The Ghost Of Camp Conestoga

I took Nicole back to Rockford to show her my boyhood stomping grounds. Our first stop was Beef-a-roo to visit Adam and get some cheese fries. Our second stop was Anna Page Park where I spent seven formative wonderful years as a camp counselor. It's a bit overgrown but virtually unchanged. Camp Conestoga closed my final year as a counselor in 2004. 

It felt really good to go back and show Nicole around. Giving her a little tour and telling her about the camp brought back a lot of great memories, things I hadn't thought about in a long time. Overnights, hayrides, skits, songs, campfires, ghost stories, night hikes. Returning there I realized how big a part the camp played in making me who I am. 

Along with archery and tye-dye the hike to the dam was one of my favorite camp activities. It's a long trek for an 8 year old and once we'd get there we'd paint it and we'd play Cat&Mouse. It took Nicole and I 7 minutes to walk there. With kids it'd take 30. Most of the dam is covered in graffiti but there are one or two camp slogans that have survived over the past ten years.

The camp grounds were totally deserted. The forest feels older. It's quiet now and tranquil. My memories of it always teem with the skweeling of 8-10 year olds. One week I took my kids to a mulberry patch and after we had all stuffed ourselves encouraged them streak the juices across their faces like war paint. Their parents didn't care for that much.

It's special place for me and I'm grateful I got to share it with Nicole. The place itself says more than I could ever say about it. There are so many stories in those woods. So much laughter. A good amount of tears too now that I think about it. Once a kid broke his arm during a game of Steal The Bacon.

The camp may be closed but if you listen close you almost hear the murmur of excited children, the hiss of a hot dog cooking over an open flame, the hush of a ghost story about to be told.