Homesick

Visiting Day is the most recent social institution to come under attack, as several camps have banded together to end the bi-summer tradition and put a stop to the inconvenience, the traffic, and the disruption for the kids. I understand the position, but my unpopular take is that I like Visiting Day and I’m happy my children go to camps that still hold on to mesorah.

The sugya here is not camp, but one of absence and presence, distance and proximity, parents and children.

Now, regular readers of this column (a phrase that real opinion writers use, one I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to drop yet) know that I sometimes use this space to cover the joys of out-of-town living.

Visiting Day is not one of them.

Living out of town means that by the time the gates of camp open and the 17-year-old kids in orange vests holding walkie-talkies and playing parking lot attendant wave you in and you can finally see your child, you’ve probably been on the road for many hours and you have tremendous cheishek to climb up onto the bunkbed that seems impossibly close to the ceiling and take a quick nap on sheets that have not and will not be changed.