Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened...

Perhaps that should be the underlying theme of my always faltering blogging experience... but seriously:

I was lying in bed this evening thinking about the past. I'm not a "glory days" kind of person, I rather enjoy the present. But there are times when I find myself really wishing that there were some things that I could go back and do-over. Not that I would do them any differently, just do them over for the sake of being able to have that experience again. I started thinking of this the other day when I was listening to an Amtrak pull into the La Grange Road station and all of a sudden I was a kid waiting at the Joliet train station with my mom waiting for the train to go to my grandparents' house in Bloomington (we didn't always take the train down, but it was something I always enjoyed doing).

But this got me to thinking: why is this? On my anniversary, I don't necessarily think about my wedding day, but I think about my marriage now... so different, so much better than that first day of my husband's and my life together. So why is it that when I hear the locusts sing in the late summer, I wish I was at Bortell's Ranch, the summer camp that I went to every summer from 1984-1992? This camp was the highlight of my YEAR as a kid. We didn't go on too many family vacations, and I don't feel that I missed out on that sort of thing, because I so loved going to camp each summer.

Bortell's doesn't exist anymore, which makes me very sad. I wish that I could give my kids the opportunity to go away to this wonderful place where we would go horseback riding every morning for an hour or so, with the likes of horses named "Triple Tanny" (my horse for several years) or "Pepper" (my horse for only one year, my first, and it's amazing that a 9 year old kid would actually want to get back on a horse after dealing with Pepper's antics, but I digress...). I almost remember the schedule at camp like I went last week, not almost 20 years ago (yikes!): we would get up at 7 (unless you were a horse catcher, then you got up at 6:30), then ate breakfast, went back up to the bunkhouse and cleaned and made your bunk. At 8 you would go down for flag raising and be on your way to horses, crafts, and sports/free time. There would be "bank" in the morning, when you could get a snack, then at noon, lunch was served. There were awards daily for the cleanest bunkhouse, the one would went to sleep first the night before... and the food was AWESOME. I actually have a Bortell's Ranch cookbook (not that I've ever made anything out of it, but...) In the afternoon there would be rest period, then swim time, then "bank", then afternoon "free" time, which, now that I think about it, doesn't really seem all that free, because you had to pick from a select few activities offered that day. After free time there was dinner, then night activities, then showers, then bank, then flag lowering, then songs and bed at 9pm. A full day. An awesome day. What I wouldn't give to be able to go back there and do that again. Or at least have my kids have the chance to do it. But Bortell's closed and is now some camp for underprivileged kids. I'm sure it's a great experience for those kids now, but not nearly the same.

This is very therapeutic, to put this all on paper (ok, so this isn't paper, but you know what I mean)... I'm not sure the last time I talked at length about my camp experience. My camp experience is probably the biggest reason that I chose to go to college in Iowa. And probably why, at some point in my life, I would love to go back and live in Iowa on a horse farm that had Great Danes running around, gravel hills to climb up and down, lakes to swim and fish in, archery and riflery (to do at least once), trails to ride and friends to make, even if I ended up never seeing them again. Even if it would just be for a week in July.

So I'll end with this little ditty that we sung every night at songs at camp (and why I can remember this song after so many years but NOT the thing that I went to the basement to get beats the heck out of me):

Friends, I will remember you, think of you, pray for you
and when another day is through, I'll still be friends with you.
Remember the fun we've had here, remember when you're away.
Remember the friends you've made here, and don't forget to come back some day.
Remember the blazing campfires, the fun and frolic too...
'Cuz you kids belong to Bortells' and Bortells' belongs to you.