Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Monday, June 18, 2007

Yesterday Frank and I loaded Henry and two bags bulging with t-shirts, swim trunks, bedding and the like into the Subaru wagon and drove through the winding roads of Surry and Alleghany counties to Camp Laurel Ridge. We figured that Henry, at age 9, is ready for the overnight camp experience, and Laurel Ridge seemed tailor-made for his needs and our tastes. We learned about this camp from our field producer, Tammy Byerly, who camped there as a child and worked there as a counselor during summers in high school and college.

Laurel Ridge is a simple, bucolic, Moravian-run camp a stone’s throw from the Blue Ridge Parkway and just an hour and a quarter from Henry’s home here in Northwest North Carolina. (To sweeten the deal for this teensy-bit jittery mom, Tammy’s own mom, Wanda Byerly, is volunteering this week as a girls’ counselor and promises to keep an eye on my son.)

The first time I laid eyes on Laurel Ridge about a month ago, I knew it was the place for Henry. It is everything we imagined: a sheltered, scenic camp on a protected, wooded campus, edged by a low, still lake. There junior campers swim, fish and learn how to canoe. They hike, learn archery and shoot basketball. They take their meals in a simple mess hall serving fresh flavorful fruits, vegetables and baked offerings. Arts and crafts—including wood-working, wood-burning and traditional Moravian crafts—are taught in a giant activity shelter hall where campers stage theatrical productions and act out parables from the Bible. (They also gather there for activities in case of inclimate weather.) Every day is capped by a hike to the mountain top for campfire singing and s’mores.

I love the camp’s philosophy of simple outdoor fun and even its rules. No cell phones are allowed, nor any electronic games, boom boxes, pagers or radios. (Camp literature says that if such items are found, they will be “confiscated” till the end of the camp term.)

Henry’s only gone a week, but watching how quickly he scampered to his cabin yesterday and selected his bunk with his two close friends, Andrew and Peter, watching his eagerness to connect with the natural world and sleep in that simple, screened cabin, Frank and I both knew he was ready for camp. His excitement over this moment in time made us feel for just a moment that we, too, were 9 year olds, going off to camp, youngsters for whom all the excitement of the world lay ahead of us.

What a time of life! May Henry have the time of his life among these smart, gentle Moravians from whom he can learn much. May he wake up next winter with fond memories of camp from summer.