No reason to raid girls' cabin if they actually want you to

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Based on a scientific survey, the test sample being my children, no kid wants to go to a new camp.They insist they won't get anything out of it. How could parents do this to them?It got me thinking back to when I was just as resistant.I was 12 when my parents made me go to my first overnight camp.There was no way I would survive.Then I got there and learned everyone else feels the same, and kids in a cabin quickly form an alternate family.It was a coed camp, mixed by day, but with boys and girls on opposite sides of the property at night. There is no bigger challenge to a 12-year-old boy than to tell him there is a line he cannot cross.Early on we formed a bold plan. We would raid one of the girls' cabins.We spent days on logistics. Zero hour was midnight. Or maybe it was 10 -- "lights out" at camp is early. The main thing is that our counselor, who had his own enclosed room, was asleep.We made it past the demilitarized zone and got to within 10 yards of the cabin we'd decided to raid.Then we realized we had a problem.We were 12. What do you do once you raid a girls' cabin?No one was sure.So we sneaked back to our cabin and went to bed.Later, we heard that word of our plan had leaked out among campers -- not counselors -- and that the girls had been expecting the raid and, oddly, had put on makeup before they went to bed. That convinced us that aborting the mission was the correct decision. What's the point of raiding a girls' cabin if they want you to?The camp had an arts component. In case my plans of becoming a major-leaguer fell through, I signed up for a cinematography course so I could be the director of James Bond movies. The teacher, though, was an overly artistic type. He mostly had us film the reflection of reeds rippling in water.A few years later, I applied what I'd learned when I spent a month traveling through Europe at age 17 with my older brother. I was the designated cameraman. And when we got home, my parents couldn't wait to see pictures of their sons in front of Big Ben and the Colosseum. Instead, almost all my shots were of pigeons casting shadows in places like St. Mark's Square."But it's artistic," I explained.The next year, I went to Camp Mohawk, where you did not get Mountain Dew with dinner and a sundae for dessert. There were no vending machines with a Milky Way. One day, we were all taken out to try water-skiing. Those who were new at it were told that if we stood up on the first try, we would be given an extravagant reward that evening.Somehow, I made it up. The prize was a can of Coca-Cola, something I'd been able to grab at home at will, and had my parents ever offered me a Coke as a reward for something, it would have been meaningless.But to this day, I remember that Coke at Camp Mohawk, and that I was the envy of everyone.We went on a canoe trip. I was paired with another kid who, like me, thought it was a waste of time to pay attention to paddling instructions. Who doesn't know how to paddle a canoe? But that first day, for lack of a well-honed J-stroke, while everyone else tracked straight, we zigzagged, and for each mile the others traveled, we slogged through two. That night, I learned the J-stroke.The last night of camp, we were invited to the director's house for a send-off. He had a radio that at one point began to play a new Beatles song. No one was allowed any radios or TVs in the cabins, so this was the first time in weeks we'd plugged back in. It was nice, but also a reminder that you could survive without zoning out in front of the tube each night.Camp taught me some things.That when you're away from family, the world usually supplies another one. That if you ignore instructions, you won't go in a straight line. There's no shame in aborting the mission if you're not sure what to do next. Electronic culture can get in the way. And you appreciate a Coca-Cola more when you don't constantly have one.I think that's about it.Oh, and that sometimes, your parents have their reasons.(mpatinkin(at)projo.com.)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)