Indy's Camp Aharah Memories

The Real Naked People At Camp Aharah, two rivers were on the list of adventure trips for older cabins, the Pere Marquette and the Pine. Sometimes it was a day trip. The bus would drop us off in the morning at Bowman Bridge or Gleason’s Landing and pick us up at the Upper Branch Bridge shortly after the Rainbow Rapids. We would stop at a midway point for lunch, hoping that the food canoe hadn’t tipped over; our bread moist with river water, a flotilla of our apples sailing downstream. We would also take overnight trips, beautiful nights in a tent by flowing water; nights often interrupted by angry raccoons testing our food security. These nights will always remind you that, no matter how cute they seem on an internet video, raccoons are mean animals. Two raccoons arguing over a hot dog bun can sound like a fight to the death with hisses, growls, and angry squeals. Yet there is still nothing like falling asleep with a Michigan river flowing by, water on a twisty path to the Great La

               The final left turn down Winter Road has to be the best part of the trip. After almost two and a half hours of driving, the first official camp sign appears. For many years it was a wooden sign with the words “YMCA Camp Aharah” and an arrow pointing down the road. After this sign was broken by vandals, the staff painted the words on an old two-person saw blade from the utility shed, attaching it to the old sign frame with chains. Now and then, a chain would break, and the sign would point us all, unhelpfully, to the ground.          As you turn down Winter Road, the landscape changes from open asparagus fields to shady woods. The road curves by Little Lake Pebawma on the right, but soon, on the left, you catch a glimpse of Lake Pebawma itself. You have arrived!          Just a note on spelling and pronunciation. Lake Pebawma is named for Chief Joseph Pebawma, a 19th-century Ottawa chief who moved from the Grand River Valley after the 1855 Treaty of Detroit with the O

I grew up in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the 1970s.   It was a time when children were still raised with a measure of self-reliance.   I know some people of older generations are laughing at that idea because they grew up far more independently than I ever was.   I’m not talking about a Lord of the Flies kind of independence.   I’m not even talking about a Walden kind of independence (after all, Thoreau’s mother still did his laundry). I can only compare my upbringing to the culture in which my children are being raised, where, thanks to cell phones, parents can be in constant contact; where it is assumed the children’s lives should be programmed, lest they spend too much time unsupervised; where it is deemed dangerous and unusual to desire to be alone The important thing is that we felt independent, even though we may not have been truly self-reliant.   From first grade to sixth grade I walked to school with my brother Tom or by myself.   From fourth grade on I came home a couple o