Wendy has inspired me to write my girls camp memories rather than do my usual novel long comment to her girls camp blog. Generally speaking my girls camp memories are good. Girls camp can make or break a girl or leader. All the stars have to align for a good camp experience to occur. First, a good camp director, second, good girls with no trouble makers - you can have some pranksters (did I just say pranksters? I am getting old), just no mean girls. You can have bad weather etc., but if you have good leader and good girls all willing to "make the best of it" it will be a memorable experience. Memorable. That's what the point is really. Sometimes the worst experiences, due to trama, weather, etc., can still give a memorable and dare I say, testimony building experience. But if the leaders have bad attitudes and the girls are mean...I don't need to say anything else.
My first camp memories begin at my first year at camp as a beehive. When I grew up in Montana, girls camp was true camping. A camp spot would be a big patch of forest. Thats it. No built in bathrooms, water spiggots, firepits or tables. A week before camp we would go up and "dig the latrine". This would be a six foot long, 4-6 foot deep (like a grave plot) hole in the ground. Then a swing is constructed hanging from trees. The base of the swing is a six foot long one foot wide plank with two holes cut. The entire thing is then surrounded by tarp and a bag of lye with a cup is just inside the enclosure. When it's time to "go" you and a friend if you want since its a "two seater" would hold the swing and leap on, do your business whilst swinging. When done, you would cover your business with lye powder to dissolve your dirty sinful business. I think that my first year at girls camp was my first true "bonding" experience with another person other than my family. We had this amazing camp director. She was the only girl in a family of 6 boys. Most of the boys were drop dead gorgeous tall, dark and handsome, unfortunately, she looked just like one of the boys. I don't know how old she was, I'm guessing twenty five or thirty, she was a spinster was all I knew. I never noticed her in our ward at all but she was a tried and true camper and loved it. I've never seen a female enjoy camping like she did. She had a very manly way about her. But the sort of weird part was that once we met her, we all loved her and followed her around like little baby ducks. I can't explain it but we wanted to be near her all the time. She would always give the best testimonies every night and we would just soak up everything she said. Normally when a testimony is given I immediately begin to squirm and want to run away, but she was like a pied piper. Anyway I only mention this leader because she was the type of leader I wish everyone could have had. She taught us about pranking and wasn't a stuff shirt like I was when it came to pranking. The next year we decided to prank another tent. We snuck over to a tent, we didn't know whose, in the middle of the night and climbed in. I drew black polka dots all over a couple of peoples faces. suddenly I realized no one else was with me! The big cowards had run away! The next morning my heart dropped, when at flag ceremony I saw with horror, the stake camp director and her assistants faces covered with black polka dots! One for the books I tell ya! Another very vivid memory of girls camp I have is two years later, still in Montana, the year we camped in a bears feeding ground. Playing pranks was really big in Montana, it was just expected. No one (that I recall) discouraged it, it was just known that you don't do anything destructive to property or anything unduly mean. Anyway, one night as we were supposed to be sleeping you could see a sea of flashlights waving around as girls ran around either pulling pranks or visiting. Suddenly one of the girls in our ward came back running as fast as she could with this look of sheer terror on her face, something i could never fully describe. Finally we got it out of her that she had been sneaking up on a tent when she shined her light into a pair of yellow eyes. After asking who it was she finally realized it was a bear. That night several food tents were ransaked and we were told, after the leaders talked with rangers that it was a bear feeding ground area. We packed up and went home the next morning, after only two days. I wasn't really scared, mostly mad that we had to go. After what happened to that boy last month, I realize how smart it was to go! All those girls screaming, food in their tents etc etc., it was time bomb waiting to happen!
I've had two really bad camp experiences. One was when I was the first counselor in the young women's presidency and mentally DONE with young womens. I'd been in young women's for five years and we had recently had a ward split and i was anxious for a change, but they put me back in yw again. Anyway, the YW president had this horrible rotten daughter that I'd had from achievement days, through beehives to mia maid. I know the love everyone rule, but she was of the devil and I couldn't ove or even like her, but I tried. Anyhoo, the day we arrived, she and her rotten cronies went over and did some really really mean prank on the new stake YW president, a really shy, insecure, super sweet lady. I don't recall what they did but she was crying and it was awful and embarrassing for all. We told her she was going home that night after campfire when there was a ride to take her home. During our ward campfire she got into a screaming & swearing (using every bad word in the book) match with her mom, the YW pres. It was awful. After it was over, instead of giving her a whoopin and sending her home, her mom relented and let her stay. I asked to be released as soon as I got home. It was such a bad experience for all. If it happened now, I would have cracked both of their skull and sent both of them packing. The next super bad experience (in between several good) happened about 5 or 6 years ago. It started in January, when I decided, as I do each January, that it was time to loose weight. I noticed they were having a weight loss specialist come to enrichment in January and I decided to attend in spite of normally NEVER going enrichment. I enjoyed listening to him and his blunt candor, it amused me and I was motivated. After the meeting this woman from the ward came up and touched my shoulder and said, "Oh, I hope you weren't offended." Well I wasn't, UNTIL THEN! She was on my mental crap list after that. Well that year I actually did loose a lot of weight (unfortunately I found it again) and this woman must have noticed and decided to give the fat girl a chance. so she called me to be on the girls camp committee. She was the director for the second year and didn't want to be there and had taken the calling under pressure. Everything went fine during the planning stages etc., then we arrived at girls camp to set up and suddenly her face peeled off and her witch face emerged. It was so scary. Immediately she decided that the fat girl was her whipping boy (girl). As we tried to set up a tent she would be sweet to the other leaders then turn around and hiss something at me. I have never felt so, fat, ugly & middle school girlish in my whole life. Here I was, an adult, and another adult was making me feel like the ugliest most unpopular girl in school and she the most popular had the right to torture me. This treatment continued the entire week. While she and the other young women's leaders sat around and painted the girls nails and do crafts and drink diet coke and laugh, I, along with the other camp assistant (round also) would slave around them. One time I decided to sit with them and make a craft, she sat there laughing with her peeps, holding her drink and suddenly noticed me. She turned her red eyes on me and hissed and spit out, "get the beehives and go clean the bathrooms" and turned back eyes now normal color and her charming self emerged and it was, "now, where was I?". As if to say, "you just can't good help these days". I wanted to leave so bad that week, but I thought, I will NOT let her get to me, I am an adult for crap sakes! Unfortunately I don't have a good ending for this story. I stuck it out for the week and it only got worse, not better, and I still hate her with every fiber of my being. I haven't hated anyone since high school! To this day I wonder, why she called me to be on her committee and what made her turn on me. Whew, I guess that was a major vent session. sorry. In summation, other than those two crappy years, girls camp was a fabulous experience for me and I hope all girls get a chance to have a a good camp experience. amen.
My first camp memories begin at my first year at camp as a beehive. When I grew up in Montana, girls camp was true camping. A camp spot would be a big patch of forest. Thats it. No built in bathrooms, water spiggots, firepits or tables. A week before camp we would go up and "dig the latrine". This would be a six foot long, 4-6 foot deep (like a grave plot) hole in the ground. Then a swing is constructed hanging from trees. The base of the swing is a six foot long one foot wide plank with two holes cut. The entire thing is then surrounded by tarp and a bag of lye with a cup is just inside the enclosure. When it's time to "go" you and a friend if you want since its a "two seater" would hold the swing and leap on, do your business whilst swinging. When done, you would cover your business with lye powder to dissolve your dirty sinful business. I think that my first year at girls camp was my first true "bonding" experience with another person other than my family. We had this amazing camp director. She was the only girl in a family of 6 boys. Most of the boys were drop dead gorgeous tall, dark and handsome, unfortunately, she looked just like one of the boys. I don't know how old she was, I'm guessing twenty five or thirty, she was a spinster was all I knew. I never noticed her in our ward at all but she was a tried and true camper and loved it. I've never seen a female enjoy camping like she did. She had a very manly way about her. But the sort of weird part was that once we met her, we all loved her and followed her around like little baby ducks. I can't explain it but we wanted to be near her all the time. She would always give the best testimonies every night and we would just soak up everything she said. Normally when a testimony is given I immediately begin to squirm and want to run away, but she was like a pied piper. Anyway I only mention this leader because she was the type of leader I wish everyone could have had. She taught us about pranking and wasn't a stuff shirt like I was when it came to pranking. The next year we decided to prank another tent. We snuck over to a tent, we didn't know whose, in the middle of the night and climbed in. I drew black polka dots all over a couple of peoples faces. suddenly I realized no one else was with me! The big cowards had run away! The next morning my heart dropped, when at flag ceremony I saw with horror, the stake camp director and her assistants faces covered with black polka dots! One for the books I tell ya! Another very vivid memory of girls camp I have is two years later, still in Montana, the year we camped in a bears feeding ground. Playing pranks was really big in Montana, it was just expected. No one (that I recall) discouraged it, it was just known that you don't do anything destructive to property or anything unduly mean. Anyway, one night as we were supposed to be sleeping you could see a sea of flashlights waving around as girls ran around either pulling pranks or visiting. Suddenly one of the girls in our ward came back running as fast as she could with this look of sheer terror on her face, something i could never fully describe. Finally we got it out of her that she had been sneaking up on a tent when she shined her light into a pair of yellow eyes. After asking who it was she finally realized it was a bear. That night several food tents were ransaked and we were told, after the leaders talked with rangers that it was a bear feeding ground area. We packed up and went home the next morning, after only two days. I wasn't really scared, mostly mad that we had to go. After what happened to that boy last month, I realize how smart it was to go! All those girls screaming, food in their tents etc etc., it was time bomb waiting to happen!
I've had two really bad camp experiences. One was when I was the first counselor in the young women's presidency and mentally DONE with young womens. I'd been in young women's for five years and we had recently had a ward split and i was anxious for a change, but they put me back in yw again. Anyway, the YW president had this horrible rotten daughter that I'd had from achievement days, through beehives to mia maid. I know the love everyone rule, but she was of the devil and I couldn't ove or even like her, but I tried. Anyhoo, the day we arrived, she and her rotten cronies went over and did some really really mean prank on the new stake YW president, a really shy, insecure, super sweet lady. I don't recall what they did but she was crying and it was awful and embarrassing for all. We told her she was going home that night after campfire when there was a ride to take her home. During our ward campfire she got into a screaming & swearing (using every bad word in the book) match with her mom, the YW pres. It was awful. After it was over, instead of giving her a whoopin and sending her home, her mom relented and let her stay. I asked to be released as soon as I got home. It was such a bad experience for all. If it happened now, I would have cracked both of their skull and sent both of them packing. The next super bad experience (in between several good) happened about 5 or 6 years ago. It started in January, when I decided, as I do each January, that it was time to loose weight. I noticed they were having a weight loss specialist come to enrichment in January and I decided to attend in spite of normally NEVER going enrichment. I enjoyed listening to him and his blunt candor, it amused me and I was motivated. After the meeting this woman from the ward came up and touched my shoulder and said, "Oh, I hope you weren't offended." Well I wasn't, UNTIL THEN! She was on my mental crap list after that. Well that year I actually did loose a lot of weight (unfortunately I found it again) and this woman must have noticed and decided to give the fat girl a chance. so she called me to be on the girls camp committee. She was the director for the second year and didn't want to be there and had taken the calling under pressure. Everything went fine during the planning stages etc., then we arrived at girls camp to set up and suddenly her face peeled off and her witch face emerged. It was so scary. Immediately she decided that the fat girl was her whipping boy (girl). As we tried to set up a tent she would be sweet to the other leaders then turn around and hiss something at me. I have never felt so, fat, ugly & middle school girlish in my whole life. Here I was, an adult, and another adult was making me feel like the ugliest most unpopular girl in school and she the most popular had the right to torture me. This treatment continued the entire week. While she and the other young women's leaders sat around and painted the girls nails and do crafts and drink diet coke and laugh, I, along with the other camp assistant (round also) would slave around them. One time I decided to sit with them and make a craft, she sat there laughing with her peeps, holding her drink and suddenly noticed me. She turned her red eyes on me and hissed and spit out, "get the beehives and go clean the bathrooms" and turned back eyes now normal color and her charming self emerged and it was, "now, where was I?". As if to say, "you just can't good help these days". I wanted to leave so bad that week, but I thought, I will NOT let her get to me, I am an adult for crap sakes! Unfortunately I don't have a good ending for this story. I stuck it out for the week and it only got worse, not better, and I still hate her with every fiber of my being. I haven't hated anyone since high school! To this day I wonder, why she called me to be on her committee and what made her turn on me. Whew, I guess that was a major vent session. sorry. In summation, other than those two crappy years, girls camp was a fabulous experience for me and I hope all girls get a chance to have a a good camp experience. amen.
4 comments:
That is horrible about how you were treated! I'll hate her along with you. Surely she will be going to hell for the general mistreatment of others. Doesn't it just amaze you how horribly people will treat each other right to their face?
We did have one wretched Beehive on this last camp. Day one, she threw a fit about not wanting to sleep next to, you guessed it, the chubby girl. She was yelling about how much she disliked her, and how there was no way she would sleep there, and hello, the other girl was right there, crying. I wasn't there for this, but the other leader told me that she was taken aside and told to take these matters up with them privately. I wanted to pull a Parent Trap move and put them out in the wilderness with just each other until they learned to get along.
Same wretched Beehive gave me some backtalk about how she wouldn't do any bathroom cleaning. I'm just too old to be nice about it, so I took her aside and told her (hissed, really)that if she was old enough to come to camp, she was old enough to do what we asked of her, and by golly if she didn't, I'd help her pack. Besides, I said, she really didn't want to be the girl that the leaders secretly hope wouldn't come to camp. She cleaned the bathroom, complaining all the time. I thanked her for doing her part and told her that if I heard her griping again she'd do so much extra work she'd be too tired to complain. I refused to put up with her crap - if she got away with it this year, can you just imagine her as a Mia Maid of Laurel. She was probably glad when I went home, but honestly, she was the one bad apple in a group of heaven-sent girls, and I didn't want her nastiness spreading.
I'm jealous of your good memory - all that stuff about your camps in Montana. I remember very little about going as a teen. I hope I didn't sass my leaders. Valerie, what did we do, who were our leaders?
And we had a bad camp director last year - she was cranky and didn't want to be there. The other leaders still had fun, and it felt like a bonding time for us, having to put up with her!
All of us who have gone to camp in some capacity or another can so relate to your experiences. My problem was never with the girls, it was with some of the other leaders. One of the camps I went to I did all of these fun handouts, got little journals for all the girls, etc. One of the other leaders was so upset with me. She acted like I was trying to make her look stupid--which I wasn't, I just remember all the fun things the girls love at camp. Anyway, then I would stay up late with the girls playing games & laughing, etc., and she would go to bed and tell me to "please keep it down". None of this was any big deal but she hated me for a while after it.
That's awful! What's the saying, "no good deed goes unpunished"? I'm glad you ignored her and had a fun time anyway!
I was called to be ward camp director for the stake camp year when Bronson was just a baby. The worst was I HATED the ward YW president. Everyone did.
She would never come to any of the meetings or help me in any way, but when it came time for the ward camp directors to meet and get instructions, praise, etc. she would shimmey her big fat butt (which she really had) over there and try and take over for the glory. None of the other presidents did. She looked like such an idiot.
Did I mention everyone hated her? Well, the person that hated her the most was the first counselor. So bad that they had this big, huge fight in front of the girls. It was horrible! I actually hated them both, so I didn't get to take sides. They were such a bad example for the girls. Incidentally, they were both released right after camp.
The main things I remember about our leaders and going to camp was that one was really, really fat and had really, really bad body odor. Another one we didn't like. We found out that she was deathly allergic to peanut butter so it was our dream to sneak peanut butter into her food. Ah, the stupid dreams of a teenager! I have much more respect for those "peanut allergy kids" now (as my kids call them).
I just remember that I loved camp as a youth. Not so much as a leader.
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