The summer I was 12 years old, my mother packed me off to a sleep-away
camp in the Poconos. It was called Timber Tops, and the camp still exists, a
fourth generation family run operation in Greeley, Pennsylvania. Described as
an overnight camp for girls offering an overall-activity program with an
emphasis on “FUN,” the fun is posted daily on FB now with lots of wonderful
pictures of girls swimming, performing, canoeing, dancing, and having campfires
by starlight.
My start at Timber Tops was rocky; about 3 days into to my
month-long adventure, I spent a night in the infirmary for colic. Or maybe it
was food poisoning. I did not like the food or the sweltering dining hall and I
hated the mandatory morning swim in a lake of freezing water. Until Timber
Tops, I’d never swum in anything besides a pool or the Atlantic Ocean. I hated
the uniform, which was a white tee shirt and red shorts. Can you believe there
was a uniform? The second week of camp my life took a turn for the better when I
landed a role in the camp play, cast as Shroeder in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie
Brown,” which thanks to the rigorous rehearsal schedule, got me out of tennis,
which I hated.
The reason my mother gave for sending me to camp was she
wanted me to have a more well rounded childhood. She also had just started
dating a man named Maurice, but more on him later. A friend of hers, Ruth, was sending
her girls, Leslie and Barbara, to the same camp; I was friendly with both
Ruth’s daughters. Another girl we knew, Wendy, was also going.
What I remember most about Camp Timber Tops was that everything
happened on a schedule. There was a rotation of waterfront activities including
swimming and canoeing; there was tennis, arts and crafts, theater arts, and
riflery. I actually was very good at riflery. I didn’t like walking en masse to
the showers and I was very grateful a toilet and a sink were inside our rough-hewn
bunk house. There were 12 girls in my bunk, including Leslie and Wendy.
Barbara, being a year younger, was placed in another bunk dwelling. Wendy was
certain this was going to be the summer when she got her period. Her trunk was
packed with Kotex.
One of the girls in my bunk was named Reisman and her family
was in the pretzel business. We had pretzels at every meal. Most of the girls at
camp came from lovely upper middle class Jewish homes in the Philadelphia area.
Today the girls come from all over the country. On a recent video I watched on
the camp’s website, one girl was from Scarsdale. Back in the 60’s, the camp was
dubbed “The Mountain Camp for Girls,” and even though we lived in bunks not
tents, it was pretty close to providing a wilderness camping experience. Built
from scratch on the banks of Lake Selma (the wife of the couple who were the
camp’s founders), and carved into the side of a mountaintop of pine trees,
Timber Tops embodied the spirit of adventure.
I spent the month of August at the camp. When I returned
home, my mother had married Maurice in my absence. He and I met for the first
time at the train station in Philadelphia on the platform when my mother came
to meet the camp train. Maurice bought me a fall (a hair piece very popular in
the ‘60’s) and we all went to Bookbinder’s Restaurant in center city for dinner. He asked
me that night if I had ever considered boarding school. To this day I regret my
smart-ass answer.
The takeaway from my Timber Tops experience was that camp
was very good for me overall. At camp I learned water tastes so much better
than the sweet soft drink they served called “bug juice.’ I learned to shoot
and clean a weapon and perfected my aim. I learned about flip flops. Prior to Timber
Tops, it was strictly boots or barefoot for me. From early May through late
September, if I didn’t have to, I wore shoes. I didn’t even know the word
‘sandal.’ But at camp every girl wore flip flops, except for our bunk counselor
whose name Leslie (but not me) still remembers, a large, soft, grouchy girl in
her early 20’s who snuffled in her sleep and cursed us. I am still a reluctant
flip flop wearer after being chewed out at work in my early 20’s for my
footwear. I can still hear Ira Kirschenbaum, one of the bosses, saying, “The
workplace is not a beach,” and let’s face it, I’m always working and when I’m
not, only an idiot would wear flip flops to a stable.
The most important thing I learned at camp was independence
and a sense of ‘can do.’ And being in an all-female environment at that
particular time of my life was inspiring. It’s thrilling to me that the legacy
of Timber Tops lives on, although I see they no longer offer riflery. But now
they have horseback riding. Even better.
