Camping with Homework: My Family Legacy

When I was a kid, summer meant one of two things: getting into the station wagon and heading to the cottage in the woods or getting into the Volkswagon and hitting the road. My parents were teachers, so the summers were spent on extended vacations.

Camping trips ranged from short local jaunts to one extended trip which kept us on the road for over six weeks. Just because my parents were on vacation didn’t mean they stopped teaching. I actually had homework on these long trips! My assignment was simple: to keep a journal of all the places we went and the things that we saw. I balked at first, especially with the demand that it illustrate my entries, but this was solved with a hole punch, a shower curtain ring, and the souvenier postcards we would pick up along the way. I would date each card and write about the trip and the place, punch a hole in it, and slide it onto the ring. Years later, these “camping journals” are wonderful keepsakes of my childhood as a summer gypsy accounting for all the things we got up to, including even using bait boats for carp fishing. As soon as the weather gets warm, my feet are ready to move. Someday, I’ll give my kids “camping homework” of their own.