“I
Have a Postcard for . . . ”
We fancied ourselves toughies and bigshots, Supermen and sluggers, teen
queens and starlets – old enough to be away from home eight weeks, but still
softies craving long-distance reassurance.
It didn’t necessarily have to come in an envelope or call from Mom and
Dad or grandparents. A card from a younger Special Someone was even better.
Back when stamps had to be licked, not peeled, and before faxes or
e-mails, mail call next to the Main House was a treasured daily ritual. Like
pint-size GIs eager for a word from back there, we’d gather in a semi-circle
around a counselor an hour or so after the Rural Delivery sedan with an orange
flasher stuck on its roof made the run up
Names were called, recipients stepped forward and contact from the
outside world was passed. Along with My Summer Weekly reader, Boys Life and
forwarded issues of Baseball News came more coveted handwritten correspondence.
Older campers and counselors would hang back, feigning nonchalance while
hoping to hear from a school-year heartthrob exiled to another camp, a bungalow
colony or a summer job in the city. This was a time, remember, when Bobby Vinton
sang of promising his darling this: “I’ll send you all my love every day in
a letter, and seal it with a kiss.” In our no-secrets enclave, the head
counselor distributing mail would stage an elaborate pantomime of sniffing
dainty envelopes for perfume or delaying a thick letter for a lovesick counselor
until all others had been given out. “Wait, I think I do seem to have one more
here . . . for Eeee-laine.”
Before or after lunch, campers and counselors retreated with their
envelopes to a lawn chair, shady spot, circular tree bench, ballfield water tank
or their bunk to read up on what’s new in the city. News of a parakeet’s
escape during cage-cleaning, a relayed greeting from a neighbor or family
member, Dad’s adventure getting lost or nearly running out of gas and an
update on a homebound playmate or cousin could brighten a cloudy or sunny day. A
five-dollar bill might be tucked inside as a spirit-boosting bonus to spend on
pinball games in town or at the camp canteen.
The luckiest campers heard their names after the final letters and cards
were given out, when it was time for bulkier mail. Thick manila envelopes
brought Sports Illustrated or Seventeen, fresh from a neighborhood newsstand.
Boxes had candy, homebaked goodies, Topps baseball cards and maybe even extra
socks or forgotten swimming goggles – and oh, how those package grabbers were
envied. “What’d ya’ get? Lemme see. Can I have one?”
Naturally, not all 90 young faces left mail call with a grin each day.
Moms were thoughtful and sentimental, but also busy and at the mercy of the
Postal Service’s pace. Friends and relatives were even less reliable, usually
requiring the investment of southbound mail first – a chore that only the
youngest half of campgoers would be nagged about by counselors during rest
periods, free time or in the evening.
Leaving the cluster empty-handed could make a tyke visibly glum, which
must be what inspired a bit of creative writing by an attentive counselor during
my initial half-summer at age 7. She tried to fill the dry spell of a
several-day mail gap with a not-even-close forged card . . . as if even a
homesick lad would imagine Mom’s penmanship had changed suddenly. (“Uh, I
think a space alien is living with my Dad or something, ‘cause this card
isn’t from my Mom.”)
Still, such a touching gesture was an early sign of a new family’s
embrace that turned a shaky novice into an enthusiastic camper. This was a place
where counselors were like cousins and kids learned that “community”
didn’t stop at your block or temple.
No e-mail or fax could have been more precious. How many camp letters still sit in attic shoeboxes or basement trunks?