Letters from Summer Camp – The Transformations

Wonder if I can swim across without
being noticed

Well, folks, it’s that time of year again when the letters start trickling in from the kids whose parents have shipped them off to camp for the summer. In today’s hectic world, all it takes is one little mistake and the kid you send out as an innocent child could very well come back as, well, an evolved being.

Dear Dad,

A word to the wise. Next time you want to cut corners on something, it might be a good idea not to do it on my summer camp tuition. Seems that “great deal” you got back in April to send me off to camp for two weeks didn’t mention that I’d be shackled to my bunk mate during lockdowns. Here’s a hint…“boot camp” doesn’t really have anything to do with hiking.

Sure, the Adirondacks are nice this time of year; the lake is beautiful. However, the only wildlife I’ve seen so far is my fellow campers taking a swing at their correctional officers and the occasional turf war.

Speaking of arts and crafts, I never knew how many things you could use to fashion makeshift knives, or “shivs” as we jokingly refer to them here at camp. Please send more bars of Ivory and some black shoe polish. Oh, and if you could, a couple of bandannas and some extra large basketball shorts.

Well, I better wrap this up. My bunk mate wants to go for a swim and we’ve almost got the three-legged back stroke down to a science now.

Oh, one more thing…can’t wait to show you my knuckle tattoos. Here I was thinking most swear words had only four letters. Oh the things I’m learning here. You and mom aren’t gonna recognize me when I get home.

See you soon,

Jimmy, aka J-man

Camp Homie-Away-From-Home

Dear Mom,

You know how you thought you were sending me to Science camp this summer so I could be with kids who have the same interests as me?

Well, you are not gonna believe this. I am pretty sure we are now Scientologists. Yeah, who knew? We misread the brochures. I don’t remember it saying anything about brainwashing.

Anyway, I think we still believe in the same God, but not really sure yet. I’ll let you know after I attend a few more meetings with the other disciples.

At any rate, they are treating me really nice here so long as I don’t talk about Jesus Christ being my Lord and Savior. For some reason, that really ticks the counselors off. But don’t worry. They never yell at me, at least not like Pastor Higgins does when he talks about going to Hell and all.

So that’s about it. Oh, by the way, I hope you get this. My big plan is to sneak off to the main road, flag a trucker down and make him promise he won’t tell anyone back at camp that I asked him to mail this for me.

Well, gotta run. We have a late arrival and everyone is simply crawling over each other to get to him first. Hopefully, they won’t miss me for at least a couple hours.

Love and Light,

Heather

Camp Alpha Delphi