By Adam Kaplan
Josie (my daughter) and I finished our drive from Boise to Nebagamon yesterday afternoon. After two very long days it felt great to finally get here. This was a bit of an unusual year in terms of my arrival at camp for the summer. I had arrived here on May 11th for the first time, and spent two weeks with just the other full time staff…but I had to head back home last week for my son, Ben’s, high school graduation. Consequently, when Josie and I arrived yesterday, camp had already seen the arrival of the entire pre-camp crew, and its population had swollen to over 30. I was a bit nervous about it as I am usually the one to greet folks upon arrival, and I like the rhythm of gradually adding a few people to the group every day for a few days. This time, I would be the one walking in to an already established group. Very unusual for me.
But here is the thing; it didn’t feel unusual at all. I was absolutely amazed at how normal it felt here. When we arrived, people were out and about working and engaged in all of the normal tasks that have been undertaken for 92 pre-camps since 1929.
It was perhaps the most comforting moment I have had in the past 16 months. Normalcy…
I don’t even have words to describe how incredible it felt…and feels.
Camp is upon us. It will be perhaps the most important summer here ever as our entire camp community needs camp so badly. We all need a return to normal.
So…I have nothing particularly profound to share with you today…I am just grateful.
I am grateful for our full-time staff. For Louis Levin, Adam Fornear, Joe Briggs, Andy Mack, and Joe Crain. They have undertaken herculean efforts to bring us to this day. They have planned, re-planned, re-re-planned, built, re-built, re-re-built. All with the goal of getting us all back together up here. They have been amazing.
I am grateful for all the staff that have signed on to work at camp this summer. They signed on knowing that there would be some new and challenging aspects to this summer. But they signed on knowing that whatever differences may exist, just being up here would be the panacea for all of the turbulence they have endured. They signed on to work in hope of normalcy, and with the desire to gift normalcy to our campers.
I am grateful to our parents. In a time as tempestuous, and, frankly, frightening as what we have all been through, to still have it in them to trust us with their favorite things in the world is among the most humbling things that I have ever experienced. But, if I am being honest, I am always incredibly humbled by parents’ trust…every year. It’s a normal feeling…
Finally, I am grateful to those kids. Those amazing kids that are headed up here in just under three weeks to spend four or eight weeks running, laughing, playing, singing, struggling, achieving, triumphing, failing and having just plain unabashed fun. All of the facets of a normal childhood…
Now, of course, I know that some things here will not be the same as they have always been (i.e. added COVID safety protocols). There will certainly be some differences. But after my arrival here yesterday, and the feeling of normalcy that instantly calmed and sated me despite some new protocols, I have all the confidence in the world that the summer of 2021 is going to be an incredible one because, this summer, normal feels incredible!