Fun, Fun, Fun

This week’s paper, featuring our annual Summer Camp Guide, is not 100 percent wishful thinking.
    But enough of it is to take your mind off present ­circumstances.
    I left behind the gelid remains of winter mix — and the prospect of more to come — in the hours I spent considering the camps of summer. Why do kids get to have all the fun? Michelle Steel, who prepares the Guide, shared that wishful sentiment. Together we yearned to sail small boats, swim, dance, skate, invent, act, imagine, build, explore, hang out with animals and discover nature’s ways.
    Many fun-loving, far-sighted people must have stayed up into the wee hours to come up with such odd, wonderful and various things to do. Swordsmanship at one; rock climbing at another; waterskiing at a third; wilderness survival at a fourth; horsewomanship at a fifth; hearth-cooking at a sixth; comedy at a seventh; wizarding at an eighth; water polo at a ninth; dirt digging at a tenth.
    Camp is all about fun, but that’s not all it’s about.
    Camp is a turning point in a kid’s life.
    As a camper, you leave your parents behind, for days at a time if you’re an overnighter. You climb over prison’s walls into freedom. The rule of rules collapses; camp rules manage freedom rather than enforce captivity. The mold of routine shatters; fun, novelty and adventure fill camp days. Instead of sitting, you’re playing. Instead of indoors, you’re out. Instead of the kid you’ve always been, you get to try out who you might be.
    In camp you get to do the daring adventures we all dream of — with a safety net. So if you fall, you’ll most likely bounce. And your parents’ fretting won’t spoil your fun.
    Those are dreams to dream of in these cold days of late winter.
    As for doing in the here and now, we bring you a winter adventure of a lifetime.
    Mike Strandquist, an Annapolitan outdoorsman who owns Breezy Point Marina in Calvert County, wasn’t ­content to wait until summer to seize life’s moments. Or to remember the old days of what used to be.
    When his creek passed the ice test on February 23, he called the neighborhood out to play. But first they had to clear snow off iced-over open water to make their hockey ring.
    “I guarantee you it was an experience these kids will remember for the rest of their lives,” Strandquist said of the adventure.
    To his surprise, everybody came.
    “As I was not sure how parents of the other kids would feel, I was surprised that everyone we invited was allowed to come,” Strandquist said. “I guess the parents felt I have safety in mind first and foremost.”
    Exhilaration over a safety net. That’s what Bay Weekly is about this week.

Sandra Olivetti Martin
Editor and publisher; [email protected]