TV show looks at camp from a kid's point of view: 'I hate it here'

CBS Sunday Morning (Brighthouse channel 6 at 9 am) featured a story about kids’ letters from camp. It was laugh-out-loud funny and so familiar. Every kid who goes to camp wrote one during their first few days. It reminded me of the old song “Hello Mudder, Hello Fadder” (sung by Alan Sherman) which in my day was very popular, right on point and also funny unless you were that kid writing the letter.

Mother Diane Falanga got such a letter from her daughter. It said “Dear Mom and Dad, I really miss you. The first day I cried because I was homesick and missed you guys. They made me clean the table. I want to come home.”

It went on for another page or two but that’s the jist of it. What’s a Mother to do?

She toyed with calling the camp, but since the camp had not called her she assumed nothing was really wrong with her offspring and decided against calling.

Instead she called a friend and read the letter to her. The friend told her she could top that and retrieved a letter her child had written from camp. It gave her the idea to compile these kids’ epistles. She put out the word and received more than 3,000 of these charming and funny letters.

The title of the book came from a little boy named Mark who wrote:

“Dear Mom and Dad, Having a great time. NOT! P. S. I Hate It Here.”

Hearing her read some of the letters reminded me of when I was in Girl Scouts.

I was never a camper, but the leaders decided to take us on a several-day camp experience from which we would accrue several badges. We were all so excited planning our menus, packing our clothes and food and meeting at the church for the ride to the campsite.

The campsite turned out to be on the side of a mountain.

Parent drivers dropped us and our gear off at the foot of this mountain and we had to climb up with all our baggage trying not to break the eggs we brought for breakfast the next morning.

About halfway up this mountain we set up camp. We pitched our tents started our fires and began cooking our first meal since we worked up quite an appetite climbing and hauling our gear. Spirits were high, laughter abounded even when digging the latrine. Everything seemed just wonderful because it was new to us.

After making smore’s we finally started to settle down to sleep. All snug in our tents and sleeping bags, eventually all the giggles stopped and only the sounds of the woods remained.

In the wee hours of the morning a torrential rain began.

The noise of it beating on the tents woke us and then the rain started sluicing down the mountain right through our tents. We used our clothes to try to stop the deluge to no avail, and by morning, we and everything we brought with us were like drowned rats.

The parents were not scheduled to come back to get us for another 2 days and this was before cell phones were even invented so we were completely out of touch. There was a large drop off to the side of where we were camped and there was a building that was used by hunters or a club or something, we never knew.

The troop leaders also drenched and with all of these wet whiny and weeping girls wanting to go home, were desperate so they lowered one of the girls down to the ground outside of the building and helped her figure out how to break it (no, no badge for that little trick).

We could see a telephone wire leading to the building and were praying the telephone was working and not disconnected.

God was with us because she got in, the phone worked and she called for immediate pick up. What a bedraggled site we were standing at the bottom of that mountain when my mom drove up to pick up her load of girls. We were full of complaints and tales of woe all the way back to the church where other parents waited to take their campers home.

Needless to say I vowed never to ever camp again. We did get badges, should have been one for being the wettest scout but they didn’t have a badge for that.

Anyway, I am so glad the camp counselors make the kids write actual letters home.

These letters are keepsakes and heirlooms. How sad it would be if easily deleted emails became the way of the campers’ world. This right of passage would no longer be documented and saved by diligent parents for us to look back on when we are older, our kids go off to camp and we get one of these letters from our baby.

Thank God for all the parents who saved those letters and shared them for the book.

 

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