Making Love Out of Nothing At All

Camp was a place where you could experience the deepest love a human has ever felt, have your heart crushed, and be back in love with a different person, all in the same night. Most campers went for quantity over quality. Life was a roller coaster of emotion in which the time span between the thrill of a crush, the pleasure of a first kiss, and the shattering despondency of a breakup matched the life cycle of a mayfly. But some relationships were more significant, and even though many of us have moved on, gotten married perhaps, had kids even, camp love takes a very special place in a person's emotional vault, a spirit best captured in this essay I Fell In Love With An English Counselor!!! by Rebecca Shapiro, a modern day Thomas Hardy Heroine, and the rise and fall of her love with one Martyn Jones pictured above studying his Camp America guide to the States (Bless him!). All we can say is -- if you are Martyn Jones from the mighty Crewe and Alsager college -- please, please be in touch. For social science reasons, we would love (LOVE!!!) to hear the tale from your perspective. Or if anyone knows the dreamy Martyn -- please poke the gent...
And while we are at it... PLEASE HELP US FIND TWO MORE FORMER FLAMES who have been lost in time and space:

1. Simon Poulter an English counselor who studies at University of Leeds and spent a summer over at Camp Watitoh in Becket, MA wearing his Frankie Says Relax T-shirt. If you are alive and well... please email us...

2. Jeff Barron of Camp Kingswood in the early nineties. You were originally from South Africa, but moved to Denton, Texas... come on -- don't be shy... there are not one but three ladies who want to reconnect to your lovely self...

More to come, but if any of you know these gents, or know of their whereabouts... please help us let love rule.

Great Lost Loves of Camp: Eric Michaels of Camp Walden, MI

Me and my girlfriend, Wendy Wallack, Camp Walden, Summer 1991. We were both counselors and when we were not “working”, we spent a significant amount of time hanging in the Meadow (general camp meeting place and, to this day, greatest place on earth to just hang) and countless evenings at The Pines (local Cheboygan bar right by camp which has since burned down). We spent every minute together that summer much to the detriment of my responsibilities running the camp tennis program and the dozen 11 year-old boys in my charge. Days-off were our priority as we valiantly searched for perfect destinations to stay throughout Northern Michigan. This was the consummate camp relationship – intense, genuine and meaningful but inextricably short-lived given the brief nine-weeks we had at our disposal.

As is often the way with serious camp relationships, we swore to stay together when camp was over. I went back home to go to Michigan State and she returned to Indiana University. I was anxious, but comforted by the fact that one of my best friends from camp was going to Indiana as well. He promised me that he would "look out for her". He definitely did that – and a bit more. My heart was broken when she dumped me for him a few months later. What an asshole. I got over it. Eventually. He is likely still an asshole. In the words of one Mr. Kid Rock from his ballad, “All Summer Long,” the summer of 1991 has left its mark as a time which will forever "hold a spot inside my soul."