Comments on: Relive Nerd Camp!

Relive Nerd Camp!

MattD — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:31:00 -0800

Slate Remembers Nerd Camp. I'd thought all parents everywhere were sending their kids to turn-pro-at-18 camp now, but it seems that CTY is bigger than ever. (Albeit subject to accusations that the standards have been watered down.)

By: Joe Invisible

Joe Invisible — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:39:35 -0800

Ah, nerd camp. I got my first kiss at CTY.

By: a3matrix

a3matrix — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:41:30 -0800

I wanted to go to camp. Instead, my parents encouraged me to try CTY. Nerd offspring of nerds apparently. The whole sitting on laps thing has got to be verboten in today's society. At least I hope it is, because it seems a bit inappropriate to mandate sitting on laps of adolescents. I will run up to Skidmore later today and see if they are still sitting on each others laps.

By: slapshot57

slapshot57 — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:43:42 -0800

They touched on this in the article but the best aspect of these camps, for me at least, is it gives these kids an outlet were they can become comfortable with themselves. I was always fairly outgoing from being forced into sports as a kid but didn't really get comfortable with being smart until I spent a summer taking a class at CTY. Then I just became obnoxious. But college cured me of that.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:44:15 -0800

More links: if you want to get a sense of how the folks who run CTY think about gifted children and the purpose of the camp, there are lots of abstracts here. Biographical article on Julian Stanley, founder of CTY. A research paper follows up a big cohort of high-scoring 13-year-olds at age 33. And for more papers by Camilla Benbow, a former student of Stanley's, see her web page where you can read about gender differences, spatial ability, the role of AP exams, what happens to grown-up child prodigies, and so on.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:46:37 -0800

I didn't go to CTY, cos I wasn't a gifted child, more of a booby prize.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:48:23 -0800

I was a regifted child.

By: MattD

MattD — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:49:24 -0800

I enjoyed CTY, although I don't think I learned a thing either year I went. Golf camp probably would have been more useful to me in the long run... Even though I had fun, what I remember as probably the most remarkable thing was the nerds-among-nerds -- those who were almost as incapable of hanging out with fellow CTYers as they were with the ordinary run of kids in their home schools. (It wasn't until I got to college that I realized that there was a place where even the nerds-among-nerds could feel at home: EECS classes, followed by anime club.)

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 11:54:36 -0800

You know who else had camps? Hitler.

By: ericb

ericb — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:00:09 -0800

I was a regifted child. Cracked me up!

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:00:45 -0800

Ah, nerd camp. I got my first kiss at CTY. Me too.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:03:58 -0800

You know who else had camps? Hitler. John Cougar's Melons, too.

By: muddgirl

muddgirl — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:05:28 -0800

Ah, nerd camp. I got my first kiss at CTY. Me too. Me three. The rest of you are just jealous you weren't in on all this hot nerd-on-nerd action.

By: hincandenza

hincandenza — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:07:09 -0800

Heh- nice one, IRFH! :) Like the author, I was also at CTY in 1988 (at Franklin & Marshall in Lancaster, PA), a.k.a. "Bleem College". It was cool, but it just made things awkward when I got back and spent much of my 8th grade year incurring the further wrath and resentment of already mean-spirited classmates when I'd get to leave for chunks of every day to walk to the high school for AP math classes. At 31, I think all I've learned is that knowledge is pretty much useless. It's a waste of time to broaden your mind...

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:07:44 -0800

Little ditty 'bout jackboots and armbands... Two Aryan Youth doin' the best they can.

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:08:29 -0800

that was for jonmc

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:10:30 -0800

At 31, I think all I've learned is that knowledge is pretty much useless. It's a waste of time to broaden your mind... well, it impresses smart chicks so it's not a total loss... Little ditty 'bout jackboots and armbands... Two Aryan Youth doin' the best they can. Little pink häüses for you unt me....

By: Falconetti

Falconetti — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:13:28 -0800

I got my first kiss at CTY. And last probably, nerds. Valley High Rulez!

By: dame

dame — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:19:10 -0800

You know who made the same joke in multiple threads?

By: Joe Invisible

Joe Invisible — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:19:59 -0800

And last probably, nerds. Valley High Rulez! Well, no... but there was a long, long dry spell when I went back to high school in the fall. So maybe there is something to nerds being less socially awkward in the company of other nerds. More likely we're just as socially awkward, but we can all accept and overcome one another's awkwardness.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:20:10 -0800

Metafilter: Hot Nerd-on-Nerd Action

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:23:00 -0800

You know who made the same joke in multiple threads? Two camp thread in one day; I couldn't resist.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:25:37 -0800

sub-issue: if nerds are in the company of other nerds, and thus the dominant subculture in a given setting, are they still nerds? *ponders*

By: ChasFile

ChasFile — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:25:39 -0800

Ah, nerd camp. I got my first kiss at CTY. Me too. Me three. The rest of you are just jealous you weren't in on all this hot nerd-on-nerd action. Me four! Weird... Was there something in the water? That said, I do remember it being absolutely electric with pent up sexual energy. Some of those dances got pretty steamy. Maybe it was all those kids, so denied social and sexual favor in regular school, finally around a bunch of kids as desperate and ready and willing as they. The New Yorker also ran a piece on CTY a few months back, but I'm not finding it in the archives.

By: gurple

gurple — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:32:00 -0800

Ah, nerd camp. I got my first kiss at CTY. Me too. Me three. The rest of you are just jealous you weren't in on all this hot nerd-on-nerd action. Me four! Weird... Was there something in the water? Wow. Me five. Except for me it wasn't CTY, it was Rocky Mountain Talent Search, the Denver semi-equivalent. Not a bad article, made me feel kind of nostalgic, but it didn't really say all that much.

By: bardic

bardic — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:32:09 -0800

Wow, I wish I'd gotten my first kiss at CTY. Anyone else put in some time at Dickinson College? It was pretty miserable, really. Not the camp so much as me and my social inhibitions at the time. Let's see--did the writing course (I think that one was mandatory), did the US History course (got a 5 on my US History AP, suckas!), and some other one. A writing one again I think. But I did make friends with a guy who had, like, every game for the C64 pirated, and we traded a few times via actual mail. 5 1/4 inch floppies of illegal software through the friggin' mail. That was awesome. Good times. Actually, bad times. Actually, 13-15 are ages I wouldn't wish upon anyone. At 16 Gary's brother started selling us drugs and I became normal and got to kiss girls and stuff.

By: geoff.

geoff. — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:34:40 -0800

Wow it sounds like nerd camp had more sexual aggression than a coke-filled gay after party (not that I would know...). How come all the subcultures get more ass than everyone else?

By: gurple

gurple — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:36:04 -0800

How come all the subcultures get more ass than everyone else? One cynical explanation is that this particular nerd subculture had to get all its ass in those few weeks over the summer. That was certainly true for me until well into high school.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:36:49 -0800

How come all the subcultures get more ass than everyone else? Birds of a feather, man. As a subculture of one, that makes me ...plucked, I guess.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:39:22 -0800

Truth be told, no matter what the subculture-jock, nerd, dirtbag, art-fart, whatever, there's maybe 5% of the guys who got to ride the hormonal concorde back in those days. The rest just looked on in awe and wished. Girls, are a whole different story.

By: waxbanks

waxbanks — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:40:34 -0800

I was at JHU for their Pre-College program in 1995, summer after 10th grade. Our (five-week) program overlapped with CTY for some time, and the CTY kids in the next dorm over were insufferable scampering twerps. Now we likely weren't anything to write home about either, but there was something pitiable about the CTY vibe, from the goofy lanyards to the early bedtime to the unsocialized nerd kids apparently hanging out with other people their age for the first time ever. In retrospect I'm able to see the value of such an experience for kids who have trouble socializing with schoolmates, but at the time I just wanted to throttle them, one by one, with those goddamn lanyards. Of course this is solely because I very definitely did not get kissed that summer. (Cue "bitterness theme" on soundtrack.) OK look I had a thing for this girl Orli and my white-gangsta suitemate overheard her teaching me how to say 'peace and love' in Hebrew and was all like 'Is that Hebrew?' and it was the first time I'd spoken to her at any length all summer, the happiest day ever I shit you not, and he's like 'Dude is that Orli, she's hot' and as a good Catholic lad I handed over the phone thinking I'd get it back in a moment. Apparently between drive-by shootings my suitemate was a Hebrew tutor and by that evening they were hanging out, out of nowhere, c'est la vie. I later tracked him down and cut off his left hand in retribution, taking his ear as well as a memento of the great time we had at Johns Hopkins. So yeah: CTY. Maladjusted goddamn dorkbirds.

By: ChasFile

ChasFile — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:40:55 -0800

CTY now accepts applications from students in the top 5 percent on national standardized tests Heresy! They might as well pick you up for camp with the short bus! Kids these days have it so f'ing easy. Skidmore, here, and one thing I do remember is absolutely falling in love with upsate NY in the summer, an affair which, unlike that with the lucky recipient of my first kiss, continues unabated to this day. I think I took biology. My "mandatory fun" was pen-spinning class. Even with such a nerdly pursuit, I thought it silly and never bothered to master it. To this day I regret not taking PE seriously; imagine my surprise when being able to spin a pen turns out to be like the secret handshake nerds use to communicate with one another in college! So there: CTY is a valuable learning experience. Though "how to land a date" and "Geek gang signs" are probably not what parents have in mind.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:40:55 -0800

This is the first I've heard of this. Sounds fun. I feel left out!

By: bardic

bardic — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:41:32 -0800

Oh man, the flashbacks-- Every evening we got a "study break" (yes, at this camp, there was mandatory "homework" time for about two hours at night, but they probably called it something different), so for 20 minutes we got to buy sodas and go out to something called "the meat market." Even the counselors called it that. And it meant you had to interact with the opposite sex. That's asking a lot of nerdy 13 year-olds. Really. If you ever have a kid that wants to go to a camp like this, fine, but please, please don't make them go. A summer spent going to the pool and playing video games is not a waste of your child's time. That's a childhood right there.

By: sourbrew

sourbrew — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:44:04 -0800

I went to computer ed, which was computer oriented nerd camp. It would appear though in contrast to the other members of this thread that I did learn a lot. We took a lot of programming classes, video game classes, and ultimately spent 20 hours a day in front of a computer. In later years I became a CIT and then a counselor, I am still friends with many of the people I met while there, and no doubt will enter into business ventures with some of them in the future. As far as the hormones go, I didn't get that much action while there, although an older counselor once predated me. Although I think it was more because she enjoyed the amount of arousal a 15 year old has rather than any serious sexual desire in my direction. Also I occasionally get photos from a friend of mine at the camp who later became a suicide girl.

By: annaramma

annaramma — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:48:43 -0800

As a former coordinator at a nerd camp, let me tell you, the "first kiss" phenomenon was not lost on the staff. It was like watching the world's most awkward soap opera. I'll never forget how we strategized about confronting the student who was caught kissing three girls in the same night. He was secretly known as Johnny "The Pimp" Doe from then on.

By: dirtynumbangelboy

dirtynumbangelboy — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:50:09 -0800

Get plucked, jonmc.

By: gurple

gurple — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 12:54:24 -0800

It would appear though in contrast to the other members of this thread that I did learn a lot Oh, well, yeah, I learned stuff in the classes, too. Poetry, international relations, frickin' _business ethics_, psychology, neuropsychology... I learned stuff, some of which I actually retained for some amount of time. But that was nowhere near as important as the social aspect. Particularly being a non-Mormon in Utah, I was about as bad off as I could be during the school year, socially. Nerd camp was where I could interact with people who felt like they had a lot in common with me. I learned more about real life social interaction from those weird-ass kids than I learned from more "normal" people until college.

By: Joe Invisible

Joe Invisible — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:00:24 -0800

My strongest memory of the dances (Franklin-Marshall College, '89, '90) is "American Pie" being played as the last song, followed by a counselor booming over the PA, "Go home. Nobody loves you." Well, that, and sneaking off for the first kiss.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:00:37 -0800

Particularly being a non-Mormon in Utah, I was about as bad off as I could be during the school year, socially. Oh, well, yeah, I learned stuff in the classes, too. Poetry, international relations, frickin' _business ethics_, psychology, neuropsychology... I learned stuff, some of which I actually retained for some amount of time. Are you in fact The Great Brain????

By: sarahnade

sarahnade — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:04:12 -0800

CTY was the only "summer camp" I can remember where I called my mom and cried that I wanted to go home. But it was also one of the only camps that had a public telephone. I only went to CTY for one year-- the next year I went to a camp sponsored by the regional church association. It was a Habitat for Humanity camp. And although I worked my ass off, I'd say I had a far better time sleeping on cots and replacing roofs then trying to fit in and be praised by the teachers at CTY. I still have my art portfolio that I made during my time there, however, and use it as a reminder of what kind of work I can actually produce with structured, repetitive practice.

By: ancientgower

ancientgower — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:13:07 -0800

Ah, first kiss! She was a French major, I was an art major at the Georgia Governor's Honors Program, and we both played flute. So we went into a practice room to play the 4th Brandenburg, and between passages... ::sigh:: And yes, now that I'm back as an administrator, watching the soap operas of their love lives is great, life-affirming fun. And yes, the social aspect of the whole experience is just as important as the academic side, if not more so. We take it seriously and plan accordingly. Gotta go--I have to meet our convocation speakers before the summer's final concert! Nerd camps rule!

By: gurple

gurple — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:15:01 -0800

Are you in fact The Great Brain???? Nice. Nope, I get by with my Little Brain. But I get the reference. Loved those books.

By: dame

dame — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:15:59 -0800

Well, monju, it did make me laugh both times.

By: bardic

bardic — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 13:21:55 -0800

ancientgower writes: "And yes, now that I'm back as an administrator, watching the soap operas of their love lives is great, life-affirming fun." Wow, my lurking suspicion that CTY counselors were malicious, inadequate pricks who disguised their contempt and bullying as innocuous voyeurism has been confirmed.

By: gurple

gurple — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:01:15 -0800

going by your bitter earlier posts in this thread, bardic, I'm assuming that you're serious. In which case, stuff a sock in it.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:09:37 -0800

Like the author, I was also at CTY in 1988 (at Franklin & Marshall in Lancaster, PA), a.k.a. "Bleem College". I was Franklin & Marshall's CTY program in 1987 and 1988. I can't remember what my college was called in 1988, but I believe I was in Lobachevsky College in 1987. Some wisenheimers named their college Leakey College, after the anthropologists, but then they added the gratuitous mascot... The Trojans!

By: bardic

bardic — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:12:19 -0800

I guess at the time I was bitter. Now I just find the whole thing ridonkulous. Parents paying money to validate their own over-inflated sense of their kid's importance. And yeah, the counselors were jerks. But I hated "regular" camp too. Anyways, I look forward to having kids some day so I can buy that bumper-sticker that says "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student."

By: gurple

gurple — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:16:41 -0800

Anyways, I look forward to having kids some day so I can buy that bumper-sticker that says "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student." I'm never quite sure who to feel worse for when I see those bumper stickers, the kid or the parent.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:30:59 -0800

"My Other Car Ate Your Honor Student"

By: Alison

Alison — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:31:59 -0800

Sweet, ancientgower! I was at GHP, too. I majored in Social Studies and minored in Math. Good times. I remember playing assassins, making out in the trees with my first real boyfriend and watching a tape of Evander Holyfield get his ear bitten off. That was a good time to be sixteen.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:37:05 -0800

Wow, my lurking suspicion that CTY counselors were malicious, inadequate pricks who disguised their contempt and bullying as innocuous voyeurism has been confirmed. I can't say that was my experience. If anything, the students also speculated about whether the counselors were getting it on with other counselors. I also remember one of the counselors let me borrow his Velvet Underground cassettes, although he got a little bugged when I was psyched enough to play "Pale Blue Eyes" and "Sister Ray" at 8 o'clock in the morning.

By: kaytwo

kaytwo — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:41:59 -0800

i was a TA two summers ago at the Washington College CTY. every single day i was amazed at how quick those kids were, and how suprisingly well adjusted (or at least, how quick to realize-the-way-things-are). i still talk to a couple via aim now and then. the culture that grew up among the teachers was pretty interesting, especially seeing as we were basically plunked down in the middle of nowhere. more liberal arts majors than i had ever previously interacted with on a daily basis (thank you Purdue... oh wait sike), but in the end a lot of fun. oh, and a hell of a lot of ultimate frisbee.

By: jack_mo

jack_mo — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 14:59:41 -0800

I'm jealous - we just rode bikes around and smoked weed in Summer, the camp thing didn't exist.

By: salvia

salvia — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:10:42 -0800

Are you in fact The Great Brain???? Oh my gosh, escabeche, until this moment I thought I might've been the only person in the world who'd read those books. I still have them, too -- you know how people have just one or two dogeared children's book on their adult shelves?

By: bardic

bardic — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:18:26 -0800

(The Great Brain books were fantastic. They were the first books that I literally couldn't put down, at the tender age of, what, ten? Don't have them any longer though. The one where they build a rollercoaster in the backyard, and someone breaks their leg? Pure awesome. The rollercoaster part at least. Because it was the 19th century.)

By: ubersturm

ubersturm — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:19:14 -0800

Man, my family couldn't really afford programs like CTY [or the equivalent at Northwestern, which was the university that ran the Midwest Talent Search.] Luckily there are others [RSI and Telluride being the biggest examples] that are free. And yeah, the fact that so many students got their first kiss or had their first relationship there wasn't lost on the counselors [or the students, for that matter.] The theory that RSI was designed as a eugenics program to breed more smart science geeks has been an open joke for probably as long as the program's been around, and I'm not surprised to hear that students at other nerd camps came to the same conclusion...

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 15:24:37 -0800

Anyways, I look forward to having kids some day so I can buy that bumper-sticker that says "My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student." I prefer "My Kid Sells Drugs To Your Honor Student," or "My Kid Is Fucking Your Honor Student."

By: TheGoldenOne

TheGoldenOne — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 16:08:12 -0800

Oh man, GHP was something else. They told us it really stood for Go Home Pregnant, and I am still certain it is a eugenics program.

By: nlindstrom

nlindstrom — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 16:20:05 -0800

I got my first blowjob at CTY. But then, unfortunately, the teacher was arrested.

By: fleacircus

fleacircus — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 16:21:01 -0800

If jonmc were any more counter-culture, he'd live in a petri dish.

By: posadnitsa

posadnitsa — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 16:22:09 -0800

Wow. Was I the only person who hated CTY and had serious issues with the way it was run and the culture it encouraged? Because I have discussed this with people in real life and they all loved it too. Maybe I'm secretly an alien or something.

By: leesh

leesh — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:03:42 -0800

Speaking as a former TA at Dickinson, I think the majority of kids loved it b/c it was a lot harder to be considered a total loser there. It seemed like everyone found people to be friends with and most of the kids really appreciated each other. Plus, for the older kids, there was the whole hormonal thing (were we the only campus that maintained a strict vertical rule, where at least one member of the couple had to be vertical at all times?). And some of them seemed to enjoy their classes, too.

By: wanderingmind

wanderingmind — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 17:40:29 -0800

I went to CTY at Loyola Marymount for three summers. Great times, I thought - it was my first exposure to real computer science (finite automata, scanners and parses, and of course LISP) and the Internet (ooh, Gopher). The Mandatory Fun sections always had the option of "sunworshipping", which was their term for "sitting around in the grassy area in the middle of campus and reading/playing cards/hanging out", so I ended up there a lot. No lap-sitting for me. I do remember finally feeling like I was among peers, though. Someone who'd decided to go by the name "Skeeve" looked surprised when I got the reference. There were endless games of Magic the Gathering, which I was into in a big way back then. I carefully avoided the dances (there was always a room to go where people who wanted to be wallflowers and play board games and such could do so). Yes, even among fellow nerds I was shy and awkward. Still, I fondly remember those days.

By: jacalata

jacalata — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 18:26:51 -0800

This song was made for this thread, I think.

By: Joseph Gurl

Joseph Gurl — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:26:00 -0800

I did a correspondence CTY with a Johns Hopkins dude in 1984 or 85, and I think his sending me _Leaves of Grass_ is probably partly responsible for my interest in poetry. That prof. was really nice & helpful.

By: Alison

Alison — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:31:29 -0800

Yep. There was the rumor that GHP was designed to breed a race of super-nerds. Only the really smart ones could escape the nightly flashlight patrol.

By: ancientgower

ancientgower — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:48:52 -0800

CTY costs a lot, but GHP was and continues to be free. Astoundingly, it's in its 43rd summer. It's one thing we've gotten right in education in Georgia. GoldenOne, GHP really stands for "Gifted? Honey, Please!" And Alison, the Bush Patrol is out there even as I type this, checking West Lawn for those little tykes who are not at the Graffiti Dance.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 20:12:29 -0800

Sorry to continue the Great Brain thread hijack, but seriously, go look at The Great Brain's last FPP appearance.

By: dreamsign

dreamsign — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:02:59 -0800

By: schroedinger

schroedinger — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 21:06:56 -0800

I went to CTD (the Midwest equivalent of CTY) full of the hope that I would finally meet kids like me. It was exactly like middle school--unfortunately, no revelatory friendships or conversations or experiences. Everyone seemed more popular and pretty and adjusted than me. It is only now that I realize exactly how socially awkward I was to be the most socially awkward person there. But Jesus, the classes rocked. I took Latin I and AP Psych. Fantastic academics!

By: bardic

bardic — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 03:01:31 -0800

What can I say dreamsign? CTY taught me how to be a winner. (I mean, look at it--"CTY." "Center for Talented Youth." How could anybody support this kind of propoganda?)

By: zerolucid

zerolucid — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:21:08 -0800

My strongest memory of the dances (Franklin-Marshall College, '89, '90) is "American Pie" being played as the last song, followed by a counselor booming over the PA, "Go home. Nobody loves you." Well, that, and sneaking off for the first kiss. I guess the shouted reponse of "We love you!" didn't show up until later. (I was there in '98 and '99.) And add another one to the CTY First Kiss Club.

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 23:16:53 -0800

F&M 1992, Atlee Two-Oh-Three, bitches. Reprazent. "Whoa, eggbert!"

By: metaculpa

metaculpa — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 00:42:14 -0800

Ah, such good times. Todd Polenberg, mentioned at the end of the article, was my counselor at Skidmore. The man was a god to us; I'm enormously amused to find him as an electronica musician in the burning-man crew and a "light sculptor" in new york. [1] I went back as a counselor later, though, and didn't have that great a time; probably a mistake. Although I did get to lead 90 kids through Calvinball, which is quite possibly the best riot I've _ever_ attended. Not first kiss, persay, but first kiss worth having. And I'll definitely argue that it did wonders for my self-esteem to be the cool kid amond nerds. I'm not sure I would have survived high-school (as, uh, not so cool a kid) if I hadn't had the sense that there was another culture to fall back on. [1] Speaking of which, I remember a band he turned me on to, called something like Union Local 472. Anyone know it?

By: Joseph Gurl

Joseph Gurl — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 06:31:06 -0800

Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 San Francisco band.

By: mrbarrett.com

mrbarrett.com — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 16:47:05 -0800

Ah, I was a counselor at Skidmore the summer of 1996. It was an interesting summer for me--dealing with the worst relationship breakup of my life and she was a fellow counselor (we met at school and decided to work together at CTY for the summer; ah, the optimism of youth). But I met some really great people at CTY that summer. It was certainly better than mowing lawns.