Giving Thanks for Camp Friendships

Tweet

Wind-filled sails. Cool morning dips. Friendships for a lifetime. Humorous pranks. Bugle calls echoing. Cooking over a campfire. Self-confidence. Brilliant sunsets. Images flash through my mind as I recall my youthful days immersed in an 8 week sleepover camp each summer. In every image I see a smile—a friend laughing next to me as we sit wrapped in towels on the dock, a giggle after taps as we try to hoist the counselor’s bed into the rafters, a silly grin as we both reach for the last doughnut. Of all of the gifts I received from camp the greatest continues to be the friendships.

I am thankful for the crystal clear moments of bliss with buddies I savor in my memories from those sun-dipped camping days. I am thankful for the longevity of the camp friendships offered to me through adolescence and into adulthood. I am thankful for how easily I can reconnect with campers I haven’t seen in several decades, as if we just furled our sails yesterday and headed our separate ways. I am thankful for how my camp friends have embraced my husband. I give thanks that I have been able to offer my daughters their own summer camp experience and hope their camp friendships will be as enduring as the friendships shared with me.