CAMP PARTY, March, 2009, Oberlin, Ohio

In honor of August, and in an effort to bring back some happy memories, I present probably the best party we threw in college, THE CAMP PARTY! In college you can do things like ask all your friends to dress up as they’re fourteen year old selves at sleep away camp and they’ll not only do it, they’ll go above and beyond, and actually act like their at camp.

I don’t know about you guys but I LOVED camp. 6 weeks every summer, for 8 summers. I would count down the days during the school year until next summer started (like 297 days left). But you know who loved camp even more than me, my best friend and college roommate, Sarina. I am not sure of her stats, but it’s something similar to mine if not way more impressive. Her and her camp friends say things like CBFF (Camp BFF, Duh), and “Live nine months for three”. Who loves camp even more than Sarina? LEVI AND MAX, a high school and college friend, respectively, who are themselves CBFF. Honestly, the list can keep getting topped. What I’m getting at here is that a lot of people (especially upper middle class Jewish college kids) seriously loved camp and have serious nostalgia for it. Even if you weren’t a die hard over nighter, you were a tennis camper or at least you went to some day camp that looked just like a real camp but you go to go home to your parents at 5 o’clock. Or you always wanted to go and this party was your first real chance! Basically all types of people were REALLY into the camp party.

The planning of the camp party was key to it’s success. We turned every room of our dilapidated college house (which was obviously party central, to the point that our landlord once wrote our parents a letter saying he’d never in 20 years of renting had such outrageous partiers!) into different camp activities. We demarcated each section with make shift banners made from dorm bathroom paper towels and sharpies. The entrance room was the ARTS AND CRAFTS station – we provided face paint, lanyards, friendship bracelet string. The living room was the WATERFRONT, we bought pool toys, noodles and beach balls. But some friends went even further and brought a BOAT. Not a canoe, a full row boat, chilling in our living room. The dining room was the CAMP DANCE, we decorated with cheap streamers and curated an excellent 90s jams playlist. Finally, the dining room was the MESS HALL, we didn’t do much to transform it but we did make a huge vat of alcoholic Bug Juice (fruit punch and Popov vodka) and provided styrofoam cups (not the most eco friends, but the most realistic). The last thing we had to do was name our camp, which was much easier than it sounds, when someone came up with CAMP TUCTHATITTI we were all sold. (Camp banner also made of paper towels and sharpies!) We also made a huge camp flag out of a found green sheet that we had already ripped apart to make a cape for the Super Hero Party (more on that later), on which we just painted “CAMP” and left sharpies for our campers to share their memories.

Beyond the planning, our friends really brought their A Game for the party. Everyone was decked out in camp gear, someone even dressed up as a Teva (oh hey, McCarth!). Getting into the party only made it funner.

The night devolved into debauchery on it’s own accord. The drunker everyone got, the more like children we acted, and the more real camp felt. Here were some highlights : never ending games of SUCK AND BLOW, so many hair wraps, everyone bonging bug juice out of pool noodles, Hannah Tepper in her Kitty face paint crying because she’s home sick ALL NIGHT (literally didn’t break character once), sing alongs in the boat, Rowan’s “pantie raid” (aka stealing our undies and hanging them on the Tappan Square flag pole), the subsequent rescue of the panties, and finding two girls passed out in my bed at the end of the night. The party was one of the best nights of my life – just unadulterated fun. Though Sarina’s biggest regret in college will forever be not using the “Fire” DVD’s (left over from our Christmas party) Camp Fire setting (it’s all in the details). I obvi have an entire Facebook album dedicated to this party (tag line,”best summa eva!”, CHECK IT OUT), but here are some of my fave moments!

Mr.Cool aka Counselor Levi