Host: Amanda Garcia

Amanda: [00:00:04] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Amanda Garcia, your host for this episode. 

I'm a big summer camp person. In fact, it's safe to say I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my summer camp. Not just because camp shaped me as a person and led me to The Moth, but because if it hadn't been for camp, my mom would have never developed a crush on the cute and, from what I've heard, mischievous kitchen boy, my father. 

I've spent a total of 12 summers attending camp, first as a camper, then on staff. My experience has stuck with me. It will take me less than five minutes into any conversation to bring up summer camp. Just this morning, I received a photo of a camp friend, still in the hospital holding her newborn baby. 

My indoctrination into camp culture began long before I ever stepped onto those 700 acres in southeast Connecticut when I was 11. The men and women I grew up calling aunt and uncle bore no blood relation to my parents. They were their camp friends. My family would sing camp songs at dinner. I knew how to build a fire at a young age. 

My first summer at Incarnation Camp was a big deal. So, yes, I guess you could call me a summer camp nepo baby. But even if you haven't spent your summers competing in color wars or making beaded friendship bracelets, camp serves as this perfect storm of awkwardness and hormones that make it a great backdrop for stories and memories. 

On this episode, we've got two stories all about summer camp. And what you take away from it when summer ends. First up is Jean Spindler. She told this at Ann Arbor StorySLAM, where theme of the night was Without a Net. Here's Jean, live at The Moth. 

[applause]

Jean: [00:01:52] So, I was a summer camp professional for the last 16 years and still am. And for eight of those years, I was a program director at a co-ed overnight camp in the beautiful state of Maine next to this gorgeous lake. 

As a program director, one of the things that I got to do was basically plan all the fun. I was the master of fun and I was the controller of organized chaos, which I loved. Best job in the world. Maybe my favorite part of the job was pranks. Not mean pranks, not bad pranks, but just pranks that make you feel alive. 

I was a quiet kid. I was a quiet kid in school. Even when I went to Girl Scout camp when I was a kid, I really wanted to do color guard. I don't know, flag raising ceremony was really cool, and I'm like, “Please, please pick me. I almost was out of the socket.” And they're like, “Oh, Jean. Oh, no, you're too quiet.” And I'm like, “No, I can be loud. I'm comfortable quiet, but I can be loud when I want to.” 

Pranks made me feel powerful. They made me feel like you don't know who I am, but I'm out to get you. And so, I promoted this amongst our staff. We always knew what the kids were up to. We still got to be safe. But I said, if you want them to remember you 20 years from now, you got to help them plan the biggest, most epic, most amazing prank ever. I've seen some good ones. 

Most of them resonated around stealing my mascot, buttermilk, the amazing rubber stunt chicken could jump through a flaming hula hoop and shoot itself out of a cannon. They would kidnap it. I have 10 different ransom letters. It's wonderful. So, pranks. 

Those quiet kids, they step up to the plate, and all of a sudden, they're not so quiet anymore. They're the ones who are leaders. They are the ones like-- Who knows better on how to be quiet than a quiet kid? They're like, “Guys, shhh. Stop it. They may hear you.” 

So, one of my favorite pranks was led by a counselor named Jeff. Jeff was like the counselor of counselors. Everybody wanted to be in Jeff's cabin. He had a cabin of eight eight-year-old boys about this big. So, not very big, not very strong. 

They heard that in the house of fun, which is where I kept all of the activity supplies, and the chips, and the cookies, and the Ding Dongs, and the skittles and the pop is that they wanted to steal it. And so, Jeff is like, “But whoa, wait, guys, Jean sleeps in the house of fun. The program director sleeps there like a dragon. Like a dragon guarding its treasure. I don't know, guys.” 

So, he was building it up in their minds that if you try and take this from her and you wake her up, it's over. We're all gone out of camp. We'll never be here again. So, these kids have the weight of the world on their shoulders. But they're up for the challenge. There's nothing beneath them, but failure. But they could succeed and they could be legends. 

And so, out they sneak in the middle of the night. They're dressed all in black, because that's how you hide in the dark. Ding Dongs They sneak out of their cabin with Jeff. They're ducking and they're diving behind the rocks, behind cabins and trees. Every now and then, we would place like a camp counselor on his time off to walk by and scare him to make them hide. 

And so, they make it to the house of fun and they're like, “Guys, guys, oh, man, here it is. She's in there. I see her.” I had just got into my sleeping bag. I was on my pillow and I was on-- [snoring] I was pretending to sleep. Sleep talking, I'm like, “Oh, pirates.” And they're like, “She's talking about pirates. Oh, my gosh.” 

And so, they sneak in and they gather around me in a circle. I can hear them. They're like, “Okay. Guys, guys, pick up the edge of the sleeping bag. Okay, get her head, get her head.” And so, they're shaking, and I'm like, “Oh, God, don't drop me, don't drop me.” [audience laughter]

And so, I hear them open up the door. The first thing I know-- I know there's stairs going down. Next, they go down the hill past the dining hall to the floating dock. And I'm like, “Oh, God.” And so, eight little boys, eight eight-year-old boys-- I'm heavier than they're used to lifting. And they're like, “Whoa, whoa.” They sat me down on the end of the dock, and I'm like, “Thank God.” Okay. And so, they're like, “We did it.” They are so geeked, but like, “Shh, shh, shh. Guys, we can't be hard.” 

And so, they race back up to the house of fun and they elude it for all it's worth. I actually just like two bags of Doritos, because I pre-planted. I'm like, “Jeff, you can have like two bags of Doritos and maybe a bag of cookies, but that's it.” [audience laughter]

And so, they loot the house of fun and they race back to their cabin. Once I see they're gone, I'm like, “Okay, I can get up now,” right as it starts to begin raining. So, the next morning, I come down to breakfast, and they come down to breakfast, and I'm going over my announcements, “Okay, if you're in swim class, don't forget, wear your swimsuit it is swimming. And if you're in ceramics, glaze your pieces at free time today. I know if you were the ones who did what you did last night, I will not rest until I find you.” [sigh] 

I amped it up, but they wanted credit. They had achieved this impossible dream. They stood up on the picnic tables, all eight of them, all these eight little boys, and they're like, “It was us, the cabin of streaked.” We pulled off the best, the most amazing, most epic, the most legendary prank ever. We were only eight.” And those boys walked off proud that day with something that they will never forget. 

Those quiet kids, those kids who are usually in school, just little waffle flowers, they felt like they'd stepped up to the plate and they were something that nobody thought they were. And that makes it all worth it and that is why I love being a program director. So, thank you very much.

[cheers and applause]

Amanda: [00:07:56] That was Jean Spindler. Jean worked for summer camps for 18 years. She loved sunshine, hot days, thinking up incredibly strange things to do, and enjoyed watching kids and young staff find their strengths, build confidence, make friends and become leaders. 

If you'd like pictures of Jean at summer camp, just go to themoth.org/extras. We'll have some fun summer camp picks on our website. 

Up next is Liz Kreppel. She told us at a Dallas StorySLAM where theme of the night was Drive, a note that the story talks about lice. Just a warning for any people that are icked out by bugs. Here's Liz, live at The Moth.

[cheers and applause]

Liz: [00:08:40] I'm nine years old, and I'm on the way to the best summer of my life. I'm on the bus driving eight hours to go to Camp Mataponi. All girls Jewish summer camp think parent traps on steroids. [audience laughter] 

I look around, and all the girls are screaming all the camp songs and I'm thinking to myself, this needs to be good. I had a really hard school year. I just got diagnosed with dyslexia. I had no more friends and I experienced a lot of bullying. So, this summer had to be good. 

The bus pulls up to camp and everyone starts pouring out, and screaming and hugging their best friends they hadn't seen-- they acted like they hadn't seen in years. All of a sudden, all the girls start lining up. I asked the one in front of me, why is everyone lining up? And she says, “We need to get our heads checked for lice before we go in.” 

My stomach drops, because two years ago, I had lice. I am pretty sure I have lice right now. [audience laughter] I didn't want to tell anyone, because I didn't want my summer to be taken away from me. 

So, I get to the front of the line, and I sit down, and I am inching lower and lower in my chair as the camp counselor starts combing through my hair and then she stops. She looks at me, and she says, “Have a great summer at camp. You're all clear.” And I do. 

I have the best time. I am making friends, I'm going water skiing, ropes course, playing tennis, making best friends. And the coolest part is I get this cool nickname, Red. Everyone at camp is calling me Red. I feel so seen. I have never experienced this before in my life. It's an amazing experience. 

So, we're three weeks into camp, and we're playing Jacks during rest hour. The unit leader comes in. She says, “Girls, we're going to have everyone come outside. We need to have another lice check.” And I am thinking, oh, no. My lice has gotten so much worse. I'm finding bugs on my pillows. I'm sneaking behind the showers, so that I can take Alexa Hurwitz's lice under spray and spray it all over to try to get them out. And I'm so itchy. But I've been trying to hide it, because I don't want to be the icky girl that gave everyone lice. 

So, I go outside, and the camp counselor starts looking through my hair and she says, “Red, we can't really see the lice, so we can't really see your head in this light. Can you please go to the health center?” 

I walk up the stairs or the hill up to the health center. The nurse doesn't even look in my hair, and she says, “This is the worst case of lice we have ever seen.” So, I start hysterically crying. The camp director and my counselor comes, and they say I have to go home, because it's so bad. The whole time at camp, I didn't brush my hair because no one told me how to take care of it. So, it was a huge knot. 

So, I go home, back to New York, and I spend the week there combing through my hair, pulling and yanking. The bugs are flying everywhere. And it's disgusting. But after the week, they decide I'm all clear. I get to go back to camp. I'm dreading going back to camp, because my perfect summer has been taken away from me. I'm now the icky girl that gave everyone lice. The worst part is that they're going to take my nickname away. 

So, I get back to camp. It's rest hour. I walk through the bunk. All my bunk mates are standing there with a huge sign that says, “Welcome home, Red.” They all run and hug me, and it's like no time has passed and they weren't upset that I gave everyone lice. [audience laughter]

So, camp became this very special place to me. It was where I found my drive to be my true, authentic self. It was where I learned to be silly, and laugh and know that things don't need to be that serious. I went to camp for eight summers holding very closely to my nickname, Red. 

As time went on, I graduated from college and I moved to Dallas, things became really serious and things became intense, and I lost that lightness and that joy and that silliness that I had at camp. When things get really intense and I feel like I've lost that sense of security in myself and feel like I don't belong, I just think, what would Red do? 

[cheers and applause]

Amanda: [00:13:25] That was Liz Kreppel. Liz, also known as Red, is currently venturing across Asia and Australia as a backpacker on a trip of self-discovery and exploring her passion of small-scale sustainable farming. She fondly remembers her time at camp where the nickname Red stuck with her to this day. If you'd like to see a photo of Liz at summer camp with her extremely red hair, just go to themoth.org/extras. 

That's it for this episode. Remember, if you like the stories, be sure to share this podcast with a friend and tell them to subscribe, so they can listen as soon as it comes out. From all of us here at The Moth, have a story worthy week. 

Marc: [00:14:08] Born and raised in Warwick, New York, Amanda Garcia's favorite part of growing up was the sleepaway camp she attended every summer in Connecticut. She first discovered The Moth Radio Hour while doing laundry, and it incentivized her to make the chore a weekly routine. One of her favorite things about the New York experience is overhearing strangers share their stories with one another on the subway. This episode of The Moth Podcast was produced by Sarah Austin Jenness, Sarah Jane Johnson and me, Marc Solinger. 

The rest of The Moth leadership team includes Sarah Haberman, Christina Norman, Jenifer Hixson, Meg Bowles, Kate Tellers, Marina Klutse, Suzanne Rust, Brandon Grant-Walker, Lee Ann Gullie and Aldi Kaza. 

The Moth would like to thank its supporters and listeners. Stories like these are made possible by community giving. If you're not already a member, please consider becoming one or making a one-time donation today at themoth.org/giveback. All Moth stories are true, as remembered by the storytellers. 

For more about our podcast, information on pitching your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, The Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.