Why Sleep Away Camp Was Always the Best Week of the Summer

Courtesy Mark Steffen/ReminisceThe highlight of my summers in the 1960s was going to YMCA camp for a week. I was in elementary school in Richmond Heights, Ohio, and fundraisers helped to pay for the trip. I went door to door selling bars of soap or boxes of chocolate-covered mints. My parents always bought at least a carton of whatever I didn’t sell. (These outrageous summer camps actually exist.)

Courtesy Mark Steffen/ReminisceWhile at the camp, we stayed in cabins, did craft projects, played ball, went swimming and sat around the campfire at night listening to the counselors tell scary stories. One night they told us not to leave our cabins after dark because there was a hermit living in a cave nearby who came out at night to kill his prey. Of course, that night we all slept with one eye open.Courtesy Mark Steffen/Reminisce