Growing Up the Easy Way in Summer Camp - Time Out #335

As we grow up from being young children, there is a definite progression; a definite series of steps forward in our young lives.

As newborns, we usually stay in the same bedroom with our parent(s).

As we get older, we are moved into another room. It might be a separate bedroom to be shared with our older siblings, or it may be a totally separate bedroom. The next big step, usually as grade schoolers, is to spend the night away from home with one of our buddies. This first sleepover experience is a big thing in our quest to "grow up", and be independent people. We usually swap this adventure, too, by having our friends sleepover in our home. Occasionally, in the nicer weather months, our parents might just let us have a friend over, and we might sleep in our backyard in a tent, closely supervised by our parent(s). Remember, we thought we were being grown-up and independent?

Well, my ultimate sleepover experience, as a late-1950's youth, was attending a weeklong summer camp, far, far away from Our Town, just outside Davis, OK. Davis is still the home of that camp, the Greater Oklahoma City's YMCA Camp Classen. It has been an institution since 1941, and is located in the iconic Arbuckle Mountains. Not too far off is 77' Turner Falls State Park, a lovely location in Our State. Today, 2,200 acres of the great outdoors represent Camp Classen for our youth.

I remember when my father, Col. C. H. Breedlove, and I discussed me attending a summer week at Camp Classen. I was excited as that young boy, but apprehensive, too. I remember packing my suitcase, and loading it in our non-airconditioned family car. My father drove us to the Central YMCA in downtown Oklahoma. Once there, he completed out some additional paperwork, paid my camp fee, and kissed me good-bye. This was the first time I had spent away from home by myself in my young life, and I was a Stillwater Junior High School student. The YMCA bus was full as we began the approximate 75-mile drive to Camp Classen. I'm sure I made some small talk with my fellow campers on the bus, but underneath it all, I had some real anxiety about being away from home, totally on my own. As the bus pulled through the camp entrance gate, my eyes enlarged, and my mind was certainly on high alert, trying to absorb all the new landscape. Soon, the bus came to a stop in the facility parking lot, and we unloaded in our "new home", away-from-home. Being new campers, we were each assigned to a rustic cabin, housing several bunk beds. The bathroom and dining facilities were in separate buildings. This same building arrangement continues in 2022, too, except, today, they are all air conditioned!

So, what did I experience at Camp Classen long, long ago?

Basically, the same things campers can experience there any summer. I enjoyed it so much, I attended several times. Camp Classen provides great outdoor activities, such as horseback riding, archery, swimming in their cool lakes, canoeing, fishing, many crafts, group functions with cabin mates, evening activities, good food three times daily, but, most of all, fellowship with other campers and camp counselors. It taught me about living with other people who were not my family members, and, in fact, total strangers when I first arrived. These folks were like family to me when I left each time to come home. Camp Classen provided me priceless, positive experiences.

Wow. It was fun to relive this time in my life, through writing about it. Those were definitely simpler and gentler times, long, long ago.