Sunday Morning at Summer Camp

My Sundays in the summer used to be much, much different. They didn’t involve getting up at 4:30 to feed babies, or scarfing down a tortilla slathered in peanut butter and bananas in between burping babies and cleaning up poopy diapers. No, they were much, much different, as were most things in my life, and I’ve always had a real love/hate relationship with Sundays.

I have always disliked how much Sunday felt like the end of the best part of the week, and Sunday nights have often been anxiety filled because of homework (it’s been a while since that happened) or mountains of emails coming in over the weekend, or trips for work. But Sundays in the summer, during camp a Brush Ranch, were different. They were refreshing and rejuvenating and helped start the week off well.

Each weekday started off with breakfast at 7:00 for the boys and 8:00 for the girls (poor dudes!), and then cabin clean up time and then a days worth of activities that were always the same, divided up into periods, much like high school or junior high. Then dinner and some sort of evening activity, then bed.

But, Sunday was different. The boys had breakfast delivered to them in bed, and for the girls, breakfast was optional. I always opted in because just about every day of my life I’ve woken up hungry. (Blessing: I never miss breakfast; curse: I wake up hangry every day.) Then, at 10:00 or 10:30 the entire camp would gather for Devotional. I’m sure at one point it was a bit of a religious ceremony, but the times I remember it was not religious but gave everyone the chance to reflect on the past week and look forward to what was coming up. There was often a musical element, some sort of story or reading, and then maybe some type of activity. One of my favorite Devotional services that usually happened at least once each summer was the reading of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree. I am not sure why that sticks out in my mind, but that story always makes me think of Sunday! During the later years at camp, my parents tried to host Devotional on top of Brush Ranch rock each Sunday(a large rock formation that overlooked the entire camp property with gorgeous views of the wilderness to the north and a peek down the canyon to the south). I think it was their way of making sure that every person in camp got the chance to take that hike and take in the views.

Another tradition that I always loved about Sunday was that everyone would be required to wear all white until after lunch. Why? I have no idea. In the later years khaki pants or shorts were allowed with a white shirt. This was the day that group photos were taken and I guess everyone was suppose to look “clean.”

Girls camp photo taken around 1991 (click to view larger). Check us out in our Sunday whites! That’s me, bottom left, rocking the pink headband. Yup.

See…the tradition goes way back. This one was sometime in the 60s (again, click to view larger). Why were all the group photos taken by the pool? I remember being so afraid that the girls behind me were going to fall and I’d fall in the pool!

Lunch on Sunday was always something special like a Thanksgiving dinner and ice cream, and the tables were often set with white paper placemats–very fancy! After lunch the counselors would all go to a big meeting where they decided on camper of the week (a story for another post).

Ahhh Sunday….