Summer Camp

As a working class lad, I never got near a summer camp.  I read accounts of kids who were "shipped off" to camp for the summer and that sounded good to me. I could have done with several weeks at a pony camp or an archery camp or plain old camp.  Beyond a few picnics and trips to see relatives, my summer activities were fairly thin, but I did enjoy them.  If I was in any kind of camp, it was the weeding dandelions by hand camp or picking vegetables from the garden in the broiling hot sun camp. I know, it is truly piteous.  I'll pause while you get some tissues.

As with many other boomers, I have come to be able to do some things that I couldn't as a kid. Boomers are buying vintage cars and other items they wanted when they were young.  In my case and my brother's, it's acoustic guitars. I got the Martin D-28 I had wanted for decades in 2005 as a retirement present and found a 1964 Gibson B45-12 12-string such as Gordon Lightfoot plays a few months ago.

I've also been able to go to camp for the past eight years or so.  Virginia Baptists run a music camp every summer at Eagle Eyrie, the Baptist state assembly located on a mountain outside Lynchburg.  About 350 campers and their sponsors and chaperone assemble for nearly five days of choir, classes, shows, recreation and shared time.  The people who run and staff the camp are amazingly musical people. Becky is accompanying the younger choir this year, although she has directed them in other years. I slide in as a faculty member for the week by teaching a class they call "Lots of Lyrics" (LOL) in which the kids and I write new words to familiar melodies.  The songs are then used in the group worship services.  It's all great fun and some hard work, but we don't have to fix meals all week.  We also get in a little sightseeing (Poplar Forest) and shopping.

So, whatever you're doing this week, I hope you're having as good a time as I am.  These posts will come from the mountains and I'll try not to mention that too much in case you never got to go to camp either.