Summer is over, at least in Toronto. Even though the weather here is still pretty nice, the arrival and subsequent departure of the Canadian National Exhibition is the formal announcement to all Torontonians that the party is over. The kids are back in school, the outdoor pools are shutting their doors, and the stores are pushing their fall and winter clothes. With the exception of the clothes part, I feel pretty demoralized.
Last weekend I got together with some friends for a summer’s last hurrah movie-Chinese-food-and-beer-night. To boost our flagging spirits, we watched a flick that totally sent me back to the early 80’s – “Wet Hot American Summer.” It’s a spoof of all of those teen exploitation camp films that seemed so popular back when I was a kid. Incidentally, they were all the films my parents refused to let me see. I remember my friends heading up to the old Savoy Theatre in Dominion to watch such classics as “Meatballs” and “Little Darlings,” while I sat home wondering why I too couldn’t be exposed to partial nudity and adult situations at the tender age of nine. Such injustice!
Summer camp is a huge thing in Ontario. Some kids are shipped off for weeks at a time, (mostly) to their utter delight. There are camps for every possible interest. So many options! As a kid, I spent a lot of time going camping with the Girl Guides. I was so obsessed with Guides that I managed to stay on beyond the mandatory age limit of 11. (Yes, I was a bit of a geek.) Camping was an opportunity for me to demonstrate my bravery by escorting the younger guides to the outhouse in the middle of the night.
But an even bigger deal was heading off to Knox Day Camp in Mira. I swear I stayed for a full week once. While the games and sports were fun, what I remember most of all were the camp counsellors, and particularly the male counsellors. To a nine or ten year old, a sixteen or seventeen year old camp counsellor was quite possibly the ultimate crush. They were older; they had moved beyond the awkward early teen years and therefore were better looking; they had longish hair and cool clothes. We girls chased this one counsellor around, a guy from Bridgeport, like he was a rock star or something. My fondest memory was finishing up dinner in the mess hall when the counsellors bounded in with a tape player to blast some hot new music – “Working for the weekend” by Loverboy. The campers went crazy! Later the counsellors went off to watch “An Officer and a Gentleman” while we recounted, in vivid detail, the moment we were exposed to the musical magic that was Loverboy.
It’s nice to know that a good summer camp movie can take you back to Knox Day Camp anytime you want.
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