Summer Love

Posted By: Kelly Marston

As we prepare for summer, we are also continuing the traditions of generations.  Plantation has welcomed campers for almost 60 years.  Some of these alums have shared their memories of what made Plantation special to them and how it is still alive and relevant in their lives today. You can read some on the Alumni Memories page.  Here's one excerpt...

Summer of Love, Carlos Alcala

For me, the Summer of Love was spent at Plantation, but really, it was more than one summer.

The first year I went to camp, on campership, was 1967, the famous Summer of Love. At Plantation, it was not about free love and being a hippy, at least not in the ways conjured by popular myth.

It was about being 10 years old and falling in love with everything. The bright orange and purple sweatshirt of the Mother-to-All who ran the garden. The cute college-student energy of the young woman who was my pigeon-chore counselor. Crush. Who knew pigeons could be cool?

I loved fishing and caught a fish with an unbaited hook that snagged the bluegill’s belly. I loved horseback riding and rushed every day to see whether my riding skill had been properly recognized by Prunella. Prunella was the donkey that mysterious redrew her list of equestrian hierarchy each night.

I loved my counselor who read us “The Hobbit,” and my other counselor who played guitar and looked like a real cowgirl. I loved sleeping in a canvas tent where deer would come to eat the apples in the tree above.

I loved the bouncing dances in the redwood-floored barn where you could see the carved initials of those prankster McKenna boys who once hoisted a wagon up into a tree. I hated going back to my unit before the dance was over, and hearing the music continue for the older kids.

Read the rest to learn more about the magic of Plantation.