By Adam Kaplan
When boys come to camp, we ask them to leave many things at home. We ask them to leave their televisions, their computers, their video games… and oh yes, I think there may be some sort of prohibition relating to candy! When the boys question us about these cruel denials, we tell them that we don’t 
believe these things are in and of themselves bad things, rather we just believe that it is a healthy practice to take a break from them for a month or two during the summer. Truth is, at least one of the camp directors has a legitimate fondness for some video games, and goodness knows that the very same camp director cannot remember a single day in recent memory when he was completely away from a computer. Indeed, the break from electronics that camp affords us is a welcome abstention.
In addition to the break from electronics every summer, we also take a break from… well… reality! Every summer, those of us that are lucky enough to head up to the North Woods during the summer take a virtually complete break from the real world out there. While admittedly we do read the baseball scores every morning at camp, that is the extent to which the news of the world outside of Camp Nebagamon ventures into camp. This decision has to do with the fact that at camp each summer we try to create our own perfect community free from many of the restrictions of the world outside of camp. We create a community where people are more free to express themselves, less inhibited by the social expectations of “coolness,” less fearful about the world around them, and generally more cohesive.
There can also be little doubt that a big part of the reason that we choose to keep world and national news out of camp during the summer is because typically the news is a big bummer! In 2019, perhaps more than ever, this seems to be the case. It seems that one cannot open a newspaper or watch a television news show without being bombarded by terrible news about environmental disasters, governmental corruption, and acts of violence and hatred… It is hard to bear. I really do believe that one of the best things about a summer spent at camp is the opportunity to take a break from the news… a break with reality.
Now to be clear, just like our attitude towards electronics, we are not suggesting that following the news of the nation and the world is a bad thing. Quite to the contrary, we believe that in order to be good members of the community, outside of camp, it is important that people stay informed about the goings on of the world. Keeping abreast of the news is important. Still…with all of the bad news out there, it can be downright scary and even depressing. A break from all of that, just like a break from our electronics, can be very restorative for our psyches.
And so it will be, just as it has been for so many summers, that in just over a month many of us will be abandoning the computer screens in favor of our tennis rackets, ditching our televisions in order to focus on our J-strokes, packing away our Playstations so that we can pack our Duluth packs for a trek into the Boundary Waters, and losing touch with world news so that we can lose ourselves in nature for a month. In leaving all of these things behind for a month or two, we afford ourselves the time, focus, and energy to connect with each other in a way that the outside world sometimes doesn’t leave us the time to do. Anyone that has ever been to camp knows that the friendships and connections that are forged up there, away from our toys and away from reality, are significantly different and more substantive than virtually all of those that exist in the outside world.
Indeed, the summer is almost upon us. I for one could not be more excited about my upcoming break with reality!