Member-only story
Day camp, feral children, and the impact of over-scheduling
The driving range stretches out to my right and directly ahead, the Potomac River snakes around small, lush islands. The pub doesn’t open for another ten minutes, but the verandah is already busy. I’ve been sitting here for nearly two hours trying to figure out what to write. I turned in my book draft to my developmental editor earlier this week and now, I want to focus on my content creation and articles.
But none of my ideas are sticking. Maybe I haven’t been out enough lately or perhaps, I don’t feel like writing about my neighbors, bu every idea I have is garbage.
Until…the day camp kids file in. Or more correctly, they explode into the clubhouse and spill out onto the verandah. These are members’ children — junior members so to speak — who are enrolled in a serve and swing camp. They spend their day practicing their golf and tennis games and swimming. Not a bad life but completely removed from anything I experienced.
When I was a kid in the 80’s and 90’s, my parents told us to behave, stocked the fridge with sandwich supplies, and left for ten-hour work shifts. My sisters and I didn’t have camps, but we had adventures — after we did our daily chores. I jumped off bridges into the Detroit River (uhhh…yeah. Don’t do that. It’s gross), rode my bike for miles to see…
