I have been thinking a good bit lately about what made Camp Miller and Camp Miller Hagan such special places for me, and based on the number of people that have reconnected on the website, a special place for so many of us. I'm not much of a writer beyond business memo's and e-mails, but I want to do my best to try and define a bit of that magic. I'll be curious if what I relate connects for others as well.
So what happens to a young boy or girl that goes off to summer camp, and why do some get so drawn into the culture of it? I think that when we all spent that first session at one of the camps, we were a little nervous, a little homesick, and perhaps a little pissed for being put into a foreign environment. I think I was 7 my first session at Camp Miller. I was in Miller 2 and had a six year older brother Steve that was in the Pioneer Unit. He was cool and I was pretty much at the bottom of the totem pole. I was only there for a two week session, but I loved it and then was back the next year for four weeks and eventually all eight weeks every summer except the summer I was 11 (the entire family camped our way across the country). In many ways the place transformed me into a different person, but how and why?
My guess is that it was the combination of safety and freedom. I was in a much bigger world than the home I was raised in and the neighborhood that surrounded me as a child, but it was a contained and regimented world that offered a sense of security and safety with a nearly endless opportunity to experience new things. Being thrown into a cabin full of boys your age that you had never met before forced you to learn how to interact with new people, a skill that has stayed with me to this day.
My summers in the Junior cabins, I don’t remember so well, but I do remember my summer at old Miller in Senior 4 as somewhat of a breakout year for me. My counselor was (Paul?) Nicomas (sp) that summer. He was very different from most of the other counselors I had in the past. He wasn’t a particularly athletic guy, but he introduced me to a bunch of new and off the beaten path ideas. One of them was Edgar Cayce, and this caused me to think about religion in a much broader way. Perhaps not exactly what a Lutheran Camp experience is supposed to be, but it had a pretty big effect on me none-the-less as it really broadened by thought process. I also think it may have been the first year I discovered girls at the Miller Hagan dances. I remember dancing with Kitty Kinzer, sitting outside of the Corn Krib on those homemade wooden benches talking, and lots of inter-camp letters going back and forth. Ahh first loves!
Chief Nicomas really motivated me to get off my butt and work towards all of the various awards in the Memory Book. I had done a fair bit over the preceding years, but never seemed to finish off the things I was less interested in for each of the awards. That summer, I think I completed the requirements for just about everything possible. I’m pretty sure that it was also the summer that I was “tapped” into the FTF. That has to have been one of the coolest ceremonies and traditions to have come out of Camp Miller. Was it a bit like joining a College Fraternity? I suppose, but the feeling and sentiment behind it really hit a cord with me. It was a little bit like a call to become a man. It was such a surprise and such a cool experience there really are not quite words to describe it. There is just something unbelievably thrilling about an Indian brave running around the inside of a circle of men with a torch and then being punched in the chest and falling into the waiting arms of another Indian. High drama and intense symbolism to say the least.
At the awards banquet that year (1968?) I spent more time walking up to the stage to collect awards than just about anything else. I was really kind of embarrassed, but still had a sense of pride for what I had accomplished. The final climax of that night for me was being awarded the Best All-Round Camper award for the Senior Area. I was so awed and felt so honored it was unbelievable. I had no idea that the was coming and was really just blown away. This event really gave me a new sense of confidence and self worth. I really can’t express how meaningful this event was for me.
The following year I was in the Pioneer Unit. This was the top of the feeding chain so to speak as far as campers were concerned. You were in tents instead of cabins and the councilors weren’t even in each tent. This created a whole new sense of community (within a community) as well as an unbelievable ability to show some leadership and grow. We got to rebuild the nature trail that ran along the river because it would always get partially wiped out each winter. We got to teach the younger kids about nature, and camping, and fire building and on and on. We led the mess hall in song after meals, and we got to participate as CIT’s. By this point it was clear I had found a home. I was so steeped in Camp Miller at that point, there was no question that my aim was to become a councilor.
Then, at the end of the summer in 1970, we learned that Camp Miller would not open the following year. This was a very sad day for all of us that had such an emotional connection to this place where we had become men and where we formed our characters. I had been accepted to become a JC, but that would be at a joint boys and girls Camp located on the Camp Hagan site.
1971 was both a wonderful and a difficult year for what became Camp Miller-Hagan. I am quite sure that the “Hagan Hags” felt like they were being invaded, and the “Miller men” felt like they had lost their home and a good bit of their identity. I can also remember jokingly talking about having to string barbed wire down the DMZ between the girls side and the boys side. We all had our adjustments, but as it came together it was wonderful to have a great group of young women to work with. What a great experience.
I was blessed with the ability to work at the Camps for two more years. I had a second year as a JC (I think I got held back for having too much fun) and a final year as the councilor of Miller 2. A big highlight of that year in Miller for me, and something that ultimately encapsulates what working there meant to me is the following story. At the end of that season I got a letter from one of my campers parents. In that letter, they thanked me profusely for explaining sex and relationships to their son in a way that was realistic, but still met their moral beliefs and opened up their ability to communicate with their son on that subject and many others. A small thing in the overall context of the world, absolutely, but it was a big event for that young man and a big step for his parents. In simple terms it made me proud of having the ability to connect with the boys in the cabin during devotions discussions each night and I felt that I had at least paid back a bit for all of the great experiences I had at camp. While I was terribly disappointed not to have had the opportunity to come back in the summer of 1974, I’m not sure that I could have endured having to see the very end of the Camps.
The true beauty is that while the physical aspects of the camps we loved so dearly are gone, our memories of them live on. More importantly, all of those great lessons we learned along the way have touched countless others though our parenting, our teaching, our ministry, or the way we work with people. We are who we are, in large part because the camps helped form us. In that way they will be with us forever.
So, I think that this was a pretty big ramble. I hope that some of you saw glimpses of yourselves in this little trip down memory lane. I don’t know that I captured the essence of the camps, but it should be pretty close for me. How about you? How did the camps help you to become the person you are today?
