CAMP

I remember in summer when our moms sewed name tags in our clothes, packed our camp boxes with ball gloves, tooth paste, flashlight, stationery and bandaids; said goodbye and sent us off to camp. We slept on saggy bunks in leaky tents, ate chow with bent silverware, off metal trays. Crafts class in the morning, we swam in the afternoon, pitched horse shoes and played softball after dinner and sang songs around a great bonfire before turning in. Then it was scary stories in the dark and raiding other tents with water balloons. The next day the bugle blared at 6:00 a.m. We were up and at ‘em again, second verse, same as the first. If you didn’t get poison ivy or snake bit you weren’t camping hard enough. After a couple of weeks, they poured us on a bus and sent us home. Our parents said they missed us terribly but they sent us again the next summer.

It’s January in Florida; Snowbird season. All those kids from summer camp in the 50’s, after careers and kids left them in the cold, they started thinking about summer again. So from Minneapolis to Montreal, they come to Florida in November or December for Grandma & Grandpa camp. Get up when you feel like it, air conditioned trailers and motor homes instead of leaky tents, golf carts and bicycles for transportation. A person could wear them self out playing all that cribbage, golf carting without the golf, water aerobics, bridge club, photography club, writer’s group, remote control airplane squadron, water painting, chess club and garden club. In between outings there are social gatherings to share food, watch movies, shop the flea markets, dance to 50’s R&R, and all the time is a good time for a nap.

It's not all camp here, up and down the canal, somebody's working. There is a 2 ft. alligator hanging around the spillway and even though he just hangs around, he’s working. Those long legged birds appear to be in super slow motion, wading near the bank. But thats part of their job description. The little critters they are hunting know enough to duck for cover when a big shadow moves. I had to walk up to the butterfly garden yesterday. On the way I noticed a heron, poised motionless in the shallows. Ten minutes later on the way back he was still there, didn’t look like he had budged an inch. But I’m patient as well and I watched him for a while. Looking at something and studying it are not the same. I studied the heron. His moves were so slow and controlled you would miss it otherwise. The subtle turn of the head, a slight lean to the right and a weight shift from one leg to the other; it must have taken two or three minutes. Then, slow for sure, it tilted its head to the side. The big bird wasn’t searching any longer, it was onto something. 10 or 15 seconds passed and my heron came undone like an exploded pińata. Wings flapped, its head disappeared under the water and the thrashing made the water boil. A couple of seconds later, the great hunter recoiled with a nice fish in its beak. Work is work, however you work it. 

Grandma-Grandpa camp is serious stuff. I don’t know if I’m in shape for it. You can’t just slip off to palm trees and white, sandy beaches for a couple of weeks. It takes several months to make it work.  I am finishing a two week visit with friends at “Grandma & Grandpa Camp.” I haven’t listened to the news or weather since I’ve been here. If it’s under 60 degrees it’s too cold and if it’s wet outside, we eat inside. The worst you can do is forget where you left your sun glasses. I’m old enough to fit in. I’ve cooked long enough to look the part but I must not be done yet; enjoyed my visit but it’s time to be somewhere else, maybe even a Michigan winter.