What Camp People Are Losing This Summer
At camp, I learned how to be myself, on my own terms.
I fought my parents with everything I had when I was 11 years old but they insisted on sending me to overnight camp for eight weeks. It was 1990, and the 17-year cicadas were out in full force. My suburban Chicago neighborhood was a screaming bug cloud, and I hated the idea of being sent into the Michigan woods, where there’d likely be even more insects. I had tried a different overnight camp the previous summer and had loathed almost every minute of it. To top it off, Mom
