The nest is empty... for a little while

Aaron at the airport, on the way to Ramah Outdoor Adventure

When I was 10, I went away to summer camp for the first time.  It was a 7-week boys camp near New London, New Hampshire, called Camp Sunapee.  I didn't really want to go to sleepaway camp.  In A Christmas Story the younger brother Randy is introduced with, "Every family has a kid who won't eat."  In my family, that was me.  I think I survived that summer mostly on bread sandwiches and Hershey's Almond Chocolate bars.  We also had a counselor from Switzerland who taught soccer and took me sailing on a butterfly, and who introduced me to this amazing thing called Lindt Milk Chocolate that was even better than Hershey's.  I shot a rifle, went to a dance at a girls camp, occasionally saw my older brother who was a 2nd year Sunapee camper, and... well, I didn't really like that summer's camp experience all that much, in the end, but from that year on I was away at camp every summer... and for 8 weeks after that first year.  Camp Sunapee is long gone, but those few memories from 40 years ago remain.


I was the last of the kids in my family to agree to go to summer camp.  My older brother was already in his fourth year of summer camp, and even my younger sister, not yet 8 years old, eagerly went away to a sleepaway camp.  Going to summer camp, it seemed to us, was a rite of passage in growing up.  It was what was done.  My father, a poor inner-city Boston Jewish kid of the depression, had gone to summer camp.  He said his counselor at his camp was Mike Wallace, only he didn't go by Mike Wallace then, he was Myron something, and every time we watched Sixty Minutes my dad would say something back to the TV, probably answering some bad thing counselor Mike must have said to him decades earlier.  Of course we all went to summer camp.


With all of us kids off to camp, of course that meant my parents were all alone in the house.  I don't think I ever considered it much from the parents' point of view, though.  Maybe they took an occasional couple of days down to the Jersey shore?  I'm not even sure, all these years later.  But the house was empty of kids, and from that summer forward they were "empty nesters" for several weeks.


Earlier this week, Lori and I became "empty nesters."  Seven and 8-week summer camps are mostly a thing of the past; among other things, it's way too expensive.  But Elianna was itching to go, and last year -- at age 10 -- we sent her to Camp Ramah in Canada.  Four decades after I started going, that actually seemed on the young side; maybe as parent my perspective had simply changed.  She came back glowing.

Elianna boarding the bus for Ramah in Canada

Aaron had showed little interest at all in sleepaway camps before.  Last year, I had even shown him Ramah Canada information, as well as information about a new camp called Ramah Outdoor Adventure, a Colorado-based Ramah camp that seemed to me a better fit for him.  He shrugged, and spent the summer at home.  He sailed with the Pontiac Yacht Club Junior Sailing Team, which despite the fancy name is still a whole lot less expensive than any summer camp.


But this year, Aaron surprised us.  He asked to go away.  He wanted to meet new people and do new things.  He's 15.  I couldn't help but recall that when I was 15, I was in my 5th and final year as a camper at Camp Ramah in the Berkshires.  Ramah Canada wouldn't work for Aaron; at 15 they still require a full summer's commitment and we weren't interested in that.  But Ramah Outdoor Adventure fit perfectly.  Early last Monday morning, we put Aaron on a plane to Colorado.


Elianna was home long enough after Aaron left to write him 2 letters -- outbound is all electronic now.  In the first one, she wrote, among other things, "Dad's gone all mathematical so I can't understand him."  She didn't let me see the 2nd one before sending.


This Monday, Elianna got on the bus for Ramah Canada.  And so, for 3 weeks and 2 days, we're all alone.  I'm not even sure yet what we'll do; the Jersey shore seems out of the question.  Mostly, it seems I'm waiting on letters from the kids... how odd is that?


Today, then, was the big day:  The first letters from both kids arrived.  Aaron's, via US Mail, and Elianna's electronically.  They both opted to taunt me.  Aaron:  "I am meeting a lot of new people and everyone thinks I am really funny, Dad."  Elianna: "And btw, Dad, you are very very mistaken.  I love you more.  Yes I do xoo."  May I be blessed with more taunting like that!


The empty nest is a preview, of sorts.  I suppose I now understand "the other side" from when I was 10.  I do have one advantage, at least:  I get to sift through pictures from camp most days.  It's a bit less lonely that way.  They'll be back in less than 3 weeks.