Summer camp stories of the past. And of the future: a scrapbook

A few weeks ago, I looked back on my summer camp experiences, full of frosty-blue eyeshadow and lanyard bracelets, but the campfire smoke-tinged, God's Eye yarn-wrapped, Cutter-doused, Tretorned memories haven't stopped spinning in my head. 

E has picked up on it, asking me to tell him stories over and over again, wondering how bad the cafeteria food really was, wanting details on archery clinic and sleeping in the pine forest without a tent on some nights. He's whispered my counselor-bestowed secret camp name to me and spontaneously blurted out flagpole songs I've taught him over the years.

We've listened to other people's camp stories, too. The Not Boyfriend told us about his summers with North Shore kids at Camp Chi. And my mom laughed as she recounted picking up my brother from his first-ever sleepaway week -- with dozens of bug bites, both ears raging red and swollen from double infections on each side, a suitcase of damp and mildewed clothes, wearing the exact red sweatsuit he wore on day one, and sporting a grin from ear to throbbing ear. Blissfully unaware of anything other than his thrill at being in Potter cabin for seven whole days.

It's made me think that the time is coming for E to spend a week, maybe two, in a bunk, playing Capture the Flag, shooting arrows into shrubs, screaming undecipherable cheers until the final, weepy Kumbaya at closing campfire. Next summer? 

Today, on the quick car-trip home from day camp just a few neighborhoods away, we listened to some other kids' stories. We don't know them, but we connected to their interviews, the chants, the detailed explanations of the complexity and sobbing in choosing captains of the annual Color Days competition. 

E and I just sat in the car for 40 more minutes than we needed to, both for our own reasons, riveted by this This American Life on summer-camp culture, the people who don't get it and the people who really do.

And when the line came that some of the best moments of life happened at camp or with camp friends, I thought of some of my people. You know who you are. (Noonweh.)

Listen. It's the magic you probably remember, summed up in under an hour.

"I love this," E said, nodding toward the podcast ending on my phone. 

"Me, too," I said, nodding back, smiling, knowing he has so much more to love, to experience. And all of it far away from home and me. Next year.