My experience at Jewish summer camp was pretty much standard summer camp with a Jewish emphasis. Blessings before and after meals, and prayers twice a day. All the usual camp stuff, though the songs in the music activities were usually either religious songs or Hebrew songs, and the art projects would sometimes be making things like candlesticks. Mixed in with the sports and arts and stuff, we had two class periods a day, one for Hebrew language and one for Judaism and Jewish culture. We were split up into small groups for those, based on how much Hebrew we already knew and whether we went to secular or religious school during the year. (These were usually held outside, but when it was raining, they'd gather us all into one of the big rooms and show us videos of the Israeli Sesame Street instead.) Also, mixed in with the usual camp sports and music stuff was Israeli folk dance.
All the groups had Hebrew names, and we'd call each activity by its Hebrew name. (So I used to know the Hebrew words for swimming and tennis and woodworking and all that stuff, but I can't really remember any of them.) We'd have Shabbat services and dinner on Friday nights, which generally meant slightly better food than usual and much better dessert. Shabbat services on Saturday mornings, and then for Saturday afternoons, we were supposed to rest -- we could hang around and talk or read or play board games or whatever, but no music and nothing with a lot of running around. We were also supposed to respect the day by wearing somewhat nice clothes in the afternoons, which usually meant khaki shorts and polo shirt rather than the usual running shorts and t-shirt.
"Y'all's the horniest buncha white folk I've ever seen."
"Do you know any elephant jokes?"
"Is that a remark?"
"About what?"
"Sorry, I guess I'm just sensitive about my weight."
Looks her over
"What weight?"
She lights up.
Could be I'm projecting? Nah.
Productivity cheerleading on email tonight? Anyone?
Leon Theremin definitely needs a biopic. But I'm still waiting for the life story of Evariste Galois.
I was a CIT and a counselor at that and a few other camps in the years that followed.
"We are the CITs so pity us
The kids are brats, the food is hideous
We're gonna smoke and drink and fool around (we're nooky-bound)
We're Northstar C-I-Ts!"
Never went to camp.
Had three years of drum corps instead. Traveling summer camp.
"You are a boil on the butt of humanity."
"I am pleasant, dammit! I saw Drum Eatonton at the Piggly Wiggly yesterday and I smiled at the sumbitch 'fore I could help myself!"
And OMG, y'all-- I thought I was the only person in the universe who loved SHAG!
I want to have Sound Designer summer camp. There's no way THAT could end badly.
I just spewed ginger beer all over my monitor. Imagining every sound designer i know in the same place at the same time....whoa. I would pay to go to there.
I went to many church camps and found most of them far too into the "this is today's cut and paste scripture verse, go spend three hours contemplating it" which was a nice opportunity to wander off alone and sit by a stream or something. The one nice departure from that was a summer in the Tennesse mountains doing community outreach to some of the most horribly abused kids i've ever met. Thankfully that experience was light on the scripture and heavy on the actually helping folks who didn't know what it was like to have a safe place to live with running water.
Imagining every sound designer i know in the same place at the same time....whoa. I would pay to go to there.
I refer you to...our reception. Seriously! Good thing nothing happened or there would be no sound in LA.
I went to a Seventh Day Adventist camp as a kid. Fun camp. Awful food. At the time I could not comprehend people being vegetarian and eating fake meat.
The hospital where I grew up was run by Adventists and the fake meat was truly horrendous. It was said that you knew someone was getting better when they reached up weakly, grabbed a visitor's shirt and said, "For the love of god, get me a hamburger."
Is camp meeting just a Southern tradition?
