Here’s this week’s Smartmom from the Brooklyn Paper:
The Oh So Feisty One has been away at summer camp for more than a week and Smartmom hasn’t received a letter.
Not one friggin’ letter.
Frankly, Smartmom is worried and a little hurt. It would not be an understatement to say that she is the throes of a curiosity-induced cardiac arrest. She wishes she could be a fly on the wall of OSFO’s open-air cabin and get a firsthand look at her 10-year-old woodswoman — mosquito bites and all.
Smartmom knows that OSFO is probably not miserable. At the orientation, the friendly camp directors said that if a camper is terribly homesick for more than a day two, there will be a phone call home.
And that’s a call you don’t want to get on your iPhone. That’s for sure.
Fortunately no call came. But neither did a delightful little missive from OSFO gushing about her adventures in the woods of Vermont. Worse, Smartmom’s friend, whose daughter is at the very same camp, already got a detailed letter from her daughter that was practically Proustian in scope.
Smartmom wanted to scream with envy.
And it’s not because OSFO doesn’t have stationery or postage stamps.
Far from it. Before she left, Smartmom and OSFO addressed well over 30 stamped postcards and envelopes to friends and family.
“I think I’m going to be bored, so I’ll probably write a lot,” OSFO told Smartmom.
Clearly, this was OSFO’s way of battling her fear of going away from home for the first time. With these hand-addressed cards in her trunk, she could sustain a connection with those she loves.
Smartmom certainly didn’t expect OSFO to use all 20 of the Ugly Doll postcards or all 10 of the cheery yellow note cards with the handy multiple choice questions.
But one lousy note card. Is that so difficult?
So it’s been over a week without contact of any kind. And Indian Brook is not one of those camps that lets the kids send e-mails or gives parents access to a hidden camera.
“Unplugged and unforgettable,” that’s the camp’s motto and it also means rural and rustic. A wilderness camping experience, Indian Brook encourages simple living.
There’s even a non-sectarian Quaker element, which means that all campers and staff participate in a Meeting for Worship that is, according to the camp’s brochure, a time to reflect, pray, enjoy the birds, think about your parents…
It all sounds pretty great, right? So why has Smartmom heard nothing?
The first few days of camp, Smartmom certainly didn’t expect to get a letter. She and Hepcat dropped off their precious girl on a Sunday in beautiful Plymouth, Vermont. She was pretty tight lipped in the car but the night before the drive she’d let her apprehensions hang out to dry.
“What happens if I get homesick?” she asked Smartmom.
“You can talk to your counselors about it. If it’s really bad you can give us a call,” Smartmom said comfortingly.
“What happens if I hate it,” OSFO asked.
“We’ll come get you,” Smartmom told her.
“You know, I never really wanted to go to camp in the first place,” OSFO was getting worked up. “I said I was interested, that doesn’t mean I wanted you to SIGN ME UP FOR SOME CAMP.”
Her anger was mounting.
“I don’t even like sleep-over dates and now you’ve got me going away for two whole weeks,” OSFO snarled.
Smartmom assured her that Indian Brook is a very special place. She lulled her to sleep reading the Parents Handbook for the umpteenth time.
Knowledge is power and it seemed to bring some modicum of comfort to her frightened girl.
Smartmom made a point of not mentioning her own Alan (“Hello Mutha, Hello Fatha”) Shermanesque experience when she went to that hippy camp in Copake, New York. It was the summer of Woodstock and on the days of the festival, all the counselors abandoned the camp for some fun and frolic.
Smartmom wrote her parents a letter-a-day full of sturm und drang.
“I hate camp! Please come get me!”
Manhattan Granny recalls the sheer panic and gastric pain she felt when she got Smartmom’s pencil scratching.
“It felt like a note put in a bottle by a desperate prisoner,” Manhattan Granny remembers.
By the time she got Smartmom on the phone, things had improved. But Manhattan Granny was still a basket case.
So maybe it’s a blessing that Smartmom hasn’t heard from OSFO. Still, Smartmom has a laundry list of questions she’d like an answer to:
Have you gotten used to the composting outhouses (knows as “kybos”)?
Has the pregnant rabbit had her babies, yet?
Do you like your counselor?
Are you missing Teen Spirit, Ducky, Diaper Diva, your dad or even your mom?
Smartmom will just have to wait to get the news. Maybe today will be the day. Or tomorrow.
Then again, OSFO will be back in just four days. Smartmom can ask her all about camp as soon as gets off the bus on West 33rd Street in Manhattan.
Smartmom can hardly wait.