Bug juice and gravy..

My random thought for today, where it's ninety degrees below zero and we're iced in, like we've been since March, is about summer camp, because..

..because of COURSE it is. 

 Just because I haven't been to one since 1977, and just because they may never open again, doesn't mean I'm not thinking about camps, particularly the one of my girlhood in Phoenixville Pa(a suburb of Philadelphia) where I attended as a camper from 1963-1964 and again from 1966-1967.  

Don't try to figure out the logic of why my parents didn't send me in 1965--these were the same people who'd talk to someone who accidentally dialed the wrong number like a stand up comic would talk to a heckler(my Dad) or talk to a pervert because she thought it was my brother, crying and drunk. (My Mom) and... spoiler alert:  It was not my brother calling but it's a true story and a  random thought for another day.

The alumnae of Camp Council, my home away from home, have been chatting a lot lately, consoling one another after we lost one of our own a few days ago to Covid,  and just sharing happy memories in general.

I have a few memories as a kid, one being that I was a huge fan of savory gravy, once  sticking a finger in a gravy boat to sample when I thought my counselors weren't looking(but you know who WAS looking??  A VIP BOARD MEMBER whose mouth said:  "Ha ha..this kid sure likes her  gravy!" while her eyes said, "this girl will grow up to be either a monster or an unpopular blogger."

My other food memory(and of course it's a food memory!) happened in 1976, when I returned to the camp as a counselor, and I overate on CAMP food, which shows how pathetic I am.

The new counselor was a quiet summer replacement who I didn't know at all--she was thin and taught athletics and I was chubby and taught acting(more on that later) but she escorted me to the infirmary, and as the anti nausea meds kicked in, we talked and got to know each other, and by  the time we got to really know each other by discussing all the popular campers and counselors  that we  both hated, we were both throwing up, and I'm proud to say that conversation led to a forty-five year friendship with my BFF, Rochelle.

This camp for underprivileged girls had a policy that the counselors who worked there would be called "Aunt." 

 "Miss Levson" would have been mispronounced, and they couldn't call me Karen, because they all had crystal balls and knew what the name was going to mean in 2020, so I was "Aunt Karen"--my very first label.

The camp had several departments, and it was hard to figure out just what staff I should be on.

I couldn't even be something general, like the camp secretary, because I could never figure out how to load carbon paper into a typewriter(oh..if anyone is reading this under the age of twenty-five, you're googling like crazy, aren't you?  But then again if you're under twenty-five, you have better things to do on your snow day than to figure out what carbon paper was, and why it left everyone with purple smudges everywhere)

I couldn't be on the Swim Staff, because my fellow instructors would say, "now watch Aunt Karen, girls..as she demonstrates how easily it is to drown just by going into the water"

I couldn't be on the Arts&Crafts Staff, because I'd make the girls make only ashtrays, because if my lungs were shot from second hand smoke, theirs were gonna be too.

I couldn't be on the Nature Staff, because the girls would huddle around the long wooden table in  log cabin("The Nature Lodge") with their dome-shaped microscopes and ask, "Aunt Karen..what kind of leaf is this?" and I'd inevitably respond, "one that came from a tree" or.."what kind of bug is this?" and I'd probably say "a buggy one" or.."I wouldn't eat that if I were you" to which a smart aleck would respond, "Oh Aunt Karen..I've seen you with that bug juice.  You got drunk on it and met Aunt Rochelle!"

I couldn't be on the Athletic Staff.

There is no need to attempt to be funny here.

If we've met, you'd just KNOW...

I couldn't be on the Athletic Staff.

So that left Fine Arts.

I had dancing skills that made Elaine Benes look like Cyd Charisse: I could sing a little, but not enough to teach it.

So that left acting.

  Yes, I taught little girly  kids how to project their little voices and breathe from their diaphragms.

I taught them how to make believe..how to act..how to fake an org..

Okay, I did NOT teach the last part, I just wanted to see if you were still listening.

I'd clip a large paper plate to a small paper plate, the inner plate bearing names of random characters I created, the outer, situations, so they could spin and wind up with something like:  "A Depressed Circus Clown" and "can't get the red velvet cake to rise in the oven."

I'd give them thirty seconds to create the perfect Improv and they usually did.  These girls had great imaginations and wonderful minds, and because the camp hadn't gone coed yet, they cared a lot more about their creative endeavors than they cared about mascara.

I also wrote a few original musicals with important themes like the environment in "Janet Granite From the Planet U-Pan-It" or.."Miss Etiquette From Connecticut" where the opening scene revolved around how you should NOT stick your fingers in a shared gravy bowl because you thought nobody was looking because they're ALWAYS looking.

I am hoping that kids like me get to go back to camp in 2021..

I hope that counselors like me get to go back as well, where they might meet someone as wonderful as my friend Terri, who we just lost to Covid:

Terri would like this post..she liked a lot of my posts, like the one I wrote when Jim and I went to Punta Cana in 2017 and the exchange went something like this:

Me:  Jim and I had a great lunch by the water today..succulent baby lamb

Terri:  HAH!  I at first read that as "successful" baby lamb.

Me:  If they were successful, wouldn't they have made it to adulthood?"

Terri:  (Spit-take)  SNORT!!

I miss you Terri...have some heavenly stolen gravy on me..