Matt found a great baking blog the other day, alpineberry. We’ve been going through the different recipes on the site, and last night I was inspired to use the last of last summer’s zucchini (that’s not as disgusting as it sounds…I wash and grate my homegrown zukes, and freeze them in bagged two-cup batches for use over the winter whenever a chocolate zucchini cake emergency arises) in Mary’s zucchini bread. As you can see I’ve already cut myself a few slices:
It’s an easy recipe that turns out a nearly flawless loaf: rich, flavorful, and dense, perfect for an office potluck, tea with grandma, or a quiet moment with a good radio program…such as This American Life.
Hey, what a segue.
Recently, This American Life aired a repeat program about summer camp. Ira Glass neatly divided the American public into two “camps” (heh heh): those who like summer camp, and those who don’t. My sleeping bag occupies a bunk in the latter cabin. Midway through the program, snippets of listeners sharing their own horror stories reminded me of my sole experience with summer camp in the summer of 1980.
At the time, my parents and I lived in a classic California suburb: four cul-de-sacs united by three looping avenues, all with Spanish names. There were about twenty kids spread throughout the courts and avenues. One of the most popular girls, Crystal, became a born-again Christian that summer. Her newly-baptized family decided to seal the deal and send her to a week-long Christian youth camp in the Sierras just north of Yosemite.
Crystal convinced a few other kids to come along, and they convinced a few others in turn, and soon I found myself the only kid in the area staying home that summer. It never occurred to me to want to go to this summer camp. I wasn’t religious. Neither of my parents followed any sort of organized belief system. And until then I was okay with that. But the thought of spending an entire week–horrors!–all by myself in the suburb made me go to my parents and ask if I could attend Bible camp with everyone else.
First off, I found out from other campers the first day I was there that the boys had drilled peepholes into the girls’ shower area. I was mortified. Just entering puberty, I already sported a nice rack and was far from any sort of desire to show it off just yet. My shyness led me to take sponge baths all week long. I would brush my teeth, wash my face, use a washcloth to clean the really smelly bits, brush my hair, and voila! I was ready for long, sweaty hikes in the woods. By the end of the week I sported a fug cloud not unlike this:
Then there was the nightly church meeting and Bible study group. My mother lent me her childhood Bible, which until then I had never cracked open, let alone learn the plot. After the first evening–three hours sitting hunched over on a narrow wooden bench trying desperately to keep up with the pastor and the other kids, then finally giving up and daydreaming about my upcoming marriage to Harrison Ford–I was done.
I wanted to go home. But I didn’t have the guts. Instead, I came up with an idea that involved those very same guts: I had cramps. It was plausible. While I had boobs, I hadn’t gotten my period yet, and no one at a fundamentalist Bible camp was about to double check my underpants to verify the story. So, every night for the next six days I would collapse on my cot and complain to my counselor that I couldn’t go to Bible study because I had horrible, terrible menstrual cramps.
She may have bought it, but my fellow campers didn’t for a second. In between coming up to me to whisper that they knew I hadn’t started my period yet, Crystal and the girls would tell me to go take a shower because I stank up the cabin. Needless to say, I stayed home the following summer.