As a pre-teen I was packed off to YMCA summer camp for a month every
summer, 4 years in a row.

Pioneer, Junior, Senior, Senior groups.

The mess hall was on top of a hill. From any group to it was either a 200-
step wooden staircase or a nice long hill climb. You got there almost
exhausted but HUNGRY!

Of course there was the wait. About 400 kids, packed tight waiting for the
doors to open and then race to tables like it was the last meal of their
lives.

We rotated waiter (I don't remember the actual title) duties for our
tables. You'd have to run for "bug juice" and bowls of mac and cheese slop,
etc. and clear the tableware to the kitchen after the meal. Your table got
inspected and you were OK'd to "get lost."

Three times a day!!! No wonder we were skinny kids.

I don't recall a food fight ever.

The only bright spot at meals was for that briefest time we got to sit and
eat with the girls! Our reason for living!!!

Then after dinner, we got to go to the canteen to buy a candy bar or two
with tickets that were issued out like "pay for slave labor," as our
parents had cleverly dictated.

Then back to the tents for the end of the day "shut up and play nice."
Gameboy was decades in the future.

Made a lot of lanyard things in those four years. The highlight was getting
to watch them gas a squirrel to death with ether in the Nature hut.

My original plan to escape was easily foiled by the fact that the lake
didn't have an outlet for me to canoe out and escape the drudgeries of the
"buddy system," 200 stairs to slop, bonfire sing-alongs and 1,001
tetherball games.

Well, that's how it went down for this camper, iirc.

I wish I had kids. I'd be sending them off to summer camp right about
now!!!

Andy