Just in time for the season of colour wars, s'mores and smooching comes the book Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Island Meets Lord of the Flies. Filled with hundreds of goofy photographs and embarrassing personal essays gathered mostly online and loosely spanning 15 years (late seventies to early nineties), it is a canoe trip down memory lane care of Roger Bennett and Jules Shell, whose Bar Mitvah Disco is a rite-of-passage must-read.
With a foreword by Meatballs director Ivan Reitman, design by Toronto-based Nove Studio, and anecdotes from Ontario camps Tamakwa, White Pine and Winnebagoe thrown into the trail mix, Camp Camp is filled with Cancon. But after thumbing through chapters on clothes, bunks, visiting day and unrequited love, among others, what stands out most is how formative and unforgettable such sleep-away summers can be. Mr. Bennett, who has just started preliminary research for Tried to Rock, a collection of failed band memories, reveals the allure of these projects and his goal to best Tom Brokaw's claim to "the greatest generation."
What is it that works so well about these shared coming-of-age experiences?
With Bar Mitzvah Disco, girls or boys, many of whom were still light years away from actual puberty, were heralded to be men or women in front of their family, school friends and entire community. And camp was the next logical progression. It is a place where many young people come of age in every definable sense of the phrase. Also, it is a place of absolute freedom. Each one was a compressed universe that was run by kids for kids.
Do you think current campers identify with the book?
The reaction we have had so far is that they can't believe it. It's sobering for people who are in their 30s to give the book to an 18-year-old. They treat it as if they're being shown a book about Victorian photographs. Younger people have loved to laugh at it.
Do you think that people
enjoy reliving experiences that were equal parts horrifying and thrilling?
I think there is a statute of limitations for shame, and part of the joy of collecting these stories en masse is that individuals have suppressed it to some degree. But it's safe to bring it out of the closet now. People have become the men or women that they are pretty well destined to become and it's a wonderful joy to connect the dots to look at how we got from there to here.
Are you surprised that everyone seems to have the same collection of memories?
We interviewed over 300 former bunk mates, many of whom are still tightly connected. There's an example of two groups from all-girls' camps, one that rarely thought of boys and another that spent all day waiting for the nightly social and the base they were going to get to. Today, the first group all work in publishing. The second group all work in the fashion industry. The camp that you went to was often decided by generations of tradition - but equally and oppositely decided by just clipping out a coupon or reading the newspaper. And it's amazing how this arbitrary decision can define the rest of your life.
What pictures did you gravitate toward and what didn't make the cut?
We got 80,000 photographs. ... The ones we loved kind of had a detail or two that made it more than just a photograph, like someone dressed in a World Wrestling Federation costume in the background. My favourite shot is probably the one on page 63 of the kids with the ghetto blasters. Every time I look at this photograph, I see everyone different. It's like the Abbey Road cover. The guy on the left is allowed to not carry a ghetto blaster but he has a Playboy apron on. Are they naked or not? Why is one of them wearing sneakers?
Did you set a cut-off year for pictures?
Yes, 1992.
Why?
That's when [Bill]Clinton became president; it stood out as the start of a different era.
Presidents aside, how do you get the sense that camp has changed today, especially now that kids take up cellphones or iPods?
I think we live in a more litigious society, for good and for bad. In our counsellor chapter, it's easy to see that campers ... after cursory training became gods of the place, which they were not equipped to be. Staff training, one would hope and as I understand it, has changed dramatically. Above all, I think camp is more popular now but I think the era from this book is over. I think the eight-week sleep-away experience that used to be the standard is now less so. ... And, of course, the Internet now allows parents to be hovering just over kids' shoulders thanks to "camp cams," even though they're miles away.
How do camp friendships differ from those in high school?
Having spent three years working on the book, I think about two things. In high school, your reputation was set early on and once it was set you couldn't change it. Camp was an opportunity to redefine yourself in the way that you wanted to be seen.
Camp Camp excerpt
When I arrived at Winnebagoe in July, 1985 - a 12-year-old, 98-pound, boob-free beanpole following her big brother from another camp - the only thing I wanted was to make friends, water ski and have fun. And be the lead in the play. And write songs. And have a boyfriend. And get my period. Well, I did write songs. It took me all of about two hours to decide that Camp Winnebagoe was the greatest place on Earth, during which time I scored a great bed, heard a boy thought I was cute and fell in love with my counsellor. All of which set me up for a camp career of unparalleled joy and delight and comfort in a place where I felt I could really do anything, and pretty much did.
My path to moguldom was through the drama department. Once I had a few years as head of drama under my belt, I figured out something interesting: Casting a camp play gave me ultimate power. Who would shine in the limelight? Who would sing the song that would bring down the house? Who would be A STAR? This all fell to me to decide. But that influence ran much further than just the leads - the true possibilities lay on the margins. Which kid was new and homesick? Which kid had failed his white tag swim test four times and needed a boost? Which kid had impetigo and was being teased by his cabin mates? Here was where I discovered the power of the cast list, how much of a difference a hastily created star turn could provide, how much it mattered having a name ...
From Rachel Sklar's essay,
The Mogul of Muskoka: How
One Woman with a Clipboard
and a Dream Became the Rupert Murdoch of Camp Winnebagoe
in Camp Camp: Where Fantasy
Island Meets Lord of the Flies
by Roger Bennett and Jules Shell
© Crown Publishers, 2008.
Amy Verner