by Adam Kaplan
To say that it is strange to be up at camp this summer would be a massive understatement. No campers. No counselors. No staff beyond essentially the full-time staff. No cabin doors flying open and slamming (for some reason, that’s been the biggest void for me). No little voices belting out big songs (one reason why this issue of the Keylog offers you some YouTube links to other versions of camp tunes). No MOCA in the Big House. No wood being chopped at CNOC. No sails being unfurled. No bows being strung. No cabin plaques being created. No fish being caught.
I won’t sugarcoat it. It is intensely emotionally difficult to be a camp director at a camp dominated by what isn’t happening there. Just like it’s hard to be a young person of camper age in a summer without camp. Walking around the property here, the quiet dominates. And the images seem out of place. As I write this, we’re into late July, and the canoes are still stacked, the O-tent is still down, the wake-up bell is still covered, the Project Board is in storage. To say the very least, it is certainly a different perspective of camp at mid-summer (We’ve taken that notion and turned it on its head a bit with a photo gallery in this issue showing that there’s always a unique perspective to be found at camp).
But if life gives you lemons… so instead of dwelling too much on what we can’t do this summer, we’ve tried to focus on what we can do.
For one thing, we can spruce the place up a bit, so when the campers and counselors do enthusiastically return, they return to a new-and-improved (well, very old and improved) place. Andy Mack, Joe Crain, and Jack Raatz (our intrepid caretaking crew), for instance, have been spending the summer taking on projects that wouldn’t have been possible with scores of campers swarming the 77 acres. They’ve re-seeded the Lower Diamond. They’ve replaced a bunch of railroad ties to shore up the roads in camp and the steps to the Upper Diamond. They’ve slathered new coats of paint on the sailing shack and the Big House porch and the Waldorf Castoria. They’ve started to construct a hand-washing station behind the Rec Hall and a brand new mountain biking flow track just outside the bike shack. Joe Crain even handmade a really cool fish-themed whirligig that now stands a few steps from the Buddy Board. And we’ve used our free time on smaller tweaks, too – like updating the “Alumni Authors” library in the Wanegan, which is now features 42 published alums.
We’ve also been diligently maintaining camp relationships – not only by offering online Sunday Services (thank you, Troy Brodsky and Jessie Stein Diamond) and an at-home Chef’s Cap (coming soon). Our latest Council Fire included a hilarious Zoom skit featuring camp song characters (check it out on Facebook if you missed it), but we’ve also been doing real-life (well, virtual) Zoom calls with various age groups. Louis Levin and a few alumni even came up with a trivia contest that we’ve offered to several groups – and we’ve included a new 20-question trivia test for alumni in this Keylog. See how well you do. Some of you will surely knock it out of the park.
We also have campers and staff doing their best to create a camp-at-home feeling in creative ways, and that has been particularly inspiring. For instance, Nelson Mendels and Adam Eberhard, who would have been 9th-grade campers this year, have launched a podcast (“What Keeps the Fires Burning”) dedicated to all things Nebagamon. So yeah, as we discussed in our recent Council Fire, “camp is always with us.”
We’re also sending out care packages to all those who had signed up for this camp summer. It includes a camp sticker, postcards pre-addressed to cabinmates, a candy line (!) and even – get this – a vial of sand from the beach at the Waterfront. Care packages – the name says it all. Because the camp family truly cares about each other.
Which brings me to my main point. This has been a tough spring and summer for all of us. Life has been turned upside down. Plans have been dashed. People are struggling in ways big and small. But if anything has buoyed Steph and me, it has been the overwhelming response from the camp family. When we made the announcement that there would be no campers at Camp Nebagamon for the first summer since 1929, we expected a mixed reaction. We were certain most people would understand the reasons why. But we, ourselves, understood that parenting and a child’s happiness are profoundly emotional concepts. There were bound to be some people who disagreed with our thinking. And yet… zero. Not a single parent or alumnus has expressed a contrary opinion. Just the opposite, in fact. The emails and phone calls and texts and Facebook comments have all been so supportive, so understanding, so unbelievably generous in spirit.
That generosity has extended to the financial arena, as well – again, remarkably so. It is a challenge, of course, to run a summer camp and lose a summer. But, whether it’s the through the big-heartedness of alumni who want to assure the continued operation of their favorite place on Earth or parents of current campers who have opted to rollover their deposits until next summer (because it’s their child’s favorite place on Earth), we have come to realize just how much the camp family cares. You might think this is the kind of thing that happens at most summer camps. It isn’t. We are a special place beloved by special people.
So while that place looks different this summer, the camp family has reminded us that there is much more to Camp Nebagamon than the physical aspect. The people, the relationships, the bonds… those constitute the heart of what makes the place so unusual. And that has been the biggest takeaway from this surreal summer.
Which is about as lemonade-ish as it gets.
