In less than a month I am going to attend an alumni weekend at the camp that I grew up at. It is quite literally the place that is most responsible for who I am today. Most of my closest friends in the world are from there or connected in some way or another.
The weekend is for alumni from 25-39. And from what I hear it is very likely that there will be fewer people of my generation and many in the 25-30 age group. I expect that I will see many of my former campers and as mentioned, few of the people who were campers with me.
But that is ok. My job is to go up there and take some of the younger people and help make sure that they don’t lose touch with camp. Let them know that the echoes of the past do not have to be echoes, they can be meaningful pieces of our current identities.
I hope that this will be a time in which I can give back some of what I got from camp because I owe it my best.
I am too busy to devote as much time as I would like to the alumni group. But I can find moments to bring out the boy and enjoy myself. And since I’ll be leaving the wife and kids at home I plan on really having fun.
It’ll be nice to relive some old times and to just sit in old familiar places. And dare I add, wander through the places that my girlfriends and I used as our private sanctuaries. I wonder if our names are still written in the places we left.
Tawonga is in Yosemite, but I haven’t heard about the camp.
I’m so jealous!!!
Have you ever heard of Camp Tawonga?
Hey Esther,
That is pretty cool. I used to know people from Berkshires. They went on Seminar with me in ’85. I also spent one summer at Ramah in Canada.
But California is home.
Ramah? I know we’re not the same Ramah, but still, alumni are alumni. Did you know that one of my blogs is a (n infrequently updated) Ramah Berkshires alumni blog? Just FYI…
I feel the same way about Camp, btw.