Summer Lovin'

This past weekend, thousands of people witnessed an age-old rivalry in East Lansing, Michigan. The University of Michigan vs. Michigan State University football game. While the rival did not end in favor of my beloved Wolverines, we put up a good fight. What may have been even better than the game though was the tailgating that occurred prior to it. As most of you know, before the game comes the pregame, and before the pregame comes the pre pregame. This weekend, my friends and I traveled from Ann Arbor to MSU in East Lansing in hopes of having some fun before the real rivalry of a football game began. However, despite being a student at U of M, the tailgate I took part in in East Lansing may have been one of my favorites thus far. I know what you are wondering, ‘How could that be? With all of that green and white surrounding you?’ Well let me explain.

When I was nine years old, I became a camper at Wooden Acres Camp (WAC). It is a small, Jewish, sleep-away camp that, at the time, was located in Rothbury, Michigan (it has now been relocated to Lexington, Michigan). That first summer, my sister, Sierra, and I couldn’t have been anymore nervous. Well we were excited as well, but we didn’t know what to expect at camp. Would we fit in? Were our counselors going to be nice? Was the lake going to be too cold to swim? As the first day of camp quickly approached, the butterflies in our stomachs multiplied up until the night before we were supposed to leave. Our parents took us to our favorite restaurant as a “goodbye” dinner. We both devoured our cheeseburgers, and my dad and I split the cream puff for dessert. The dinner was great at the time, but when food poisoning hit a few hours later, I was regretting it. Sierra and I were going to have to be two days late to camp due to my upset stomach.

The anxiety quickly set it. As if we weren’t already nervous enough, we were now going to be the “new girls”. Friendships were already going to be established, activities would be chosen, and people were going to keep asking why we were late. For an eight and a nine year old, this was the end of the world.

Our parents drove us up to camp two days after it began. The four-hour car ride seemed like eight, but we wished it had lasted just a few hours longer. When we pulled up to camp, we were met by the owner’s wife Linda, who happened to be a friend of our mom. She made us feel comfortable right away by embracing us with hugs and offering her warm smile. However, as Sierra and I peered over to the big white tent to our left, we saw our fellow campers and the nerves heightened. But this was it. We unloaded the car, kissed our parents goodbye, and entered the big white tent with everyone else. Sierra and I were then split up due to the fact that we were in different bunks. She was in “Sunrise” with her age group, and I was in “Frontier” with mine. We squeezed each other’s hands and worriedly let go, ready to face the girls.

Linda introduced me to my counselors, Lauren and Molly. They were probably two of the prettiest girls I had ever seen! They were older, and cool, and they welcomed me with open arms. They quickly introduced me to the other girls in my bunk. I’m not sure what I had been so nervous about. The girls were so excited to have one more new friend, ready to embark on an eventful summer. My nerves quickly faded away, I grabbed a plate of chicken nuggets, and it was the start of something new.

The three weeks at camp passed too quickly. The girls I had been so nervous to meet quickly became my friends, and the friends whom I would consider family for the next six summers. Through laughs and heartbreak and fights and hugs, we were there for each other through it all. Only a few of us took on the transition from camper to counselor, but becoming a counselor opened doors to a whole new set of camp friends who also became family. Family that reunited a few times every year, which brings us full circle to the U of M vs. MSU tailgate at the Alpha Tau Omega fraternity in East Lansing, Michigan.

Most of my camp friends ended up being at this tailgate. Reunions, hugs, pictures, drinks, more pictures, a little bit of dancing, we all gathered as if no time had passed at all. Even our friend, Michael, from Montreal made the trek. Being surrounded by people who I consider family couldn’t have made me feel anymore love. I realized that these are the people I want standing next to me at my wedding. The people I want my kids to call “aunt” and “uncle”. The people I want to be doing wheelchair wheelies with one day in a nursing home. It was at this moment I realized camp friends are the best friends. And here are the reasons why.

         

      1.They have seen you at your worst.

No makeup, no hair gel, sweatpants and a tank top. They have seen you when you don’t look like you are a member of the human species, and they love you anyway.

2.You have killed together.

Bugs, spiders, mosquitos, and flies. They are your partners-in-crime for anything insect related.

3.Your 2 a.m. heart-to-hearts will never be forgotten.

Star-gazing in the middle of the night while pouring your hearts out to each other is something you will probably only experience at summer camp.

4.There is probably a 75% chance that one of them was your first kiss/boyfriend/girlfriend.

And there were probably 25 other children there to witness it.

5.Kitchen raids.

Oh yes, you did indeed sneak in to the kitchen with your best friends in the middle of the night to steel potato chips/ice cream/anything else that can cause high blood pressure and diabetes.

6.They were there for one of your “firsts”.

Your first time making it up on water skis, your first period, the first time you liked a boy, etc. You name it, and I’m sure one of your camp friends will recollect it.

7.Whether it has been ten days or ten years, reunions feel like it has only been an hour.

No matter how long you go without seeing each other, you can probably pick up right where you left off.

8.You have peed in the woods together.

And probably had some sort of sing-along to accompany it.

9.You have going skinny-dipping together. On multiple occasions.

Enough said.

10.Because at the end of the summer when camp was over, you held each other sobbing until the sun rose, making promises that over the school year nothing would change, and next summer you would all be back.

So yes, some of us are rivals. Some of my camp friends cheer for the Spartans and some cheer for the Wolverines. Some of us are still active at camp and some of us aren’t. But at the end of the day, the love we have for each other is not something that can be broken by a school rivalry. Now, an end-of-camp color war rivalry? Well that is a different story.