Lessons From PK

Why haven't I written in over a month?

A. I was too busy battling strong thunderstorms, torrential downpours and tornado warnings while voluntarily giving up a week off from work to help my brother-in-law with his two kids at camp.

B. I was too busy driving up and down the Pennsylvania Turnpike to drop off my kids at camp, visit my kids at camp and pick up my kids at camp. (yes, that's three roundtrips in three weeks)

C. I was too busy enjoying a week of staycation at home after my muddy week at camp - river tubing, wine tasting, crab feasting, sleeping in, ignoring dishes and laundry and just generally relaxing while my kids were still roughing it at camp.

D. All of the Above.

And the answer, of course, is D.

But enough with excuses. Here are a few of the many things I have learned while my kids spent three week at Ukrainian Scout Camp in Middlefield, Ohio, which also happens to be the home of the 4th largest Amish settlement in the world.

Just When You Think It Can't Get Any Muddier, It Gets Muddier.
Remember last year when my sister and I ran in a mud run together? That's the last thing I'd want to do after my week of mud at PK. I'd agreed to spend the week at camp with my brother in law Olko and his two boys while my sister stayed home with her new baby. I saw it as a great opportunity to spend time with my little nephews and catch up with old friends, all at a place where I had spent many memorable summers as a child and teenager - not to mention the fact that it allowed me to occasionally spy on my kids who were in regular camp.

No one told me it was going to rain all week.

It started off innocently enough: a sprinkle here, a shower there. After the first downpour I ran out to Walmart to buy some rain boots since my flip flops were not doing the trick. As soon as I returned to camp with my cute new rain boots the rain stopped and the sun came out. I took that as a sign that the boots had stopped the rain. I was very wrong.

We were plagued by torrential downpours numerous times during the week. The heaviest traveled areas became mud pits and rain boots became the footwear of choice during most of the week. After a few days the mud developed a peculiar odor, not unlike that of an overflowing vat of sewage. Naturally my nephews gravitated toward the muddiest areas which resulted in running out of clean clothes to wear days before camp ended.

When I left the camp after one week, it never dawned on me that my return visits in the following weeks would also be filled with mud. Visiting weekend after the second week and pick-up weekend after the third week both ended up being wet and rainy, thus resurrecting the mud pits of the previous week. Thankfully I had left my cute little rain boots in the car, so I was set. My husband was not so fortunate and slogged through the mud in his sandals. I exchanged knowing glances with the parents who had been at camp with me during the first week, forever bonded together by our week in the mud.

I hate mud.

My little nephew Lev. He likes mud.

A Tent Is Not The Best Place To Be During a Thunderstorm
On Tuesday night of the first week I was sleeping soundly in my tent when I was awakened by torrential rain. The rain was hitting the tent so hard it was almost deafening. I wondered how everyone else in my little tent village was faring and how much rain it would take for my tent to finally start leaking.

Then the thunder came and I forgot all about the possibility of getting wet. It was a scary kind of thunder: long and low and rumbly. It went on and on and seemed to be getting closer and closer. Suddenly there was a simultaneous flash of lightning and a crashing BOOM of thunder which sounded like a gigantic lightning bolt had struck the ground right next to me. I think I screamed out loud. Apparently, so did a lot of other people as I came to find out the next morning. I realized that there was nothing between me and the elements but a thin piece of nylon and suddenly my cozy little tent seemed like the last place I should be. Olko told me the next morning that both boys grabbed him and held him in a death grip for the rest of the night.

Don't Ever Assume That It Can't Get Any Worse. It Can.
The day following the night of terror started out in a promising way as the sun peeked through the clouds. The promise of a sunny day was abruptly interrupted when a kitchen lady ran into our camp and frantically told us that a tornado was coming and that we should "go to our shelters". We all looked at each other in bewilderment, having no idea where "our shelters" were. I soon found myself crouched under a table in the kitchen along with a hundred kids under the age of twelve. Some were laughing, some were crying, some just looked confused. At one point someone told me that "if anything happens, grab the table and hold it down." Interesting.

The tornado warning passed, but strong thunderstorms and torrential rain kept us trapped in the open air pavilion for the rest of the afternoon, watching nervously as our tents flapped and fluttered and threatened to fly away. Fortunately I ended up being thoroughly entertained by an impromptu session of dancing lessons where I spied on Jack learning how to waltz and polka along with the rest of the twelve and older set. At one point I caught a glimpse of him dancing with a girl who was at least a head taller than him. Highly entertaining.

When Your Kids Are Away At Camp, Take a Week Off From Work And Do Nothing.
I don't think this one needs any explanation. After rolling around in the mud for a week I returned home to a week off from work with my husband. No kids + no work = a very good idea. We let the laundry and dishes pile up and just relaxed. I highly recommend it.

Hillsborough Vineyards

While the kids are away . . .

Kids Will Bring Home At Least a Pound of Dirt From Camp, Among Other Things
It took me over a week to get the kids ready for camp. I carefully packed all their belongings, neatly rolling up each article of clothing and telling them to try to keep their dirty clothes separated from their clean ones. I provided everything I thought they needed to stay clean, dry and happy during their three weeks in the woods.

Thanks to a comment made by a friend of mine who is also a fellow PK parent, I now realize that a better plan would have been to buy all their clothes at a thrift store and then have them throw their clothes out after wearing them.

All the clothes were damp. Dirty clothes were thrown together with clean clothes. Jack's socks were all turned inside out. I made the mistake of putting my hand in one to turn it the right way only to discover a disgusting mess - dirt, mud, leaves and grass fell out of the socks and onto the laundry room floor. The towels were crusty and everything smelled moldy. Ick.

Note to self: never pack white shorts for camp. Ella's white shorts are now black.

Kids Learn Weird Card Games At Camp
Your eight year old will come home from camp excited to teach you the awesome new card game that she and her friends played for three weeks straight. She will insist on teaching you this game as soon as she gets home and will take forever explaining the many convoluted rules, 99% of which make no sense. The card game will have a strange name, like Kemps, B.S. or Spit. As you play the game with her, the rules will suddenly change for no apparent reason, but the outcome of these rule changes will always favor her. If you miraculously become good at the confusing card game and start to beat her, she will again change the rules or tell you that you are cheating. You cannot win this game so don't even try.

Kids Learn Some Amazing Skills At Camp
This year was Jack's first year as a "yunak", loosely translated as "older boy". At age 12 he was the youngest in this group which was mostly comprised of 13-15 year old boys, 90% of whom were significantly taller or bigger than Jack. This did not faze him as he was somehow born with a streak of confidence that he most definitely did not get from me.

Upon his return home, Jack informed me of all the things he had learned at camp. Here are some of his newly acquired skills:

1. Cooking breakfast in the woods
2. Guarding the camp at night against raccoons and surprise raids from neighboring campers.
3. Morse Code (in Ukrainian)
4. Changing a tire and checking oil levels in a car (no joke! I was amazed)
5. Hiking for up to eight miles with a 20 lb. pack during a heat wave.
6. Marching in formation carrying a giant pole.
7. Dancing the polka (a skill all Ukrainian boys should learn)
8. Swimming across a leech infested pond and living to tell about it.
9. Building a gateway into camp using various knots and heavy logs.
10. Setting up a tent, taking it down and actually getting it to fit back into the tiny bag it came in.

We definitely got our money's worth, that's for sure.

There's No Place Like PK
It's difficult to describe the feeling of watching my kids have the same experiences I had at the exact same place where I had them. They walked the same paths, ate in the same kitchen, sang the same songs and danced in the same pavilion as I did. When I stand on the field at PK and look around, it feels the same as it did over twenty years ago. I hope that feeling never changes. It's a little bit like coming home.

Me (right) and my friend Leda Gawdiak at PK in 1978 - our first year at camp. I was eight years old.