Going to Camp

Here's a short essay I wrote while traveling last week. True story.

The plane was packed. Just a flight to Philadelphia on a Thursday afternoon. And then they walked on. About 12 of them, most of whom looked as though they had graduated from high school within the week. Most probably had.

They brought with them the same energy you’d expect to see from nervous kids heading away to summer camp. Two of them had never flown before, which we all learned because they were unbelievably loud. The laughed in riotous fits. They turned in their seats to yell back to friends in other rows. The two girls in front of me played “I spy…” which was difficult because one can only see so much from your seat on a plane. They played patty-cake games with verses recalled from elementary school and laughed at how much they were able to remember.

At times they all dozed off, the plane catching its breath from their kinetic energy. But then they’d awake and the din would continue. I liked them. They drove me crazy, but it’s strange watching 18 year olds experience their first plane trip. Who were they and where were they going? They complained about not wanting to actually land in Philly. Perhaps the camp they were going to wasn’t going to be full of canoe-tippings and smores.

As we banked around Philadelphia, one girl yelled across to the one boy in the group, “What’s the building with the Liberty Bell in it? You know, where we made the Constitution?”

His answer. “The Empire State Building.”

“No! That’s not right! I don’t think. Man! Philadelphia is flat! Where are the mountains?”

I rubbed my temples. Really? The Empire State Building? And then she said it. She said it, and my heart sort of paused a beat.

“You know it’s weird isn’t it? Here we are going to basic training and we don’t even know anything about our country.” She said it. Just that. I wrote it down, because I knew I was going to write about them. And I needed to get that quote right. They were going to basic training.

“We should just go AWOL.” That’s what the girl next to her said.

When the plane landed, they kind of got quiet. They talked about getting some Chinese food in the airport, before “getting on the bus.”

So now I’m sitting on a little 15 person twin-prop plane flying to Maryland to talk to young people about keeping their options open and working hard in school. And they’re on a bus heading to camp. And I bet they’re not as loud as they used to be.