Remembering Camp Visiting Day

On the wall of my den is an 8 by 12 square of black marks, the remnants of a picture frame. What once hung there was a black and white photo of my daughter Daphne at the edge of her camp's beach on Lake Winnepesaukee. Soon to turn age nine, she stood dripping wet, wrapped in a beach towel. I snapped the photo in July of 1985, her first camp visiting day.

Those were the days when I toted my Nikon FA -- a single lens reflex camera that used film to be developed by a custom lab in Boston -- to every visiting day for the six years my daughter attended a seven week sleep-away camp. Daphne's dad typically rented a great big video camera for the occasion.

Not so long ago, my daughter asked me if she could take that visiting day photo off my wall so she could hang it on a wall in her home outside Philadelphia. Although she complained about me taking too many photos on visiting day, I think this particular photo resonated with her, but I wish it were still in my home because it evokes an important memory in the life of a young mother, sending her child off to camp.

It probably struck a chord now that Daphne's own kids go off to sleep-away camp. Jack, age 13, has been going to Camp Wigwam for Boys in Waterford, Maine for several years now, and Lucy, nearly10, is now in her second year at Camp Lindenmere in the Poconos. No doubt they are honoring the time honored camp visiting day ritual, bearing shopping bags filled with whatever the kids have requested.

Daphne's dad was big on sleep-away camp, and looked back on his summers at a boys' camp in the Berkshires as an unusually happy time affording him an opportunity to build self-reliance. He felt strongly that Daphne enjoy the same type of experience, and when we went to visit her at camp, I felt blessed that we had the means to send her. Similarly, I felt nothing but joy when Jack said he was ready for sleep-away camp. Lucy was a bit hesitant at first, but has thrived on going away to camp.

With the advent of smart phones capable of taking great photos, I would be surprised to see anybody shlepping around a heavy SLR. What's more, sleep-away camps now have squads of photographers using phones to capture images of smiling children engaged in fun activities. These photos are posted daily on a password protected web site for the purpose of assuring parents that they are getting their money's worth at camps accessible to only the well-heeled.

It pleases me no end that Jack's camp posts pics regularly on FaceBook. Sometimes the group being photographed is so large that I feel that even if I enlarge the photo on my phone, I need to reach for my reading glasses to see if my grandson is in the photo. If he's not, I feel disappointed. Daphne texts me the photos of Lucy and her friends, and I love getting them.

Both my grandchildren's camps have the same visiting day, which happens to be this weekend. That requires my son-in-law Etan, to make the trek to Maine, and Daphne to head for the Poconos; they alternate who goes where.

I asked if I could attend visiting day at Jack's camp, which is an easier drive from my home in Boston. Permission was denied. No surprise there because I can't remember seeing grandparents at visiting day for my daughter.

So it is that I wait, with bated breath, to see what Daphne and Etan will post on FaceBook from their respective visits. Knowing that visiting day involves shuffling around in the heat to see each camper demonstrate whatever skills they've mastered since camp began, I think I've gotten the better end of the bargain. Jack and Lucy have told me they love camp, and I would give anything to be a fly on the wall, observing the kids I love have the time of their lives.