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SUMMERS AREN'T WHAT
THEY USED TO BE
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Funderblast Camp, Coastal Camp, Strawberry Camp, M&M Camp,
Lagunitas Tennis Camp, Skylandia Camp, Performing Arts Camp.
What do all these camps have in common? MY FIVE AND SEVEN YEAR
OLD GRANDDAUGHTERS ARE GOING TO ALL OF THEM THIS SUMMER!!
It's insane. Each camp costs an average of $500 per child per
week. My daughter and son-in-law, who both work full-time, will be spending
approximately $9000 to entertain their children for the summer.
Times have sure changed. I went to one camp in my entire
childhood. I was about eight or nine years old and my parents sent me to
Camp Royaneh, which at the time was a church camp.
Our family wasn't particularly religious, but the price must
have been right. It was an overnight camp and I was sent there for a week. I
hated practically every moment of it. I was miserably homesick and only
wanted to return to my summer routine at home with my neighborhood buddies.
I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that one week at
church camp severely damaged my relationship with God.
No church camp for these kids, though. Their camps are nothing
but fun, fun and more fun with their fellow members of what I like to call
The Lucky Sperm Club. Their parents can afford to send them off each
week of the summer. Most kids are not so fortunate.
I was very happy to not be fortunate. I have no idea what
I did every day of the summer, but it sure was fun. I was a city boy,
born and raised in San Francisco, and we found things to do until the
streetlights came on. We didn't need no stinkin' camps.
Of course, it helped that I had a stay-at-home mother, which is
more of a rarity these days. She suffered through long summer days taking
care of me. If it wasn't for church camp, I would have prayed for her. And
to make it worse, school didn't start again until after Labor Day. Now it's
the second week of August, which is just plain wrong.
Despite my aversion to summer camps when growing up, I saw the
boom coming. When I was 15 years old, I recruited a friend of mine to start
a summer sports camp at Julius Kahn Playground in San Francisco.
It was my first entrepreneurial venture. In a remarkable
marketing coup, I convinced my old grammar school principal at Grant
Elementary, Mrs. Peabody (her real name, believe it or not) to allow me to
put our flyers advertising our new camp in the school-end report card
envelopes of every 5th and 6th grader.
My friend and I sat back and waited for the phone to ring with
parents begging for us to accept their child. I think we were charging about
$5 a day for each camper, which included all the sports equipment (one
kickball, one football and a Frisbee or two).
Apparently, I was ahead of my time. We got a total of one
camper, a misguided girl who left after a couple of hours. We couldn't
understand why parents wouldn't entrust their children to a couple of
15-year-olds with no insurance and no experience.
The good news is I pocketed the entire five dollars because it
was my idea. Needless to say, we weren't friends much longer.
Now summer day camps are ubiquitous. My granddaughters, proud
members of the Lucky Sperm Club, are not content with the same camp week
after week. They mix it up with sports camps, performing arts camps, nature
camps and just plain arts and craft camps.
"Thank goodness you're going to Tahoe for a couple of
weeks this summer," I said to my daughter the other day. "Your
kids need a break from all these camps."
"Are you kidding?" she replied. "The Skylandia
Camp up there is only $250 a week, the best bargain of all. I enrolled them
for two weeks. We'll be working remotely."
Parents work all week during the day and then take care of
their children all night after their day camp. The poor parents are
exhausted. I suddenly had a new entrepreneurial idea. It became very clear
to me.
Weekend only day camps. This time I'm going to be rich!
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