Camp Runoia has helped make me who I am today. Runoia has taught me many life lessons, especially how to adjust to change in my life. Before camp, I had never been away from my parents. Although it was extremely hard for me being away from my family my first year, Pam and the staff handled themselves great, always being there for me when I was feeling homesick. The second and third year, I had a fantastic time, and had started to learn how to adjust to the change of not being with my family. Now, fast forward to college. I am from Pennsylvania and because Camp Runoia taught me to be an independent woman, I was able to go to the University of Maine. Here at the University of Maine, I met my now fiancé, John and are now settling in the Portland, Maine region. I would never have been able to go to college far away from my parents, if I had not been to Runoia. Camp Runoia has helped me become a strong independent woman. I am so grateful for my time at Runoia, and feel that sending me to Runoia was the greatest gift they ever gave me, for at Runoia I learned so many life lessons. I really believe I would not have the life I have today without Camp Runoia. Anastasia Kerner
Tag: Camp Runoia alumnae
The Camp Runoia Dining Hall
In the center of camp is a special place. Its hub endures the hustle and bustle of camp’s daily flow. We greet it with the pattering of feet as we fall out from flag raising and it shudders at the end of the day as milk gets spilled upon its floors and crackers crumble into happy mouths. We sing and fill the rafters with graces, bobos and birthday songs.
Where else besides cabins do we spend two and a half hours almost every day with an assorted group of random people? Where else could you find thousands of red and white flowered and plain squares? Like a silent movie, benches and chairs get moved in and out, up on top of tables and down again. It is only furniture but it’s furniture that fills its innards with substance and fortitude.
Probably the person who spent the most time within its screened walls was Johnny. For 54 summers Marion “Johnny” Johnson sat regally reigning from the corner by the flagpole. To date, some of her special sayings are shared in that very same corner. Betty’s Table became, and still is, an icon of good manners, quietly closing doors, trying new foods and cleaning plates. Counselors who return to camp for a couple years adopt their own table and create their own legacies with the campers who share meals around them.
Betty and Diane raised their newborn children under her eaves. Alex, K and other camp parents over the summers have done the same. Campers have laughed, cried, screamed, and shrieked with delight amidst the pine paneling. The hum of the water cooler adorned with the magically changing poster provides a watering hole for many. Each corner has its own echo, each it’s own feeling. Late night sardines has been played in all the nooks and crannies. Dances and casino halls, specialty restaurants and rainy day games have transformed her façade at times. Snacks, studying for JMG, package surprises, the mail bag, counselors’ coffee and board games have all been part of its personality. On its walls, some over 100 years old, banners and posters, signs and memorabilia hang to be seen by all. It is the epicenter of our daily sustenance, the Mother Ship of our excursions, the source of many good times and tastes.
Singing
Perfect Harmony
This week is concert week for the chorus that I am a member of. It means two nights of rehearsal and two performances which equals a lot of singing. I love being part of a group of women that spends time together making music. We are not professional musicians but spend time and effort learning notes, exploring musical nuances and perfecting our performance. For 2 ½ hours a week I become lost in the complexity of music mastery and the production of choral sound.
At camp singing is a large part of our everyday lives. We sing silly songs, rowdy songs, quiet, contemplative melodies and most importantly we sing our Runoia songs. We spend time at Assembly learning songs; some have been sung for generations and others are new to Runoia. Old songs carry our history. Hearing them reminds us of our special place on Great Pond. We find ourselves humming Runoia tunes when we are far from camp and know that many of our alumnae sing them to their own children as lullabies.
Our camp songs have actions, guitar accompaniments, nonsense words, no words, harmonies, different parts or barely a tune. We make songs up to popular tunes, we lip sync, we cry while we sing: sometimes from laughing and sometimes because it is our last time of the season singing together.
At camp it is not the quality or musicality that matters so much although we do channel our inner Diane Smith and try to hit those odd high notes in Tumbledown and It’s Blue and White! It is more that we do something together. We can be heard singing in the Lodge, Dining Hall, around the campfire, in a sail boat or canoe, down the path to the waterfront, out on the hiking trails, for the camp Talent Show and in the vans. Songs are a unique part of our camp culture that we pass along orally and through our song book.
Songs and singing make us happy! Music has the ability to unite us. We may not always sing in perfect harmony but we sing together to celebrate our community, traditions and just because we can! It is part of who we are at Runoia it is our ‘Harmony’.
Listen to a few favorite Runoia songs here!
Camp Runoia and Strong Women
Strong Women
This has been a summer of strong women. And strong young ladies, too, growing up and into strong Runoia women to be reckoned with.
Strong Runoia women who can cross an ocean and a language barrier to sing absurd songs that wouldn’t make sense even with ten translators. To make friends with girls whom they may never see again but whose lasting impression are faces made into a camera lens or peculiar slang phrases or dance moves learned that will impress people back home.
Strong Runoia women that can chance a return to their camp home, knowing how much they’ve changed in a year or three years or seven years since being here last and still walk bravely through the Runoia gates, on time for their date with fate.
Strong Runoia women who after seemingly endless days of rain and clouds can be with each other and still manage to cast and reflect enough inner sunshine to light up their whole cabin for the… tenth day straight.
Strong Runoia women that can make magic with the most minimal of props – turning a boa into the base of a winning Miss Tacky Runoia costume, a deck of cards into a full-fledged casino, a small garden gnome into a summer’s worth of amusement.
Strong Runoia women that may complain when the shack pix are always in use and seating on the dining hall benches is snug, but can only truly rest easy when all of their cabin-mates are sleeping in rooms beside them, returned from Fairy Ring, Oak Island, Gulf Hagas and the most strenuous of “out-of-camp trip” locations… The Loft.
Strong Runoia women that can turn any moment into song and re-imagine any song for the perfect moment. Bonus points for performing said song costumed and in front of the entire camp.
Strong Runoia women that can enter the fold and begin to gather Great Pond memories and experiences while sharing their own knowledge of the Great World Outside Runoia (GWOR for short)… Bonus points for making said memories or experiences while costumed and in front of the entire camp.
Strong Runoia women who have seen enough to know all, yet can still accept that a new camp tradition can be begun at any moment because in fact, all of the most special ones we share were once new too.
Strong Runoia women that can carry forth all these very most important traditions while allowing camp to grow and change and flex with the years. Who knew that each strong women that comes through the gates is a new vessel for the continuation of those traditions while also being a catalyst for equally essential change and freshness.
This Log is dedicated to all the strong Runoia women and young women of 2009.. and of course, the men that are strong enough to them here.
Carrie Murphey, one of the new ones
Dedication to the 2009 Camp Runoia Log by Carrie Murphey
Bittersweet Endings at Camp Runoia
Bittersweet Endings
The end of camp is also a beginning.
The end of camp means saying “see you later”.
The end of camp feels like an amazing high quality chocolate bar that you never want to end and savor it to the last nibble. And ultimately, can’t wait until you allow yourself to taste it again!
The summer season in Maine ends with cool nights, bright days and feel of autumn high in the air. The bittersweet vine begins to form its bright berries that make us smile in the darkening days of fall. The golden rod flower stands erect and bright in the mellowing sun. Afternoons end all too quickly and dusk settles in as we yearn for the long summer days.
Ending anything great is hard to part with – like the end of a good novel or a challenging game or a zip on the Runoia Dragonfly.
The good news about the end of camp is you have your memories, your friendships, your totems of the summer experienced. Be they symbols as in an award for accomplishments, an emblem like your art projects, a feeling you hold near and dear, or the growth others notice in you, these parts of summer stay with you like the bittersweet vine continues to grow. The good news about the end of camp is that Runoia will be there for you in 2015 and beyond.
Although camp ending is bittersweet, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam:27, 1850 sums it up so well:
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
And as we sing at Runoia “And when I get back home again, I’m gonna study hard and then, back to canoes and paddles”
Happy Back to School!