By Adam Kaplan
For those of you that are unaware, my family and I just moved from Boise to Minneapolis. If I am being totally honest, this move filled me with more than a little trepidation. I truly love Boise and the life that I carved out there felt more like HOME than anything I had experienced since childhood. And while the reasons for leaving Boise and coming to Minneapolis were good ones, I was nervous. I liked my house in Boise, I liked my bed in Boise, I liked my friends in Boise, I liked the food in Boise….I was just comfortable in Boise…Boise was home.
When I arrived here in Minneapolis, it turned out that my nervousness about the move was well placed. The house wasn’t the same house. It’s smaller and a bit less comfortable. The bed wasn’t the same bed. My favorite mattress ever didn’t make the trip to Minnesota and I have been forced to get used to a different one. My friends here in Minnesota aren’t the same as the ones in Boise. While I am lucky and have some pre-existing friendships here (thanks to camp…and Steph’s family), it’s not the same as the folks in Boise that I have seen regularly for nearly 15 years. My favorite Indian, Chinese, and pizza places are all in Boise and I haven’t been able to find their match here in Minnesota yet. It just didn’t feel like home.
….and then it dawned on me. I’m homesick.
Who’d have thunk it? Homesick?! A grown man, a professional in the field of creating welcoming spaces, and an expert on homesickness no less! But for sure that’s what it is. Given my prowess in these areas, you might think that I would be able to shake my homesickness simply by becoming aware of it. But, that’s not how homesickness works. I am often asked how we handle homesickness at camp by new parents. I suspect what they are hoping for is a tried and true sure fire quick fix that we have perfected at Camp. What I tell them though, is that there is no silver bullet when it comes to adjustment issues (the camp director’s nomenclature attempting to rebrand homesickness!). Ultimately homesickness just takes time. Certainly, you can make that time easier by staying active and engaged, and leaning on people around you that care about you and want to help (although even your favorite homesickness expert spent a few days trying out the method of seclusion and wallowing….it didn’t work!)
Well, believe it or not, while there may not be a ton of experts on homesickness here in Minnetonka/Hopkins (I live on the border), this place seems to have naturally developed a way of helping someone through their adjustment issues. It started with some of our pre-existing relationship folk reaching out to make sure that we felt welcomed and ask if we needed anything. A lunch invitation from a close childhood friend and his wife, several dinners with the extended family, a gift of some delicious banana bread, some homemade pesto in a mason jar and it was made clear to me that our folks here did care and wanted to make sure we felt connected and cared for. Just like any good counselor would do, those that already felt a sense of responsibility for us, stepped right up and did their part.
As helpful as a counselor can be in helping with a camper’s homesickness, just as important is the help that other campers, those folks that you share the space with and are a part of your every day life….in my case, my neighbors. I feel so fortunate to have landed in one of those neighborhoods where people go out of their way to make sure you feel a part of things and welcomed. These are the kinds of people that don’t let you walk by without a friendly word at worst, or far more common, engaging in a warm and welcoming conversation. They stopped by the house, they invited us to sit down as we passed their homes. They clearly were deliberate about making us feel comfortable.
Now as I said before here, experience has taught me that there is no magic cure for homesickness. So, if I am being honest with you all, I am still working on some adjustment issues with this move. I know it takes time. The warmth and caring of my new community here in Minnesota is certainly making things much easier and will undoubtedly shorten that time.
Now I realize that this was a pretty darn self-indulgent article as I worked through my internal struggles with all of you (ok…the two or three of you that made it this far in the article!), but I just wanted to share with you how once again, the lessons that we learn at camp are applicable and invaluable to our lives long after we have left camp.
….and…if someone new has moved into your neighborhood, make it a point to reach out and make them feel welcome. Not only will it mitigate the possibility that the new neighbor will show up on your porch, start wailing and yelling at you to send them back to where they came from, but more importantly, YOU can make your neighborhood A Place Of Welcome For All.
Adam has been a truly invaluable member of our team. In his role as Associate Director, he has been in charge of staff recruitment and hiring, served as our Program Director and Wilderness Tripping Director in the summers, been a part of the on the road reunion tours…and then all of those other things that are done behind the scenes to make camp work. These range from high level strategic planning to getting up at 5AM to unload food delivery trucks during the summer. Adam has been the quintessential CAMP PERSON (someone that does whatever it takes to make things work regardless of job description).
I’ll share just one definitional story about Fornear from our time on the road. We were doing a “New Boy” presentation in Chicago. The family that invited us over for the presentation had decided to include several other families, as they had sons interested in Nebagamon as well. Our routine way back then was that Fornear and I would do a slideshow presentation, and then Fornear would take the kid(s) for a while to show them some more photos and talk more about camp, while I stayed with the parents and allowed them to ask questions of me that they might not want to ask with kid ears around. About two minutes after we had split up, I realized that Fornear had something I wanted to share with the parents in his bag. So I headed to the basement playroom where he had taken the kids. When I opened the door, there was Adam Fornear, standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by five boys whacking him with their toy light sabers with a reckless abandon. Fornear was wearing that patented huge grin and emitting that classic Fornear belly laugh. He was having the time of his life…and we got several new kids to sign up for camp that day.
It has been an incredible career at Nebagamon, and I am going to miss every second of it as I start my new career in Duluth, MN. Arriving way back in June of 1992 as a silent 16-year-old junior counselor in Logger 6 to stepping away as a not so silent associate director in 2022. There were some years spent away from Nebagamon in that window, but not many. As I write this, memories are popping up in my mind that make me smile, laugh and also wonder – what was I thinking?! From that first summer in ’92 taking out early morning fishing trips with campers, changeover trips, trip staff socials on the shores of Lake Superior, paddling the Quetico, pedaling the south shore, the many shakedown trips, a speeding ticket (really long time ago), cooking over an open fire, dawn paddles, camper luggage and overloaded pickup trucks, that one time I popped a sweet wheelie but breaking my leg right after it, motorcycle run to Eau Claire lakes to deliver a stove, burgers at the Y Go By, 6 am coffee in the Big House, naps on the infirmary porch/trip room/shop table/front porch of Big House, road trips all over the country, SNL or WWHL and hanging out with Andy Cohen, backing into light pole by CNOC, the off season reunions, ribs in KC/Memphis, magic tent pole with trip staff, delivering first round of trips to trip staff, Swamper overnighters and July 4th fireworks…The list goes on and on and I am grateful for every single one of those moments. They helped shape who I am today.
As you can see below, I don’t have a ton of news to share yet. Reunions don’t start for a bit (how about that…
above average (with even a few days reaching into the mid 80s!). On the 28th we had our first frost, a sure sign that summer has definitely come to an end. Although most of you probably didn’t realize it, because warm dry weather is what we all hope for while at camp, we were experiencing a mild drought in our region for most of the summer. With about three inches of rain fall this month, things have turned rather lush once again and, to the chagrin of many a homeowner in the area, we have had to start mowing our lawns again! Unfortunately the rain came in only two big storms causing some erosion in the usual spots around camp; the road to the upper diamond and the road down to the bike shack. I had the camp tractor out with the back blade attachment and got the roads back into shape. The rain also had a rather detrimental effect on some fresh landscaping work along the sidewalk down to the Rec-Hall where some fresh fill and grass seed washed out. With fingers crossed, we refilled area near Logger One and spread some more grass seed in hopes that there will be enough warm weather left this fall to get the grass established. We secured the side of the hill with a couple of railroad ties in hopes that if another deluge comes, the area will be spared another blast of run-off.
On top of all these end-of-season odds and ends, we’ve all took some vacation time since the camp season has ended. At the beginning of the month, I spent a few weeks in Ashland Wisconsin swimming in and enjoying the shores of Lake Superior’s Chequamegon Bay. As I said above the weather was exceptionally warm the first half of the month, and the cool waters of the big lake were a perfect counter point to the heat. I was able to get the roller skies out and tune up my cross country ski form for the upcoming season on the 12 mile paved loop trail that circumnavigates Ashland. The trail is a “Rails to Trails” loop that passes along the lake shore for about 5 miles. It was especially nice this year because the trail just had fresh asphalt put down this summer on a large portion and was as smooth as a freshly groomed ski trail!
12th – Kai Smith