Dear Campers, Parents, Staff, Alums & Friends,
And…it’s the “off-season” again. It’s certainly not the worst thing in the world, but we definitely prefer when we’re all up here having fun and being adventurous together. Summer is where it’s at, folks, and it just seems to be too short. Camp is incredibly quiet at the moment. The only folks still here besides Leslie and I are our cook, BILL MILLER, and our caretaker, GREG FUS. Bill has been slowly putting the finishing touches on closing down the kitchen, including a little painting so the place is ready to go when we open up next May. Greg has been building some more benches for the Lodge and staining the Rec Hall. Leslie has been busy doing some office work and also painting some of the rooms in our house. That hasn’t happened in a few…decades, so that’s nice. And I got to spend 5 glorious days canoeing up in Wabakimi Provincial Park in Canada! My cousin and I drove 10 hours from camp and then hopped a sea plan that flew us about 35 minutes to a remote lake, and for the next four days we never saw another soul. We canoed a lot, fished some (had fresh Walleye over the campfire one night), and relaxed by some gorgeous sunsets. We got rained on a fair amount too, but that didn’t dampen our enthusiasm a bit. It was a great way to unwind after a busy camp season.
So, your kids are back in school. There’s an ad on TV for an office supply store that caught my attention. They’re selling back-to-school stuff, and they want to connect with as wide an audience as possible, right? So the ad shows a young girl sitting on a couch, sipping from a large cup of what is apparently fast-food soda, and staring blankly forward, seemingly at a television. Her mom walks in with an armful of supplies and says “She’s been binge watching all summer. Soon she’ll be binge studying.” Have you seen this one? Naturally, it was irksome to a guy like me. Perhaps I even screamed at the television (just a bit) “Why did you let her binge watch TV all summer??!!” Does this commercial normalize that? Did their ad team feel that this would resonate with the most parents? Yikes! Well, here’s the important question: Aren’t you glad that your son didn’t binge watch TV all summer? We sure are!!
 We are off to an incredible start already! Welcome back to the following “old-timers” who re-enrolled since the end of the camp season: SIMON KANOVITZ from Chicago, IL; AJ STEWART from Buffalo Grove, IL; JACKSON TURNER from Denver, CO; SETH FISH, BEN GOSS, TOMMY HOLLAND, JACK MORRIS, JORDAN PLOCKER, and JEREMY STROUSE from Deerfield, IL; MAC CLOW from Scottsdale, AZ; CHARLIE LOVETT from Los Angeles, CA; DANIEL FRIEDLAND and DANIEL SOLOT from Glencoe, IL; JOEY ETTINGER, OWEN FRENCH, ZACH NEWMARK, ADAM POGER, and BEN & SAM SIWAK from St. Louis, MO; COLE BERNSTEIN, HENRY COHEN, DAVID FRIEDLAND, ARI & BEN KADEN, ANDREW KERPEL, and DYLAN PORT from Highland Park, IL; NOAH LIGHT from Bethesda, MD; MILES PETERSON from Lake Forest, IL; JAIMARI COTTRELL from Cleveland, OH; DILLON ARANOFF from Nashville, TN; ANDREW MUKAVITZ from Houston, TX; and BRADY ADELMAN, NOAH FOSTER, NOAH MASINTER, SAM SALZER, and EVAN WALDMAN from Northbrook, IL. And say hello to first-year campers RYAN ZLOTNIK of Highland Park, IL; and JACK SILVER and MATT SILVERMAN of Cincinnati, OH. We’re glad you’re all going to join us this summer!! |
We have a lot of weeks to go by before anyone has to even think about this, but parents, we want to let you know that this coming summer, WE WILL NOT USE AN OUTSIDE PHARMACY FOR YOUR CAMPERS’ MEDICATIONS. We have tried several companies thus far, and frankly, we’ve found them all lacking in service and coordination. So for next summer we will have you send any medications your 
camper will take at camp directly to us (well before he arrives at camp), and we will put them in our own dispensing systems and thereby eliminate the middle person. Our nurses are 100% confident in their ability to do so, to handle it in a more timely fashion, and to save you the hassles of having to order the meds from a different pharmacy. There will be plenty more info on that in the coming months. You can start your happy dance now.
Earlier this year we mentioned our plans to begin a Family Camp at the end of the 2017 camping season. We want to give you plenty of advanced notice that we have decided to table that idea…indefinitely. We pour ourselves into the camping season, and honestly, we just don’t have the enthusiasm for an additional week of camp for adults. We wanted to inform those of you who were considering this for a family vacation in a timely way. Thanks for understanding.
REUNIONS!
Yep, it’s time to get that ball rolling. We have several reunions already scheduled, and many more will follow. We travel to many different cities across the country, and we just love seeing everyone (kids, moms & dads, brothers, friends, staff members, alums) when we’re in town. Please take note of the dates you see below, and those that will be publicized later. Put it on your calendar, and PLEASE try to join us. We don’t get everywhere, and most places we do get to it only happens once. So maybe your guy can miss that one soccer game or basketball game to spend a coupla hours with his camp buddies and his friendly neighborhood camp directors.
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FRIENDS! IT’S WHAT CAMP IS ALL ABOUT.
But you already know that. You may also know that your friends are the #1 best way for us to connect with prospective new families and campers. We try hard to avoid being in your face about this. After all, it’s OUR job to get kids into camp. That being said, you could be a huge help in that endeavor by sharing your thoughts about your kids’ experiences with us with your friends, relatives, neighbors, etc. If you have some folks you’d like us to contact about camp, it’s easy to tell us about it. You can call or email us, or you can send us a quick online form right from our website by clicking here. More than 95% of our new campers each summer come to us through our current camp families, so please give it some thought, and we appreciate any folks you can help us connect with. Thanks!
  Timbefolks have been doing some traveling. Last month St. Louisans ADAM POGER, JUSTIN GOLDENBERG, JOEY ETTINGER, WILL COOVERT and SAM SIWAK, along with Nashvillian MICHAEL GORDON, and GUS MERVIS from Indianapolis converged on Chicago to celebrate ARI & BEN KADEN’S B’nai Mitzvah, along with several kids and staff from the Chicago area. Congrats to the Kaden boys! The Siwak boys got to spend some time at a lake house after camp, and show off their newly acquired waterski skills. ADAM COHN is back in St. Louis and recently got his driver’s license. Speaking of waterskiing, in Tucson, DAVID BERK is back at it, going every weekend until the weather gets too cold…which might be one week in February…otherwise he’s all set. In New York, JACK VAN OOYEN has made it through surgery to repair his injured knee, and is starting school soon. He’ll be hobbling for a while, but hopefully will bounce back quickly. So, moms & dads, this little tan section of the newsletter is all for you to brag on your boys. If you have news, even news that isn’t so braggy, would you please share it with us so we can have much more to write about next month? Thanks! |
  SCOTT WOLF spent a week in Florida hanging out with JEFF & ANDY MELROSE and “old-timer” JOEY PAWLAN. Scott’s back in Chicago starting his Masters in Education program and getting fired up to help us find great campers, awesome staff members, and shape the summer of 2017 into another amazing camp season! JAKE REUTER & DOMI BRUNEAU did a little camping along the shore of Lake Superior before heading out of camp last month. They’ve made a stop in Chicago, and will be heading home to Ridgeway, CO. DUSTY COHEN and ROSS KRULISKY did some backpacking in the Porkies, and then Ross went down to Columbus, OH to start school, and Dusty began to meander his way back to Tucson. But not before having dinner in St. Louis with a bunch of guys, seeing BRIAN STRAIN and Hitch in Denver, passing through Flagstaff for a quick visit with PRESTIN COOKE, and then arriving in Tucson. SAMMY COHEN has been bored out of her mind in Tucson for the past few weeks, though she got to do some skiing with David Berk and family and had a nice visit in Flagstaff with Prestin as well. She heads to Chicago for the start of school very soon. The Hitchens’ played host to several traveling camp folks. CALEB PARCHMAN and EMILY LENKO had an extended stay in Denver after their car broke down. Also dropping in were JAKE WHITSTONE, BRIAN BARLOW, ARI ASARCH (well…he lives in Denver), and ANITA ROBSON. HOLLY JONES spent a few days at camp before heading home….without one of her cats. She figured it out when she got back to Indianapolis, so – no big deal – she just turned around a few days later and drove back up to camp to visit some more and grab the cat. RICK JONES was peacefully biking along, minding his own business when he hit a pile of loose gravel and flew over the handlebars. He’s okay, but managed to crack a few ribs in the process. |
BRAVO TO THE SEPTEMBER BIRTHDAY BOYS & GIRLS: Hey y’all! You can always find someone’s address and birthdate in the Camp Directory that is posted on every parent’s Keylog page. Please take some time and send birthday wishes along to your camp friends. They’ll love to hear from you: Jake Feiger - 9/2/1997, Aidan Doyal - 9/3/1997, Christian Sieve - 9/3/2004, Greg Fus - 9/4/1955, Joey Flom - 9/6/2001, Jeremy Cohn - 9/7/2003, Jack Greenberg - 9/8/2002, Eli Okum - 9/8/2004, Rick Jones - 9/9/1957, Jack Morris - 9/10/2005, Graham Elliot - 9/11/2001, Jesse Stolberg - 9/11/2001, Scott Wolf - 9/11/1991, Ian Enriquez - 9/12/1991, Cody Kendall - 9/12/2002, James Price - 9/13/2002, David Tamsky - 9/15/1999, David Artzi - 9/17/1993, Dustin Cohen - 9/17/1993, Alex Amini - 9/18/2004, Cole Bernstein - 9/19/2006, Jesse Mc Cauley - 9/19/1999, Juan Rodriguez - 9/19/1995, Ari Singer - 9/19/1999, Jacob Viner - 9/22/2003, Spencer Vernier - 9/24/2002, Parker Fleischman-Ament - 9/25/2002, Elliot Rubin - 9/25/2005, Charlie Tepper - 9/25/2001, Sam Kline - 9/26/2005, Aidan Mease - 9/26/2004, Chris Tompkins - 9/28/1998, Rodrigo Cruz - 9/29/2004, Ben Siwak - 9/29/2004, Sammy Cohen - 9/30/1996, Owen Shaffer - 9/30/2003.
We will write you at the beginning of each month until that happy time arrives when we’re all back up here in the beautiful Northwoods again. Please keep in touch, and let us know what you’ve been up to. We hope to see ALL of you at some point this “off-season.” Have a great start to the school year!
Benches up,
