"The next summer, I was dying to return"

Happy Monday from YMCA Camp: Horsethief Reservoir! Here's a story for your reading pleasure from our counselor Ryan:

For as long as I could remember, my mom had told my brothers and me about the fun she had had at overnight camps, and all of us looked eagerly toward that summer when we turned 10 and got our chance to go to camp, too.

When I was in kindergarten and first grade, I spent several afternoons every week with my cousins, who happened to be members of the Y. Soon after, my family became Y members as well, and thus it was decided that Y Camp would be where we went when we finally turned 10 and got to go to camp.

That first year was fun. I attended camp with one of my good friends from school and had a good time with him but, not being a very outgoing person at the time, I didn't really branch out and I had no trouble making the decision the following year to skip resident camp and go to horse camp instead.

The next summer, I got deeply involved with sports and, as a result, did not return to camp. (But) in the summer after my ninth grade year, I became an LIT and attended Adventure Camp. That was the summer I decided that I wanted to become a counselor. As the oldest LIT (I was 15), I was looked up to by the others and had a role as leader to them.

The next summer, I was dying to return and, in spite of my football coaches' hopes, spent a week at Ranger Camp (where I was second oldest) and a week as a CIT (where I was again oldest in my group). At Ranger Camp, I was again a sort of unofficial counselor and loved the extra bits of responsibility I picked up here and there. As a counselor, I look back and realize that, as far as trials by fire go, I'm glad mine was at a Y Camp.