Camp Nurse (36 page)
Authors: Tilda Shalof
We shared a chuckle about Eddie being a counsellor now and, from what we could tell, doing a great job. “Eddie’s the best!” Max had run over to tell me – though that’s what he says every summer about all of his counsellors.
Seth gave me a quick hug before leaving. “It’s time for me to move on.”
“You seem ready.”
We hear so much bad news these days about young people in trouble, involved in delinquency, drugs, and violence. As parents we worry about the dangers and so many bad influences that are out there. Sometimes, we have doubts that the upcoming generation has the proper values or the right work ethic or sufficient motivation. Camp made me think otherwise. I met so many energetic and idealistic young people who want to do good work and give back to the community. One way they start is by being counsellors, giving the kids in their care all that camp has given them.
At the end of my last week at camp that summer, at the Friday evening service, Rudy started off by mentioning achievements,
not only of individuals, but group ones, too: a cabin that had returned from their first canoe trip; another in which everyone had passed the swim test; a successful Colour War. Then, a tall, beautiful counsellor named Dani got up to speak:
This is my ninth summer at camp. There are so many things I love about camp: cabin bonding; stargazing; being with friends I don’t see all year round (you know who you are); dancing in the rain; Sabbath cake; my summer as a
CIT
; meeting my cabin of girls as a counsellor for the first time; techno parties in the staff lounge; long, meaningful conversations that I would not have in the city; and seeing all of you, summer after summer. I will always and forever cherish the memories of our times together.
That says it all
.
Yes, I’d probably come back next summer.
To be a camp nurse you don’t have to be young, but you do have to be young at heart. At nearly fifty, I didn’t feel old, but camp has made me aware of the passage of time – especially, its rush.
So much happens here. A day at camp is a week anywhere else. A week at camp is like a year
, Alice and I always said to each other.
When it was time to leave, I went up to the microphone to say goodbye to everyone at once. As I stepped down from the podium, they all rushed at me and swarmed me in hugs. Then I said goodbye to my sons and began the long, leisurely drive homeward. As I drove along that quiet, country road, I had an urge to turn around and go back, stay there forever, so camp would never end, not that summer, not ever.
*
And let’s not forget late-summer campsickness, too!
Copyright © 2009 by Tilda Shalof
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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Shalof, Tilda
Camp nurse / Tilda Shalof.
eISBN: 978-0-7710-7987-0
1. Shalof, Tilda. 2. Camp nursing. 3. Nurses – Canada – Biography. I. Title.
RT120.C3S44 2010 610.73′092 C2009-906495-2
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