, Jenny had chosen to go. My, how times have changed.
When I was Jenny's age, where I grew up, no one asked to go to camp. Why would we? We were free to roam from sunup to sundown during summer -- no camp was going to be better than that! And more importantly, roaming around was free; camp cost money the family didn't have.
The only children who went to camp were the ones whose parents wanted to rekindle romances. That's how it happened that my sister Chris and I were told we were being shipped off to Camp Santa Maria.
Not appealing
Camp Santa Maria was nestled on Lake Turkeyfoot, owned by the Knights of Columbus, and run by the Dominican Sisters. As far as I was concerned, that said it all. At 10 years of age, the last thing I wanted was go to a mosquito-infested lake with kids I didn't know, overseen by strict counselors in habits.
It didn't matter. My parents were unyielding in their enthusiasm. Off we went. I was put into a cabin with strangers, and, worse yet, Chris, being four years older, went to a different cabin. It didn't matter that the nuns smiled and had on shorts, or that the mosquitoes were no worse than at home. The only person I knew by name was gone.
And something even worse was looming on the horizon -- swim lessons.
Chris and I hated to swim. It was one of the biggest reasons I feared camp. We'd taken expensive lessons at a private pool, but it never got us over our fear of water. The day the instructor told us to dive into the deep end, Chris and I refused.
Our mother was livid. She's spent a lot of money on those lessons. She said she'd make us quit if we didn't jump, but our fear of drowning was greater than our fear of her (which, at that time, was saying something). We quit lessons that day.
Thankfully, at lunch, Chris sneaked next to me in the cafeteria and whispered hoarsely, "I have a plan."
To the nurse
The next morning, I went to the nurse's office. A line of children stretched out the door, to include Chris.
"Earache," she said when it was her turn.
"Earache," I said when it was mine.
The words to Alan Sherman's song "Camp Grenada," come to me:
"Take me home, oh Muddah, Faddah; Take me home, I hate Granada ...;
"Oh please don't make me stay; I've been here one whole day."
Even without swimming, I intended for the entire camp experience to be miserable. I missed my parents; I missed my friends; I hated strangers.
Then, the bologna incident occurred.
As I sat on a bench in the lunchroom -- at one of the many long wooden tables that would soon be filled with kids returning from the swim lesson I was too "sick" for -- a little girl with cropped, straight hair sat down next to me. She had a sandwich in front of her, as did I. She dragged a bottle to the side of her plate, then plopped ketchup onto her bologna.
It blew my mind. Mustard, OK; mayo, OK ... but never ketchup on bologna. She shoved the bottle my way. "Go ahead," she said. I tried it. It was good. We were instantly best friends.
After that, horseback riding was really cool. Singing in the camp show was a blast. My bologna buddy and I did crafts together, like the wooden Indian head plate I painted. (When I showed it to my parents, they were so thrilled they hung it ... in the garage.)
We told stories around the campfire and whispered to each other as we dropped off to sleep in our bunks. I had ketchup on my bologna every day for two weeks. The only thing we didn't do together was swim.
So, I'm pretty sure Jenny, who is a terrific swimmer, and actually wants to go to camp, is going to have a terrific time. As for her parents, it's up to them if they have as much fun as my parents did.
murphy@vindy.com