A couple of weeks ago I posted a list of my top summer songs, which you can find here. The list was sort of abstract and fuzzy; it contained songs that I imagined might sound good on a hot summer day (or night), but had never particularly associated with summer, as I can listen to the Afghan Whigs or Blondie any day of the week. What is a summer song, anyway? I wondered. When someone chastised me for not including any Jimmy Buffet on my list, I pointed out that I hate Jimmy Buffet, and that I don’t care how summery he is, I refuse to listen to “Cheeseburger in Paradise” or “Margaritaville” under any circumstances.
But the other day I heard a song that really did make me feel like it was summer: “Full Force Gale,” by Van Morrison. Immediately, I was transported to the shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H., and the summer camp I lived and worked at during college. I could feel the fresh air and the quiet and the sense of peace that comes with spending a lot of time outside. I should have been doing something more productive with my college summers, like working at a newspaper. But I’ve always kind of resisted the idea of having an organized plan for my life, and so instead I worked at summer camp, just as my father and mother once did, and both of my sisters.
My first year was probably the best, exhilarating and creative, full of laughter and the sort of weird manic energy that tends to be in shorter and shorter supply the older you get. I wasn’t getting paid much, but look at what they were paying me to do: run around, hang out with my friends, swim and play capture the flag and ultimate frisbee. (I don’t get paid all that much to be a reporter, and I don’t get to do any of those fun things.) As a camp staff, there were a few albums we listened to all the time during that first summer: “Throwing Copper” by Live (don’t laugh), Seal’s first album (DO NOT laugh) and “The Best of Van Morrison.” Which is why every song on “The Best of Van Morrison” has the power to take me back to those years on the lake, although “Gloria” and “Whenever God Shines His Light” exert a special pull.
Not everyone goes to camp, but I went every summer, first to Girl Scout camp and then to the camp affiliated with the New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ. This camp, called Horton Center, is on a mountain. I got to do a lot of cool things there, like go rock climbing and caving and hike in the White Mountains. When we wanted to go swimming, we piled into a van and drove down to the freezing cold river, where we jumped off rocks into pools and slid down small waterfalls. I dreamed of working at Horton Center, but instead I ended up at Horton Center’s sister camp, Deepwoods, on Lake Winnipesaukee. It was warmer there, and we swam all the time. I loved it.
It’s been years since I worked at summer camp, but during the summer, camp still seems like the place to be, and if there was a way I could spend a month working at camp and then return to my real job, I would do it. I returned to my old camp last summer for my friend John’s wedding. It was a beautiful weekend. My friend Adam and I arrived early and wandered around, stopping at the beach for a swim before returning to our cabin to put on our nice wedding clothes. After the wedding, we led a small party of guests down to the beach and built a fire, where we sipped our drinks and appreciated the way you can actually see the moon and stars when you’re out in the middle of nowhere. The next morning I got up early and went for a walk; while nearing the beach, a deer stepped lightly across the path and disappeared into the woods.
At camp, we sang all the time, which is why I have a special fondness for “The Rose,” a song inexplicably included in the New Hampshire Conference camp song book. Middle school girls love this song, and find deep meaning in it, and so of course everyone on staff hates it and dreads singing it. But I like hearing it, because it reminds me of camp. We also sang “One Tin Soldier” all the time; at one point everyone on staff was so sick of it that it was removed from the song book; vociferous complaints and protests led to its return. When I discovered that the punk band Me First and the Gimme Gimmes had recorded a cover of “One Tin Soldier,” I immediately bought the album.
There are all sorts of songs that remind me of camp, now that I think about it, but nothing says camp quite like “The Best of Van Morrison.”
Where would you rather be during the summer, sitting in an office, or swimming, building fires and watching deer?
