Four Camp Memories* and a Wedding

There are plenty of places I've been that I thought I would never see again. Camp McDowell in Navou, Alabama was definitely one of them. Despite the fact that Camp McDowell is the Episcopal camp in Alabama, and I am, in fact, an Episcopalian from Alabama, one week back in the summer of 1993 was more than enough for me.

There are only three things that I can remember about that week (and the name of my pictured cabin counselor is not one of them, Dawn?):

1. A boy with a mullet had a crush on my friend Leah. He came over to me at the swimming pool one day and asked me if she liked him back. I had to turn him down for her. The next day, we saw the same mullet-ed boy making out with another girl in the pool. It wasn't so much the betrayal that shocked me as much as the seeming lack of hygiene and supervision. All I can remember thinking is, "All of these people in one body of water, and now those two are tonguing each other in the middle of it. This can't be sanitary," plus, "Why doesn't the lifeguard care?"

2. Another boy would come around each night and serenade all of the girls' cabins. He played his guitar and sang Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train." It was quite dreamy. One of his friends would accompany him. I don't think the friend did any singing or guitar-playing, but he seemed to recognize that his friend had figured out the key to getting girls' attention, and he was hoping to pick up the leftovers. (Hey, maybe he, too, could make out with someone special in the pool that week.)

3. We learned the song "Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goal Posts of Life." This was a problem for me on many levels -- the title, hand motions and metaphor being just the beginning. Since I'm sure you're all dying to know, here are the lyrics:

Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life/End over end neither left nor the right/Straight through the heart of those righteous uprights/Drop kick me Jesus through the goal posts of life.

Yeah, I still don't get it either.

It also appears from my seventh grade scrapbook that we had a '70s night that involved dressing up, but what we did that night, and why the camp assumed that a bunch of 13-year-olds would travel with time-sensitive outfits for theme dressing, I don't know.

I do know that what I'm wearing had to be borrowed since this was not from my closet -- now, then or ever.

However, a few years ago my sister ended up working in the Environmental Education Program at Camp McDowell. (No, I didn't visit. Please don't judge my sister-ing.) While she was there, she met another employee of the Environmental Education Program,  and in the classic story of boy meets girl, after they met, they fell in love and decided to get married.

So, this past weekend, I made my first trip back to Camp McDowell in 17 years for their wedding. The wedding was beautiful, and I learned that camp is much better when you can stay in lodges rather than cabins and are of the age to legally drink. 

I even re-visited the same pool, but since I spent most of the time playing with my cousins and their children, I'm happy to report no traumatic make out experiences.

The one thing that was most definitely the same? The heat, but that's just an Alabama summer for you.

I now give you an updated photo of me at Camp McDowell, and in case you have trouble recognizing me, I'm two over from the bride on the right in a sage green dress two other girls are also wearing. (It's probably the tan that's confusing since I'm usually pretty translucent. Don't worry about my skin's health though -- it's a spray-on.)  

 

*Yes, I'm counting the photo from '70s night as a memory even though I don't technically remember it. You have to admit it improved the title of this post.