Important lessons earned at camp

I've spent the week getting my two youngest boys packed and ready for their upcoming trips. Ben will be headed off to Webb School, where he gets to participate in this year's Tennessee Shakespeare Festival, and Buzz is off to church camp. I won't see either of them for a week, by which time I may have recovered from packing ... You'd think Bell Buckle was Outer Mongolia, based on the items my now-17-year-old wanted to take.

"You aren't going to have a television -- there's no reason to take the game cube."

"I'm pretty darn sure they're going to have beds at Webb, you don't get the air mattress."

"I'm also pretty darn sure you can find food somewhere in Bell Buckle. Leave the watermelon in the fridge."

Buzz is going a little farther away, and it's his first time away from home. If it weren't for the fact that his godparents are going to be there with him, I'd probably be more worried, but he's seen more of them than he has of me this week, between late meetings and horse shows. I can anticipate them bringing him back and seeing Buzz cling to them and wailing, "Noooo! Don't leave me with these strangers!"

I have memories of church camp. I know, I know, I'm supposed to say "I have fond memories of church camp," but not all of them were. I still have flashbacks from the gar in the creek, their long toothy snouts brushing our legs as we fell off the rafts. Or the night our so-called counselor had a hissy fit and stalked off to her tent to sulk and I, Mary of the tin ear, had to lead the singing around the campfire. One of the most humiliating times was the year I had my very first "visitor" (Ladies, you know exactly what I'm talking about) and had to spend the whole week watching everyone else go swimming.

The first day was always a blur because I was so tired when I got there, I barely remember the evening devotionals before climbing into my bunk. The second day was exciting because there was all this new stuff to do and all these new people with which to do them.

The third day resembled Survivor. By now, the alliances have been formed, the enemies established, the meaner practical jokes have been played and every time events started getting interesting, we got interrupted by a commercial, er, I mean a class.

The fourth day was always the worst. That's when the homesickness really kicked in and no matter how many new friends, Bible verse posters, or plastic lanyards I'd made, I only wanted to go home.

And, of course, in the contrary nature of kids and camp, the last day was bittersweet, when I'd forget how miserably homesick I'd been eight hours earlier, and cry because it was all over with and now I had to go home.

Do you remember those books and posters that were popular years ago? The first one, I think, was "All I Ever Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten." For me, it was church camp. In five frenetic days, a life's worth of lessons unfolded. Some of those important lessons I carried back with me -- along with sunburn, poison ivy and 23 plastic lanyards -- include:

1. Always share with your bunkmate because then she'll share back, and everyone knows that everybody else's mom sends better snacks than your own mom does.

2. Don't tell your counselor that you wet the bed when you're in the bathhouse -- it echoes. Loudly.

3. Don't pick up the pretty, copper-colored worms on the hiking trail.

4. Don't play a practical joke unless you are ready for retaliation. (Shelton, John G., I still haven't forgotten the sleeping bags on the bunkhouse roof.)

5. Always let your counselor know where you are, but don't tell everyone else where you found the counselor.

6. If you're going to swoon over the lifeguard, make sure the boy in Cabin B you've been flirting with doesn't notice.

7. Band-aids can't cure embarrassment, it can only disguise the cause.

8. Don't open the cabin door unless you know who -- or what -- is on the other side.

9. Don't be afraid to go to camp -- you never know what you miss and how much it means to you unless you leave it behind for a while.

10. Don't be afraid to come back -- you may have changed, but home hasn't.

-- Mary Reeves is a staff writer for the Times-Gazette. She can be reached by e-mail at mreeves@t-g.com.