As a middle class Black kid, I didn’t know of any other middle class Black kids who attended camp, and, if one was Black, they were so-called disadvantaged Black kids, from urban areas, and attended camp via programs such as the Fresh Air Fund.

Pittsburgh ftw!

The horse camp was also Bible camp, and although I LOVED it, including the Bible stuff, I think back to some of the crazy I was exposed to there and how readily I bought it and I’m appalled. Especially the summer I was a junior counselor there, holy moly, the staff meetings were ludicrous. I guess there was a “seminary” of some sort on site, and a lot of the senior counselors were students there, and I remember a couple of them were all about “apologetics,” which involved standing outside the temple in Salt Lake City shouting down the Mormons about their heretical beliefs like those nutty dudes with sandwich boards. Another guy wanted to put a “wolf table” up where the kids could peruse various insidious religious tracts so as not to be fooled if they were ever presented as “Christian” teachings. This table included a Catholic Bible, because of the Apocrypha as well as the fact that Catholic churches don’t have empty crosses but crucifixes. The logical leap there was that “our” Jesus isn’t dead anymore, he’s resurrected, but “their” Jesus is still hanging up there on the cross. This place was NOT messing around.

I really loved counseling, though, especially the week I did day camp with the little teeny kids. My camp name was Guppy, and I had a group of little girls who were going into second grade, and one of them asked me if I was married (I was 15). And I told her I wasn’t because I was a little young, so she asked if I had a boyfriend and I told I used to, but he broke up with me. And she said, “I love you, Guppy, I’d never break up with you.” Which brings a little tear to my eye to this day. In spite of the religious lunacy, camp was usually good times.

Ha! I love that idea- so much better than Model UN camp!

Every other kid there had come with a friend or two, and I knew NO ONE, seeing as the camp was in a different state than my school and all. I was never one for forced socializing, and wasn’t great at sports or art (also a big bookworm), so I didn’t exactly find great success there in any respect.

Thinking back on it, as exaggerated as it might sound, I think it was actually pretty traumatic.

Then I went to co-ed Baptist sleep away camps until I declared myself an atheist (largely due, in part, to the trauma of Baptist sleep away camp) and had absolutely nothing to do with The Church.

It was that bad. Seriously. Imagine you’re watching Jesus Camp, except that it’s happening to you.