My Blue Star Life
by Jennifer Finch (SG Counselor x2, Photography x2, Library, Programming, Fitness x3 and Web News)
In 1987, Blue Star Camps chose me. I was one of a pool of foreign staff selected from many offered by Camp America. At the age of 23 I was an Aussie living in London looking for something new to do. Being paid to go to America for 3 months seemed a safer option than a six month camping tour through Africa. Little did I know what a huge impact it would have on my life.
Although it is now nearly 25 years ago, I distinctively remember the overnight stay at the New York City YMCA after the flight from London; a tiny little single room with traffic noise the likes of which I had never heard before. Then there was a seemingly endless Greyhound Bus ride where drifting off to a noddy sleep I urged my eyelids open at some time around who knows when, to see parts of Washington DC for the first time. I also remember arriving, a little worse for wear, in one of the old Blue Star school buses (a real American school bus just like the ones I’d seen on TV) down the drive, past the blob and into the magical bubble we call Blue Star Camps.
Much of my memory of staff training has gone into the ether but I know I was a Senior Girl counselor, Susan Breen was my camp leader and Rodger had dark hair and a mustache. Lauren was a Junior and Jason was the skinny little Pioneer Boy on the basketball court we all pointed at and whispered that he was Rodger and Candy’s son.
I was not Jewish. To be honest, for all I knew at the time, I had never met a Jewish person. However I dove right into singing the blessings before and after meals, grateful for the transliterations on the wall, mumbled a lot through services, and felt welcomed and accepted by all. Having arrived alone, I very quickly bonded with other staff, both foreign and American and noticed that something in the water here causes most single, young, adult staff members to find summer romance. I too was strongly affected.
As my first summer came to a close, I knew I was leaving here with wonderful memories; one of my favorites was lying on the tennis courts (which are now the middle field) late at night. The heat of the day seeped up through the blacktop into our skin as we looked up at a multitude of stars. Friendships formed hard and fast and took a grip on my heart like none before. What I didn’t realize, was I had a little less of my heart, because unbeknown to me, a chunk of it was left behind….. The following was a long year, half in England and half in Sydney. I had tunnel vision and one goal – work and save for camp.
I returned the second summer, along with many of my new friends, a little more confident yet a little disappointed that I wasn’t made a SG Unit leader, (what WAS that about Susan?) but hey I knew the drill. It was 1988 and I arrived with a shiny new SLR camera. However untrained, I had a good eye and it was not long before Rodger saw some of my prints. Towards the end of the summer he asked me if I knew how to process and print in black and white. I hadn’t a clue. The challenge was put to me that if I was able to learn, he would invite me to return the following year as the Photography Specialist. Now if you’ve ever worked at camp as a counselor, you know that Specialists are the envy of all. It was a challenge I could not resist (and to be honest I still had a little thing going on with the same guy from the previous summer. OK, it was a big thing in my mind at the time). I had also been told about a very good photography school in Daytona Beach Florida and had been toying with the idea of attending.
On my return to London, I looked into evening classes in photography and managed to learn the most basics of the darkroom; just enough to be dangerous. Also, just enough to be hired as the camp’s Photography Specialist for 1989. Meanwhile, I had applied to Daytona State College (known as Daytona Beach Community College back then) where the Southeast Center for Photographic Studies was located. I was accepted as a student for the fall semester. So I arrived at camp with a plan for the next two years, the sad fact was that to get my new degree, I had to attend compulsory summer classes.
Being a specialist was cool. Being dumped wasn’t. I worked in ‘The Black Hole’, the darkroom under P.2 which was pretty appropriate for my mood most of that summer. However, sharing a cabin with my cool Kiwi room mate was a step up from 14 hormonal teenage girls. I loved teaching what little I knew about photography to the kids and still, nothing can compare to the fascination in their eyes as that first print begins to appear in the developer.
Summer ended as they always do, with sad and painful goodbyes and off I went to Daytona Beach. One of the working Mum’s from the Blue Star main office lived there and offered up a bed in her basement till I got settled. It was a huge culture shock attending an American school, even after three years at camp, I realize how much it had existed in it’s own little orbit. I did go back to visit Blue Star for a brief weekend during those 2 years, I missed camp, but it seemed that chapter of my life was coming to an end. The book however, was far from over, just shelved for a decade or two.
My degree required a class named ‘Human Potential Seminar’. After traveling for so long, I had a fairly good idea of who I was and where I was headed so the class was an easy A. The lecturer and I became friendly and ultimately, she set me up on a blind date. My social life had been severely lacking and the idea of meeting some people apart from my class mates was appealing. It so happened at the time that my brother was visiting from Australia, he was an engineer for Qantas, so a group get together was planned at a local bar. The gentleman I was to date, happened to be a helicopter pilot so I felt confident that if he was a dud, I could palm the conversation off to my brother and he would be none the wiser.
I took one look at his baby blues and fell hard, a funny side note was that the lecturer who introduced us happened to be his ex-wife and he has often stated that it was the best thing she ever did for him. Long story short, we were engaged within 3 months and married eight months later. (We just celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary). We began the necessary paperwork for me to obtain my green card but before it could be completed, a career opportunity came up for him in Sydney. We sold up, consolidated and moved to Sydney with two suitcases and a trunk.
We spent seven years in Australia but it wasn’t easy. We moved from Sydney to Perth and back again, struggled through lay-offs and unemployment. Rentals were sold out under us and we ended up living with my mother. We did however, bring two beautiful boys into the world but were facing a difficult financial future. In 1998 we visited the States to show our boys off to their American family. After much discussion with our friends and family there, we made the difficult decision to return. As much as we loved Australia, career opportunities were much more plentiful in America. During these years, Blue Star was a distant memory.
In 1999, we picked up and moved to Kennesaw, Georgia. The world was shrinking; internet and email became more and more accessible and now that I was back in the USA, I began to reconnect with some of my old camp buddies. Some had disappeared, some had married and some had not changed at all. I was still in contact with my ‘Camp Mum’ friend in Daytona, along with several others from the area. We landed on our feet and were soon in a position to buy a home. We chose to return to Florida in May of 2001.
My life has done a full circle several times over and on our return to the Daytona area, I was able to procure a job working in the same Photography School I’d received my degree. The boys adapted very quickly to their new life in America and although September 11th created a huge setback for us financially, I consider that we were one of the luckier ones.
Life rambles along and in 2004 I was contacted by an old camp friend who had married her camp boyfriend and now had 3 children. She was American and her husband British, they were living in England. We had a lot in common. She was telling me that they planned on returning to camp to work and that their kids could be campers. Strangely, the thought had never occurred to me even though I’d lived in the home of a Main Office Camp Mum. My husband and I rarely discussed camp. I approached him with the whole idea; he was from small town Indiana and although we were not Jewish, we agreed that it would be an amazing opportunity. Not only to experience the Jewish culture, but the incredible growth opportunities a camp like Blue Star could offer.
So once again I planned on changing my last name to my job title and arrived for my 4th season at camp as a ‘mature’ staff member with 2 little boys in tow. One had just turned 6 and the other, a very independent 8 year old. This time, Rodger’s hair and mustache were gray, Lauren and Jason were camp directors, Susan Breen was a year round employee and suddenly, the majority of the staff looked WAY younger than I remember ever being. Needless to say the whole painful romance part of camp was not a factor now. The pain I did not expect to experience was that of being a parent of a very clingy six year old who had never attended sleep over camp. Let me tell you it is hard to walk past your child while he sobs “Mummy! my heart hurts for you!”. Painful barely describes it. I do understand how it has helped form him into the terrific teenager he is now and that within moments of my passing he was happily playing on the waterfront, oblivious to the discomfort I was in. The message parents need to take is that most often any upsets that campers have, are forgotten very quickly, the lesson learned however, is not.
So since 2004 I have only skipped one year, 2006 to build my Personal Training business. It was a disaster for my kids, they missed Blue Star and their friends terribly. It did however, allow me to spend the last 3 years here as the Fitness specialist. My youngest son has attended Juniors through SB 3 and my oldest has gone from PB2 through Teen Village. Last year I was bought to tears as my son was presented with the coveted Ultimate Teen T-shirt, which if you know me well, was quite the accomplishment seeing as he was very close to being sent home for misbehavior the previous summer! He’s now chafing at the bit to graduate so he can be a counselor.
My life has gone full circle several times over. This summer I am the Web News Specialist. I’m the one posting and writing a lot of the stories on the web site, tweeting and Facebooking on behalf of the Camp. Web news is located under P2, yes, right where the ‘Black Hole’ used to be. Oh and by the way, my cool Kiwi roommate from 1989…. we’re sharing a bathroom this summer, seems she was drawn back into the bubble too. Susan Breen and I, great friends.
Besides watching my own children grow and mature every summer, I have had the pleasure of seeing many children go from cherubic juniors to gorgeous and handsome young adults. I have taught them, mentored them, hugged them and loved them while they have absorbed the wonderment of Blue Star. I have seen campers return as counselors and other staff from the 80’s return as doctors, mothers and even the Kitchen manager. As they sing in the Chapel – Ain’t no summer like a Blue Star summer! Who knows who I’d be if I wasn’t chosen?
