Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter |
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Hey camp people.
If you are reading this, you likely fit into one of two groups.
Summer just ended, or summer is close to ending.
Maybe there is some secret third camp group I don’t know about, but I suspect those two cover most of you.
Whatever group you’re in, you’ll understand a lot of what I’m going to say next. Is it a bit ramble-y and all over the place?
Yeah, that’s because I’m…
Camp Tired
The only people who will ever really understand working at a summer camp are people who work at one, or did once.
Most jobs are like this in their own way. Nurses get nurses. Teachers get teachers.
But try explaining camp tired to somebody who has only ever been plain tired. There’s almost no version of it that lands. The best I can do is show you what a summer looked like.
This was my first time running Kenwood & Evergreen, and really running camp in a few years, so I got reintroduced.
Somewhere in July a friend asked how things were going and my whole answer was, “Just keep stacking up. Just keep stacking up.”
One night I was so exhausted I was sure I was going to throw up. Another day the walkie cut into a tour with “the water ski rope broke,” and at some point I was 20 texts and 100 emails behind.
The best message I sent all summer was an apology that started, “Hey, I’m not ignoring you because I don’t love you.”
Long days. Long weeks. And somehow, in the moment, super fast days and super fast weeks.
What the Kids Wrote
Camp work is worth it. It allows kids to connect in ways that are becoming increasingly less accessible.
At our closing campfire, Evergreen campers wrote messages to future campers about the summer. None of them mentioned the big moments at camp.
It was all the small moments, the inside jokes, the laughs, the moments that were a little tough but ended up being core memories.
You could see the same thing everywhere in the last week. Once Color War ended, all the interpersonal stuff fell away and the kids landed somewhere like, we made it, we’re on the same team now.
Then they spent the last days just sad to leave each other.
On the last day, kids were crying at the Boston bus stop asking to come back. Some were straight up begging to go back to camp right then and there.
They get camp sick in August the same way they get homesick in June.
One mom emailed after pickup to say her family apparently needs a full-time program director now, because the kids don’t know what to do without their friends there all the time and something to opt into.
Of all the things camp is good at, for all the things it’s worth, it’s these things. And camp does it better than anywhere in the world.
The Part About Your People
It pays to have a great team, and ours kept proving it all summer.
Scott, Ali, Geof, Violet, Greg, Sue, Elliott, and so many more who will probably get pissed I didn’t mention them here. Just this insanely long list of names who showed up every day.
You’ve got your own list. You’re probably picturing them right now.
If someone made your summer work, tell them this week, while it’s all still fresh. They’re probably tired too.
And when the summer ends try to look back at what happened. Take the time. Let your brain catch back up. Mine is not strong at the moment either.
The camp tired will wear off. The rest of it stays.
It was dirty and sweaty and happy and sad and well worth it.
You did the thing.
You got this,
Jack
