Supplements

Commentary

By Liz Quirin

Memories of Camp Ondessonk

Camp Ondessonk, celebrating its 50th anniversary year, hosted one of its big events April 19 at a dinner and auction. If success can be measured by the hugs, the laughter, the crowd and, of course, the money raised for the camp and campers, it was a huge success.

Some of the former campers and staff looked a bit grey by now, but who wouldn’t if you were on the staff in the 1960s. Camp was a bit rougher in the ’60s, and so many of the rules and cautions weren’t even conceived at that point. Who would put 18-year-olds in charge of younger children living in the woods for a week?

As I recall, it was more than great fun: It was challenging, educational and relational. We not only developed relationships with people we didn’t know — How could you avoid it living in a cabin with them for weeks on end? — we learned to care for other people’s children. We didn’t have to like them, but we usually did by the end of the week.
I did make one promise to a fretful mother that didn’t turn out quite the way it was supposed to. Mary, a chubby little girl, was spending her first week at camp. By then I must have been a seasoned staffer with maybe two weeks under my belt. I told Mary’s mother she would be fine, nothing to worry about. Mary subsequently got on a horse and then fell off, breaking her arm. Ouch! Mary did have a good time up to that point, but I still remember the incident. I wonder if she does.

We all have camp stories if we spent even a short time at Ondessonk. By now, they’re all good memories whether the outcomes were perfect or flawed. Generally, the flawed outcomes make for better stories. Wether we were campers or staff or volunteers or parents, we know that a week at camp generally changed our lives. For some of us, without realizing what was happening, we were growing in faith, in knowledge if not wisdom and in learning valued lessons about responsibility to campers, to Ondessonk, to our peers and to ourselves. No one was untouched.

Not everyone remembers wonderful, happy experiences at camp. No history exists without portions that we wish we could revisit and change. Ondessonk is no exception. Safeguards that we take for granted today didn’t exist then, and using today’s standards, many of us who were given responsibilities then would never be considered wise enough or old enough now to shoulder them.

However, given Camp’s history for most of us, the memories and the stories that go with them remain golden, a time of our youth, a time perhaps that seems better now in retrospect than it might have actually been. Truly special, it still offers the promise of adventure and life beyond our everyday experiences. For that, we say “Heepwah!”