By Adam Kaplan
As many of you know, a large chunk of the “off-season” for Adam Fornear and me is dedicated to traveling around the country for camp reunions. To date, we have already visited fourteen cities this winter with many more to come! In fact, we figure that we travel about 10,000 miles a year together in a car, and this is our tenth year doing so. Imagine that….100,000 miles in a car with either of us as your travelling companion. Needless to say, we know each other well – the quirks, the sleep habits, the eating weaknesses, the musical tastes. (Though, in truth, we rarely ever listen to music. Believe it or not, we spend most of our time either talking about camp, or ribbing each other about one thing or another. We tried books on tape, but Fornear could never stay awake, especially problematic when he is driving! Personally, I think he fakes falling asleep during the books on tape because he misses talking to me.)
Adam and Fornear at the Manhattan Reunion
Without a doubt, this annual cycle of travel is one of the more fun aspects of this job. Through this work, we have been through forty-seven states in the past fifteen years (amazingly, we have never been able to pull off Vermont in the lower 48!), driven through countless beautiful landscapes, visited some of the more iconic and interesting off-the-beaten-track sites around the nation, and, most importantly, visited many people in their own hometowns.
This experience has allowed us to notice many things about different communities. First off, we have noticed that, no matter which metropolitan area we seem to be in, there is a HUGE shopping area with a Best Buy, a Target, an Olive Garden right next to a Red Lobster, several Starbucks, a Bed, Bath and Beyond, a Home Depot, and an Office Depot. We have become completely convinced that were we to be blindfolded and taken to any one of these shopping areas around the country, when the blindfold was removed, we would have absolutely no idea where we were. But….that triple Caramel Macchiato would still be pretty darn good!
And then we have noticed that each town has its own feel to it as well. Whether it be the beautiful brick homes of St. Louis, or the lovely wooded feel of Louisville, or the steep hills of San Francisco, or the stunning views of Lake Michigan from all over the Chicago area, or the awe-inspiring concrete jungle of Manhattan, every place we visit seems to have its own character and uniqueness.
Highlights from DC, including the reunion and a walk through the monuments at night
One of the other things we have been struck by is the sense of pride almost everyone has about where they live. If you give them an ear, they will regale you with tales about how the people in their town are the nicest, how the weather is the best, how they have the most wonderful restaurants (and by the way, almost everyone will claim to have the best barbeque restaurant anywhere….something that I have really enjoyed trying to flesh out!), and how, simply put, they live in the best place in the country. At first, I assumed that this was simply a byproduct of living a somewhat insular life. I thought people just needed to travel and see what life is like outside of their hometowns. While this may certainly be a part of the reason people are so positive and passionate about the place that they live, I think there are at least two other important factors that play into it.
The first is this idea of diversity that we hear so much talk of these days. In most cases, diversity is mentioned in reference to the color of people’s skin or their ethnicity. But, clearly, all of the extraordinarily varying tastes in geography are symbolic of another very real aspect of diversity. Those folks that live in San Diego are passionate about warm days and want nothing to do with earmuffs and scarves. The families that hail from Minneapolis cannot imagine a January without sledding and snowball fights. The folks that live in Denver or Salt Lake would feel at a loss without the mountains surrounding them. The families that hail from New York City would feel completely cut off were it not for their intensely busy and cosmopolitan surroundings. This is real diversity in action.
The second factor that plays into why folks are so dedicated to their hometowns is just that…….it is their home. It is the place where they have either grown up, or raised their kids, or both. It is the place where they enjoy all of life’s highs and endure all of life’s challenges. It is the place they are comfortable. No other place can possibly match up to HOME. It is the best place on earth. (Now, my friends often make jokes about the fact that I always find a way to tie these articles back to camp, so I won’t do it this time. Though, it might be an interesting exercise to re-read this paragraph and think about your OTHER home!)
Happy New Year to all of you and, for those whom we have not visited yet this winter, we will see you soon!
Justin Pagan is in his 4thyear volunteering with Bricks for Kids, a Lego themed building activity. Nicky Fleischer is a point guard for the Bank Street Bulldogs basketball team and Justin Blumberg is also playing basketball this winter. Gabe Heller plays center mid for the Whitecaps soccer team. Their team recently won the championship game. Syd Rosenbloom is keeping busy with the winter soccer season. Gavin Stern ran cross country this fall and is now in full swing with the winter ski racing season. After an awesome time exploring the NYC and catching up with old friends, we headed towards D.C. for an amazing crab cake and some even better reunions. At the D.C. reunion Si Kessler informed me that he was running cross country this fall. Michael Cohen is rowing crew and Lawson Wheeldryer is playing soccer. Emmitt Gerstein recently held a 5K race, raising $2500 for the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation which helps people with his brother Tomer’s condition.
Through my frequent and often verbose letter writing, my parents were able to see the bigger picture of my summer. Sure I was homesick at the beginning of the summer, but the following three and a half weeks had been some of the most fun I had ever had. By the time I arrived at home, I had forgotten all of the fun times with my cabin, our great overnight trip, learning photography, and the delicious MOCA treats. The emotions of the last few days of camp had been running high and had lead me to forget all of the fun. My parents remembered for me, and told me that I would be returning to camp the next summer, and each summer after that until I could honestly tell them that I loved camp. Then, if I wanted to, I could stop going. This seemed like a fair deal at that point, so I agreed to go back to camp until I loved it, then I thought I would stop going.
4th Grade Campers: Jack Agran, Sam Cohen, Tate Gell, Will Gray, Miles Hall, Charlie Heist, Ari Held, Eli Hoffman, Logan Hoffman, Aidan Huberman, Gibson Kapp, Eli Karp, Gus Karsh, Chase Kornblet, Avi Maidenberg, Coulson McConnell, Linus Quinn-Pasin, Matan Radwin, Noah Schriftman. Seth Starhill, Juddah Thacker, Tanner Toback, HJ Walberg, Aaron Zelvy
8th Grade Campers: Sebastian Alderman, Caleb Caraway, Michael Cohen, Charlie Duncan, Adam Eberhard, Nick Fleisher, Emmitt Gerstein, Jacob Greenwald, Ben Hackney, Nurali Kuanyshbek, Seth Lambert, Jacob Laytin, Josh Marcus, Rolando Martinez, Nelson Mendels, Henry O’Connor, Jake Paderewski, Rahul Pai, Nathan Starhill, Ollie Tannahill, Steven Weeldreyer