Blog Entry - BrandHabit

Family Camp

"Family Camp?"
"What’s Family Camp?" , people often ask, after a pregnant pause, fearing I might break out in a long sermon about a place where our family sits in circles to unite with THE LORD.

I just ran into a friend who still wonders if we get chips implanted in our brains at Family Camp.

Ha. Family Camp is exactly what you might expect from any summer camp, think high Sierras, Sugar Pines, Tent Cabins, a Mess Hall, Camp Activities, lanyard making, tye dying, camp counselors, camp fires and camp fire songs and extreme Paddle Boat racing on a nearby lake.

Lair of the Bear, the camp affiliated with UC Berkeley is probably the crème-de-la-crème of family camps. It’s like Summer Camp for kids but with better facilities: Instead of spitting cold showers, the communal bathrooms have blasting hot water and instead of bad food I remember from sleep away camp, the 3 meals a day (prepared, served and cleaned up by college aged staffers) are good enough to gain weight on. Did I mention that the male staffers on dishwashing duty work bare-chested while blasting rock and roll? Helooo Mrs Robinson!

The staff is what makes the camp. Really, just when you think there is no hope for youth these days, when you think all college kids seem entitled and spoiled and don’t know what it means to work for a living, your hope for the future is restored by meeting this group of young men and women at Lair of the Bear.

They are some of the hardest working kids I have ever met. I don’t think they make more than a pittance but they do it for the love of the camp and the kids. Honestly these staffers are so much fun, half the time I wish I were working and hanging out with them rather than just being a parent/camper.

Go Bears!