Ever want something so much that you think you are going to explode if you don’t get it? Sky Y Camp was like that.

In elementary School, each class after the third grade held a fund raiser to go to Sky Y Camp in the sixth grade.  We usually sold bricks of rainbow colored popcorn. While they were supposed to be like popcorn balls, a sweetened sticky treat of rolled popcorn, they usually ended up feeling and tasting more like cinder block. I think the school bought the year supply at the beginning of each year because by the end of the year the popcorn was pretty hard. I heard one parent actually built an addition to their house using our product.

From an early age, you are indoctrinated in the joys that are Sky Y Camp. The horse riding on the trails, the dinners out of doors, sleeping in a cabin, swimming in the lake, and playing in the streams, hiking mountain trails, interacting with wildlife and most importantly the Sky Y Camp Olympics. The teachers and the students reveled us with tales from the past trips and the memories that were made there. Most importantly it was a full week in the mountains away from school and our families.

The truth was that the horse riding was in a corral, on a contraption that made it walk only in circles. There was an actual rut dug two feet down  below grade. The horse was so old that was on a respirator. It had to stop every 5 minutes to take a nap. I think the horse knew it was digging his own grave, just a few more feet it would tell itself and it could rest. Not surprisingly the girls all stood in line day and night for a chance to ride the pony. Some of them may still be standing there waiting for all I know.

The dinners out doors was on the exact same trays we used at school and the meals were made by the exact same cafeteria ladies that worked at school. The streams had dried up for the summer and the lake was a pond that was choked with algae. Dead fish floated on the surface, I was sure that was were the lunch ladies were getting our fish sticks. The swimming pool provided was above ground and could hold no more that 10 people at a time. As for the wildlife, when you put 90 children in the middle of a forest it is usually enough to make parents run away let alone wildlife. Sky Y, was nothing like what had been described to us. I was not sure if they had actually lied to us to play a cruel joke, or if the place had just been run down.

Our School was on a track system. You went to school for 9 weeks and then you were off for 3 weeks. There were 4 tracks A through D. When C was off, A, B, and D were going to school. The only time all 4 tracks were off at the same time was Christmas, the only time all 4 tracks were in session was the week of Sky Y Camp. It was supposed to be a time for us to be together one last time before we moved on to various Junior High Schools. As bad as it was, that trip to Sky Y Camp was the foundation to some of my fondest memories.

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