Not to date myself or anything, but I remember when kids were reluctant to go to summer camp because they didn't want to give up TVs and their record players. So this is my favorite story today, about how much more reluctant modern kids are, for the obvious reason:
For a generation used to texting, Facebook and YouTube
, going away to sleepaway camp can be a bit unnerving. Many outdoor camps don't allow cell phones, laptops or iPods, and there is no computer lab for them to update their pages.
Many campers are "a little panicked" to part with their cell phones, said Tony Sparber, founder of New Image Camps, with locations in Florida and Pennsylvania. Some try to smuggle them in or bring more than one phone in case one is confiscated, he said.
The story notes that, once they get over the "disconnectedness," most of the kids actually start having fun with real face-to-face connectedness. But, alas, there is no happy ending:
So what happens when camp is over? Do teens give up texting? Or Facebook?
Not a chance. They have more friends.
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Take me back to 1959 . . . some things never change.
The Battle of Kookamonga
By: Homer and Jethro
Sung to: The battle of 1814 (The battle of New Orleans)
In Nineteen and fifty nine we took a little hike, With our scout
master up to Lake Aneekanike,
We took a little pizza and we took some sourkraut, And we marched along together till we heard the girl scouts
Chorus: We're the boys from Camp Kookamonga, our mothers sent us here for to study natures ways,
We learned to make sparks by rubbin' sticks together, but if we catch the girls we'll set the woods ablaze.
Well we crept up to the water and we see'd the girls swimmin', there must of been a hundred of them pretty young women,
They looked so fine even birds forgot to sing, we laid down in the poison oak and didn't say a thing.
Chorus:
Well our councilor said we could take em by surprise if we didn't say a word till we looked em in the eyes,
We kept real still and we kept our eyes aglued, we saw how they were dressed, they were swimming in the....Well we're
Chorus:
Chorus 2: Well they ran through the briers and they ran through the brambles and they ran through the bushes where the rabbits couldn't go.
They ran so fast even we couldn't catch em all the way from Lake Aneekanike all the way to Buffalo.
Well we ran right after them till everyone was pooped, so we rested for a minute and our forces we regrouped
Then we saw the girls behind some evergreens, captured by a company of United States Marines. Awww, them big guys get everything.
Chorus:
Chorus 2:
(in cadence) Rutty toot toot, rooty toot toot, we are the boys from the boy scout troop,
We don't smoke and we don't chew and we don't go with the girls that do.