Of Living in the Past at Colonial Camp

The first line of L.P. Hartley's novel Go-Between, "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," has special meaning for me because eleven years ago, I spent one very interesting summer living in the foreign country of the past.

Finding summer jobs back in North Carolina was hard while I was in college in Massachusetts, so I felt lucky to get a job as a counselor at an outdoor, colonial-living style residential camp. I was going to work with kids, be a role model, maybe figure out if I wanted to be a teacher, and get paid pretty well for it! My parents were insistent that I work during the summers, and the Michaels where I was a cashier for my first summer job had closed. The next year, I worked at an oil change service center. It was hot, the pay was terrible, and my coworkers did drugs together in their cars during work. (Just to be clear, I did not join them.)

I also had another unusual reason for wanting to work as a counselor. When I was eight years old, I ran away from girl scout camp. My poor counselors probably felt terrible. Becoming a camp counselor myself felt like cosmic penance for being such a crappy camper when I was a kid. And who could be more empathetic to homesick kids than me?

Modeling the latest in colonial camp fashion.

At the end of my freshman year, my parents gave me a car to use and off I went to colonial camp. The lovely couple who runs the camp lives in a log cabin in rural North Carolina. They completely embraced the lifestyle and values of the eighteenth-century in their everyday lives whenever possible but still made use of modern conveniences like washing machines and automobiles (thank goodness). They also do year-round events for school groups and had been going to Revolutionary War reenactments for a long time. I didn't know it at the time because I hadn't worked at many places, but they turned out to be some of the best businesspeople and all-around good people I've ever met.

The camp was set up in a clearing a few miles away from the main house. This was not the cushy lifestyle of the gentleman farmer or the cobblestoned lanes of Colonial Williamsburg. The living conditions were more in line with a Revolutionary War camp. The site consisted of canvas tents with straw floors, lots of picnic benches, a covered cooking area, a water pump, and lots and lots of trees. Mercifully, there was a port-a-potty. Oh, did I mention this was in North Carolina in the summer with no air conditioning? Did I also mention that we were wearing colonial-style clothes? It was hot, my friends. Very hot.

Deluxe sleeping accommodations

The first four weeks of camp were boy's weeks, meaning there were only boy campers. The female counselors were responsible for cooking, some general cleanup, helping out with activities, but mostly cooking. All of the cooking was done over open fires, and so as soon as the sun came up, we started cooking breakfast. When breakfast was done, it was time to start lunch. Once the pots were cleaned out from lunch, it was time to start dinner. To fuel the cooking fires, the campers would chop wood from the time they woke up until mid-morning.

After lunch, when the heat was the most intense, campers were encouraged to take naps, write letters, and generally take a break before activities started back up later in the afternoon. At night, we would sit around the fire and tell stories. When black clouds rose up in the west, we battened down the hatches and waited for rain. Never before had I been so in tune with the natural rhythm of the day. I woke up to the song of nightingales and fell asleep to the hooting of owls. When it was hot, we rested in the shade. When it was cool, we enjoyed it. Sometimes, I long to escape my present, air-conditioned cubicle life and go back.

Colonial fowl!

The best part about working at the camp was watching the kids feel the same way about being there. It takes a certain kind of kid to want to go to colonial camp, and most of them were totally excited about being there. Each new set of campers marveled at how hard it was to chop wood. They loved learning how to throw tomahawks and shoot a blunderbuss. For a week, they left behind their phones, TV programs, video games, and all modern conveniences, and magically didn't die of boredom! Even though they couldn't wait to eat hamburgers when they got home, they learned how much work it is to cook over an open fire. (Churning ice cream was worth it, though.) Some of the campers would come back year after year, eventually becoming counselors themselves.

When it came time for me to take on my own set of campers during the final two girl's weeks, I was nervous to be in charge of my own campers. My nerves turned out to be the least of my worries. I discovered a new fact about myself: my limit for living outdoors in colonial times is approximately four weeks. During the fifth week of camp, I contracted a hellacious virus. I couldn't keep any food down, and could barely sleep during the hot nights. When I started hallucinating one night, I knew I needed some modern medicine. It wasn't the same as running away as a kid, but I felt like I had failed at being a counselor.

I hated that I wasn't strong enough to push through my illness, but if I had learned anything from the previous weeks, it was that your body knows when it needs to take a break. Living like a colonial person was fine; dying like one was not. I kept working there during the day, but drove to my parents' house each night to sleep. To this day, I still feel bad that I might have disappointed my campers, my other counselors, and the owners, but I think I did okay for an 18-year-old.

My stay in the past may have been a short one, but I would go back and visit any time -- on a four-week visa.