Tuesday, August 11, 2009

June 30, 2009

Country Gal by Vanita Blundell
Well, I survived church camp---barely. Actually it was not all that bad. I did have a couple of flash backs of my one camping year. I was shipped off to the Boiling Springs Church Camp one year. I had never been homesick before and I had it really bad. At this camp if you got homesick they had you sit on a large rock in front of the mess hall. I spent many hours, or at least it felt like many hours, sitting on that rock crying my eyes out. I guess I must have gotten on the leaders nerves and they sent me to the camp nurse. She was very nice and talked to me, so I thought that I would spend the rest of the week with her. Then I learned that was not going to happen, so I had to go back with the rest of the kids.
One of the good things that we had at camp was the food, which is a little unusual. We were fortunate to have good cooks and we had a nice variety of food. Then they had mail call this brought back terrifying memories- when I was in camp if you got mail you had to do something embarrassing to get your letters. Well, my mom not only sent me letters but she drew cute little characters on the envelopes. That cost me- I almost let them keep the letters as after all it was not all that long before I saw her again- unless of course, I did not live through the week. You probably will not believe this but I was a little shy when I was younger- I have over come that obstacle- but getting in front of a group of kids who I had never seen before was not easy for me and to have to sing or say a poem in front of them was extremely difficult.
One thing that was different than when I went to camp was the chapel time- when we went to chapel- we were to bring dress clothes to were to the chapel service- Mom had even made a couple of new dresses for me to wear. I let one girl were one and she spilled Dr. Pepper on it. So I learned not to loan out my dresses. Now things are different - we do not get dressed up for anything. There are good points to that and bad- the good is that if there are those who cannot afford dressy clothing they do not stand out, not to mention that putting on hose in the heat is not a pretty picture - but I think that maybe we lose a little reverence when we do not dress when we go to the chapel. But this is the trend that America has taken. There are very few things that require coat and tie-and formals- we have taken to casual living.
The thing that just grosses me out the most and it still does is the community showers. I just hate those shower floors, it takes all of the nerve I have to go into the showers- Normally- I do not feel much cleaner when I get out the shower than I do when I went in- just wetter and hopefully cooler.
I know that this sounds like I am spoiled and I guess that I am- but swamp coolers are just a little bit better than nothing. They make everything moist and sticky. But it is a somewhat cool sticky. When I got home the jeans that were in my suitcase had a good crease in them from being packed in my bag and all of the moisture from the coolers pressed them nicely. I thought that they might have even been a little moldy but they weren’t.
This next week is full of activity- we are going to have all kinds of family coming in because of the 4th of July- I wish all of you a happy and safe 4th.

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