Camp Get-Me-Outta-Here

Kumbaya my Lord, kumbaya, oh Lord, kumbaya.

100 bottles of beer on the wall.  100 bottles of beer.  Take one down, pass it around, 99 bottles of beer on the wall.  99 bottles of beer on the wall……..

Ah, those tunes we sang around the campfire.  As the school year winds down, parents prepare to gleefully embrace the next season, sending their children to summer camp.  Yipee!  Time to clip the apron strings.

I went away to overnight camp twice in my childhood, and there’s one thing I learned that stands out among all other lessons: I hate camp.

Learning survival skills in the wilderness with mosquitoes buzzing around my ears while I was trying to get some sleep was, well, sleepless.  Where do I plug in my hair blower?  You want me to dig a hole and do what in where?

We swam in a scummy lake and took timed swimming tests.  I excelled only in treading water…because there was no damn way I was going to let my feet touch the muck on the bottom.  Frankly I had been perfectly happy at home doing Weeki Wachee mermaid routines with my younger sister in our big swimming pool in our back yard.

At age 12, I was a junior counselor for a cabin of 6 year-olds.  It was the first day of horseback riding class.  Everybody mounted a horse and entered the ring.  The trainer announced, “If anyone feels afraid, you can just walk your horse to the center of the ring.”  The senior counselor and I did just that.

There was an Olympics day.  The entire camp, probably 500 kids, divided into two teams, blue and white, and competed in every sport imaginable.  I wanted to be on silver, as in the silver airplane to fly me home.

But lest I forget, I was a competitor…in playing jacks.  The game with the bouncing ball and metal spiked things.  You throw the ball up in the air and pick up as many jacks as you can while only allowing the ball to bounce once.  Hours upon hours I practiced.  I got so good I could pick up about 20 jacks in one toss.  What a remarkable accomplishment for my parents to have made such a huge investment in, unknowingly.

And, in trampoline class I got the “Most Likely To Succeed” award.

And, I won the “Neatest Cubbyhole” award (where we kept our clothes) for an entire month.

Since I hated those two camps, I decided to launch the best camp ever: Camp Sheryl.  I corralled the boys and girls in my neighborhood for one week.  Parents about kissed my feet as they plunked out $5 per kid.  At my house, from sun-up to sundown, I created a schedule that was a ton of fun.  The kids all laughed a lot, especially when Debbie R. fell into the swimming pool with her go-go boots on.

Looking back on my camp history, the moral of the story is when you’re not having fun, you have to create your own.

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from “real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

“I Do” and So Can You

Thank you, President Obama, for endorsing same-sex marriage this past week.  You unleashed the souls of many, allowing them to love freely.

Don announced to me, “I’m getting a divorce.”  Don worked for the printing company that printed the bank’s employee newsletter, which I was editor of.   In addition to our serious professional relationship we had a very fun, casual friendship.  He knew I was single and looking, and I knew he was married with three wonderful children.  His news caught me by complete surprise.

A few months passed, and based on where we were in the newsletter production process, Don continued to stop by.  I always inquired “How are you doing?” knowing that divorce is a nightmare.  He always showed his cheerful side but one day he was smiling from ear to ear.  “I met someone super special and I want to introduce you to each other,” he said.  We set a date and time and picked a restaurant.  When I arrived at the restaurant, Don was alone, sitting in a booth.

“So where is this she?” I asked.

“Have a seat,” said Don.  “‘She’ is a ‘he.’”

It took the wind out of my sails.  Not because he revealed he’s gay, but I lost my breath scanning through the decades in my mind in which he had had to live a lie.

Don moved in with his significant other shortly after.  In subsequent visits to the bank, he would always tell me he was happier than ever.

We lost touch over the years because I, too, found my special someone, married him exchanging “I do’s,” and we moved away.

This took place in the late 1980’s.

Some 20-plus years later, slowly but surely same-sex couples are finally making strides.  Obama’s banner for change is bittersweet; it should have happened a long time ago.

I am baffled by the anomoly in our society:  Straight people have the freedom to marry and fair pretty pitifully while gay couples desperately want to commit forever and, in most states, can’t.   Approximately 50% of heterosexual marriages end in divorce (and odds are worse for second and third marriages) and many more are miserably married.  Homosexual couples, despite the obstacles they face — prejudice, bullying, discrimination, harassment, and more — seem to have a true grasp of everlasting love.

Marriage is not for everyone but if you want to marry you should be able to.

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from “real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!

The Other Side of ‘13’

Help can come from unexpected voices if you’re listening.

Theresa stopped the entire Zumba class.  Someone’s husband was talking to her so loudly she couldn’t function.  But he was nowhere to be seen.  She had to deliver his message to his wife.  She did.  Then class resumed like normal.

I was channel surfing last night when I came across TLC’s “Long Island Medium” starring Theresa Caputo.  She’s a mom, married with children, and possesses the gift of psychic medium.  Either you think she’s a nutcase or you want to invite her over for dinner so you can reconnect with loved ones who’ve passed away and, ultimately, find peace.

In the episode I watched, in the midst of everyone shaking their booties, a voice from beyond spoke to Theresa.  She apologetically introduced herself when she halted class and proceeded to provide the spirit’s very distinct and specific information.  The recipient it fit identified herself.   Theresa continued fluently.  The woman was stunned and tearful and comforted; everything made sense.

Last week I was cleaning out old files when I came across a booklet, “Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association,” dated 1986-1987.  One day in that time frame I knocked on the door of Marie B. Lilla at 171 Lova Way, Cassadaga, without appointment.  (I kept her business card.)  The psychics welcome walk-ins because that way there’s no chance of you thinking they researched anything about you prior.  I have four pages of notes that I took during the reading and one line says, “gift of writing, published works, special message relating in form of a story touching people in need.”  Fast forward to 2007, I published my first book consisting of interviews with 75 couples married 50-plus years.  The secrets to successful relationships are revealed by the real-life experts.  Eeeeeeeeeeeery!

“13” is significant in my life and my mom and sisters, too.  My dad passed away on the 13^th of August in 1996.  Ever since then, he has “spoken” to us through the number 13.  I didn’t want to believe it for a long time because I was a total skeptic.  But way too many “13” things have happened over the years for me to question its validity.  My dad’s “visits” are comforting and reassuring and help me continue moving forward.  For example, several years ago one of my sisters called the fire department due to a potential gas leak at her home.  The firemen came from fire station #12.  Afterward, as a thank-you, my sister ordered a cookie cake with the #12 on it to take to the fire station.  When she picked up the cookie cake and opened the box to make sure it was engraved accurately, it read #13.  Another example, a couple of years ago, one evening, my mom and I were visiting a relative in the hospital.  Afterward, we exited the hospital to the wrong parking lot.  It was dark outside so we went back into the hospital and tried figuring the right way out of the maze.  We ended up leaving through the emergency room doors, and, at that moment, up drove ambulance #13.

Get Along Better provides you relationship “tips” with a twist of humor.  Want more?  4,000+ years’ worth of advice from “real-life experts” are documented in Everlasting Matrimony: Pearls Of Wisdom From Couples Married 50 Years Or More, a coffee-table book by Sheryl Kurland.  Makes an excellent gift for weddings, anniversaries, engagements…or just because!