So I’m sitting at Starbucks minding my own business and working on my next book and I overhear a conversation that interests me. Okay, so I’m not exactly minding my own business but anyway.  I decide to walk over to this couple and introduce myself because I hear that the lady is our town librarian.  I tell her a little about myself then shamelessly take out copies of my books (which of course I carry around everywhere) and show them to her in the hopes of her accepting them for the town library.  The gentleman seated next to her looks at the cover of “That Same Summer” and says to me that he knows where that shot was taken.  He proceeds to tell me that the cover shot of my book “That Same Summer” is a rock called Elephant Rock that sits at the far end of Lake Garfield in Monterey, Massachusetts.

I look at him in utter disbelief and ask him how he could have possibly known that.  He tells me that he went to camp there roughly sixty years ago (in the 1940’s).  It ends up he went to a camp called Camp Monterey which sat on the shores of Lake Garfield not more than a couple of hundred yards from where our camp was.  But by the time our camp was running, his camp had already closed up and fallen into disrepair. The campers  at our camp liked to take boats over to that same old abandoned camp (which we called Camp Jason) and go exploring. That old abandoned camp (which I renamed Camp Abner in my books) factored heavily into the story line in both “Summer Sleep-Away” and “That Same Summer” and provided some great scenes there.

Just the idea that I could be sitting so many years later in a Starbucks in Millburn, NJ of all places and bump into a former camper of that same camp who shared the same lake and many of the same memories but so many years apart is mind boggling.  Small world, huh?

Parents eagerly await their camp’s visiting day.  From the moment the kids are shipped off, the parents are already beginning the scavenger hunt for candy and comic books and candy and baseball cards and candy and batteries and oh yeah, candy.  The big day arrives, shopping bags full of snacks and candies are packed into the car and driven three hours upstate.  At Camp X for example, five hundred campers are greeted by around one thousand parents who are delivering roughly two thousand bags filled with approximately 40,000 different snacks and candies. That’s just Camp X.  What about the other 2,500 camps or so nationwide?  Are you getting the idea? Do you have your calculator out?

The parents spend the day, kisses and hugs all around and then they leave. Dinner is a joke that night because the belly ache parties are scheduled.  The kids rush back to their bunks and go to town on their food.  Twix are traded for Kit Kats and Twizzlers fly across the room in exchange for Twinkies.  It’s raining Skittles and M&M’s and Snickers and Milky Ways and Three Musketeers.  Kids are stepping on gummy bears and Oreo’s and Pop Tarts and Chips Ahoy and pretzels and potato chips.  The scene is nothing short of an explosion at the Willy Wonka factory. It is an all-you-can-eat buffet of junk food.  But it is over that night and whatever is not consumed is trashed and carted away.  Far away to the garbage cages behind the kitchen where the raccoons cannot get to.

It is one day, one night, but visiting day is one heck of a boost to the stocks of companies like Hershey’s and Frito-Lays and M&M/Mars.  Camp Visiting Day is a nationally recognized holiday affectionately referred to as Candy Day.

That’s the thing I remember most. That long bus ride up to camp. My parents waving to me from the parking lot as I stare out the window and wave trying desperately not to cry. Then the bus pulls away and the world I had known is gone. New world has arrived. Camp world. There’s about fifty kids on that bus and a few hundred more on the buses following ours. The bus counselors check off our names on their clipboards while trying to get the kids under control. The bus meanders through some neighborhoods until it finally finds the entrance to the highway and pulls onto it. For the next three hours I sat on that long silver bus staring out the window and watching buildings and civilization give way to farms and open fields. Much like Mattie in the book “Summer Sleep-Away”, I felt alone and homesick and longing for my parents and friends back home.

Eventually, the bus pulled off the highway and a half hour later it entered the camp grounds. We got off the bus, listened for our names as they grouped us with our bunk and walked over to join our bunkmates. By the time our counselors took us over to our bunks I had already met some of the kids. We changed into our bathing suits and went down to the lake for a big swim. It was hot out, the sun was beating down and the cool water of the lake felt good. We spent our first afternoon at camp down at the lake and by the time dinner rolled around I felt like I had known my bunkmates forever. The world I had left behind seemed a milion miles away and I was very grateful to have taken that long bus ride to this new world where I would spend the summer.

With summer camp fast approaching, we have taken out the trunks and begun going through the checklist the camp sends us each year. 12 pairs of underwear, 8 pairs of shorts, 5 bathing suits and so on. Each of my boys takes a copy of the list and starts lining up his clothes, sports equipment, sleeping bag and all the other stuff on the list. The clothes are all marked up with their names or initials and then one by one I help them neatly fold up their belongings and pack the trunk with the utmost of care. The trunks are picked up a few days later and all that stuff starts to make its way upstate and eventually find its way beside their bed in their bunk.

But that’s where the journey only begins. The stuff will be unpacked and haphazardly jammed into a cubby that only holds a tenth of all the stuff. Over the span of the next eight weeks at sleep-away camp, much of the sports equipment will be lost, the clothes will either disappear or be destroyed in the camp’s infamous laundry service and eventually the once tiny cubby will seem spacious. And into that cubby will go the survivors of the summer. The sole pair of shorts, the one sock without its matching partner, the remaining underwear whose rightful owner no one can ascertain. And at the end of camp when that trunk is filled with what’s left of the stuff in whatever condition it’s in, it will bear no resemblance to the neatly packed trunk with all the nice clothes and new soccer cleats and leather baseball mitt and the new tennis raquet that was packed away two months earlier with such care. The trunk that comes home carries the injured, the stained, the ripped and the maimed. I open the trunks to find the broken lacrosse stick, the roller blade with the missing wheels, the sleeping bag with the burn holes, the canteen with the black mold inside and the clothes that have survived the war and have changed color, shape and size.

We take the trunk but we do not unpack it. We simply take out its contents and stuff them into giant heavy duty black garbage bags and take them out to the curb. Then its off to do our school shopping for new STUFF.

Our camp’s lake had a life of its own. In the morning during our instructional swim it was always freezing. In the afternoon, during our free swim it was cool and refreshing. And late at night on those rare times when we’d have a night swim it always felt warm; a lot warmer than the night air outside. We’d take boats out on that lake and go fishing during our elective period. On a windy day everyone would fight over the sail boats, on sunny lazy days we’d take out the paddle boats. Campers would team up for a canoe, a boy might ask out a girl for a romantic ride in a row boat. Often, we’d sign up for a swim across the lake to Camel Rock. It was a mile swim and those lucky few who made it felt like they really accomplished something.

Some of the best adventures came during our waterskiing and jet skiing sessions. We waited for those for weeks. In my book “Summer Sleep-Away” the campers trade waterskiing turns with the same enthusiasm that’s usually reserved for trading baseball cards. In “That Same Summer“, the sequel to “Summer Sleep-Away”, the campers are terrorized by a bunch of bullies in a speedboat. No matter what camp someone attended and regardless of where it is, there’s almost always a lake. And the lake is the heart of the camp. It pumps life into it and supplies endless adventures for its campers. And on that last night of camp when all the campers are gathered around the waterfront, the lake takes in all their floating candles and all their silent wishes and holds them in some secret hidden place until the following summer.

There’s nothing better than a good game of capture the flag. Split the camp in half, hide the flags in some inconspicuous spots and then go on the attack. But when you throw a herd of head-butting goats into the mix you get yourself an altogether different experience. That’s exactly what happens in the children’s camp adventure book “That Same Summer“. A simple game of capture the flag results in a herd of angry goats being accidentally let loose. The goats give chase to the campers and the hunters quickly turn into the hunted. Campers of all ages run for their life as the goats chase them around campus. In time, it is the work of some of the braver counselors that brings the goats under control and eventually back to the barn where they belong. But not before the goats give these kids the adventure of a lifetime and memories to last at least that long.

There’s nothing better than sleeping under the stars with a roaring fire nearby and a bunch of your friends gathered around talking late into the night. Camping outdoors with nothing but a sleeping bag is the ultimate overnight at camp. But when you get to that special spot by canoe, it makes the trip that much sweeter. In the children’s book “Summer Sleep-Away” that’s exactly what takes place. Tackling the rapids by day then fishing on that same river for your dinner, it really doesn’t get better than that. The adventures in the book are just that — the kind of stuff childhood memories are made of. Mattie and his buddies are modern day Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns and the adventures they have become the stuff of legend.

One time, we were in the middle of a softball game at camp and I felt something hit me in the eye. I dropped to the ground and looked around (with my one good eye) to see what hit me. Suddenly, I realized it was hailing. Pieces of ice the size of golf balls were falling out of the sky. One minute we’re playing softball and its a beautiful sunny day with not a cloud in the sky and the next minute its hailing on us. And it hurt. These were big chunks of solid ice and they were falling fast. We ran for cover. Every kid took off in a different direction. We were tripping over each other in a frantic search for shelter from the storm. The nearest roof was the boat shack by the lake and we barricaded ourselves inside. We waited in there amongst the life preservers and paddles and oars waiting for the storm to pass. Suddenly, we realized one of the camp’s boats was still out on the lake. We could just barely make out that two girls were in a paddle boat and the boat was going down in the storm. A bunch of us bolted out of the shack and raced through the gauntlet of hail to help the girls. We jumped into a rowboat and raced out onto the lake. It took a few minutes before we reached them and rescued them into our boat. They were wet and scared and very grateful.

I never did forget that summer hailstorm and I’m sure those two girls, wherever they are, didn’t either.

One time in camp it had been raining for days. The kids were going stir crazy in the bunk and the counselors had run out of rainy day activities. We were in the dining room and the rain was pounding on the roof outside. This little girl named Miranda got up from her seat and asked her counselor something. The next thing I knew, this little girl gets up in front of the entire camp and raises up her hand for quiet. The dining hall goes silent and then this little girl proceeds to walk the camp through this indoor raindance. She had everyone follow her lead as she proceeded to simulate a raindance inside our dining hall. It sounded just like a big summer rain going on inside our dining hall. When she was done the camp sat silent and the rain outside had stopped.

TRUE STORY!!!!

For three days toward the end of the summer, the entire camp is divided into two teams and compete in various sporting events and other activities. I always had mixed feeling about color war. It’s fun, it’s a little bit crazy and it can bring out the best and worst in people. You’re essentially take kids who had been good friends throughout the summer and often splitting them up and pitting them against each other. It’s highly competitive and the three day long competition often takes its toll on everyone. There’s singing events, skits, posters and alma maters. There’s the apache relay, swim and track meets and nightime game shows. Everything is turned into a competition and in the end you have only one winner which of course results in a good amount of crying for the team that comes out on the losing end. Personally, I say if you’re going to have color war why not have it at the beginning of camp instead of the end. Why go home with those hurt feelings?

Well anyway, after color war we had judgment night where kids who had misbehaved in one way or another during the summer are carried on stage before the entire camp and dunked into a giant barrel of freezing cold water. The campers in the audience yell out HALLELUJA!!!! and the camper being dunked repents before he is permitted back to his seat and next criminal is brought up. Finally, on the last night of camp after the elaborate banquet dinner and dancing, the camp walks down to the waterfront and each camper places a floating candle onto the lake and makes a secret wish. There is a lot of hugging and crying and in the morning the giant silver buses carry the kids back home.