Summer Camp

Recently, I have been pestering my roommate about what's Kosher and what isn't. The other night we had a conversation that went something like this:

"What about eels?"
"No, because they don't have scales."

"But they don't have scales because they aren't evolved enough, so that shouldn't count....so no lamprey, either?"

"I don't even know what a lamprey is."

"I went through a fish phase."

Figure 1: Lamprey! mmmmmmmm.

The topic of Kosherness brings me to another topic that is fairly foreign to me: sleep-away camp. During my youth I did not know a single person who went to sleep away camp. It was only a concept on TV shows ("Salute Your Shorts" anybody?)

I can only speak from my own experience, and there were two predominant reasons for not sending the kiddies away:

1. Sleep away camp costs money

(Solution: An above ground pool and dumping your kids for "sleepovers" at their friend's houses)

AND/OR

2. The attachment factor

I've told you about the Long Island Mix before, and again, I can only really speak from experience, but if one generalization can be made about Italians on a whole, it's not that they are all great cooks, or hairy, or loud, or affectionate (although, I could make a case for those in another post) it is that they do not know how to separate from their offspring. You know "Everybody Loves Raymond"? Not an exaggeration. The idea of not seeing your child for two whole weeks? (two months? I have no idea how long summer camps are) is simply horrifying to an Italian parent.

I did go to Bible Camp, though, for either two or three summers (two weeks, 3 hours a day haha.) And I was a Bible camp counselor for two years. I should put that on my resume.