Time Travel Tuesday ~ Camp!!!

Oh, yea! This week Annie is inviting us to travel back to summer camp. Annie asks, What is your favorite memory(s)from summer camp? My daughter is leaving for camp next Monday, and thinking about her experience to come brings back lots of fun memories.
I went to summer camp at Camp Greenwood in Gowen, Michigan. My first year of camp was when I was nine years old, just after fourth grade, and I loved it from the start. My mom told me she missed me so much that first time (It was a short camp, just four days/three nights.) and when she came to pick me up I almost made her cry because I told her to go home - I was having too much fun at camp and wanted to stay.
Seven summer camp experiences have filled me with lots of memories, but I'll try to pick just a few to share here, lest your eyes get tired from too much reading!

...I loved all my counselors, but especially Barbie. She was my counselor three years in a row. I sang in her wedding and we still exchange Christmas cards, twenty-one years after our last camp experience together!

...One of the years Barbie was my counselor she told us to bring buckets and shovels to camp, from McDonald's Happy Meals. She supplied the vanilla ice cream and Oreo cookies and one night at camp we made our own Cookies'n'Cream ice cream and ate it with the shovels out of the buckets - in celebreation of the Oreo cookie's 75th anniversary.

...It was at Greenwood I learned to play, "Honey, if you love me." This is how the game works: Everyone sits in a circle and the player who is It tries to get someone to smile by saying, "(Annie) if you love me, would you please smile?" The reply is, "(Karen), I love you, but I'm sorry. I just can't smile." And, of course, this line is delivered without smiling. Then the player who is It gets to lay it on a little thicker. eg, "(Annie) if you really, honestly and truly love me, won't you please just give me a little smile?" The reply, again without smiling, "(Karen) I do really, honestly and truly love you. But I just can't smile for you." Finally, the player who is It can touch the "victim" - tickling their chin or cheek, or holding their hand - and say something like, "Oh, (Annie), you're breaking my heart. Please, if you love me, pleeeease won't you smile for me?" In the same fashion, the reply would be something like, "(Karen) I surely don't want to break your heart, and I do love you. But I just can't smile for you."
If the victim is successful and doesn't smile, the player who is It has to try on someone else. If the victim smiles, he or she becomes It.
I now enjoy playing this game with my second and third grade girls at the end of Sunday school. Every week they ask, "Can we play Honey, if you love me?"

...I also have fun memories around the waterfront. Learning how to canoe, having the boys from one of the cabins come around and swamp all our canoes, the greased watermelon contest, and learning some synchronized swimming.

...Of course my favorite summer camp memory is when I was a counselor and Brian proposed to me. But that may be a visit for a future Time Travel Tuesday, so I'll save it!

Yes, summer camp is awesome. Thanks, Annie, for bringing us here! Be sure to visit Annie to read about other summer camp memories.