Camp Clifford is Closed

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"I'd like to book my stay for next year," Jake said as I walked him out to the school bus and announced that Camp Clifford is closed for the season.

Yes, the school year has officially started. Bag lunches, fights over doing the homework, scrambling to feed the hoodlums, and wondering if the dogs will handle the time alone all right.

Not that the dogs didn't witness anything more than sleep, though.

"It's time to learn, learn, learn," I chanted to Sam as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes this morning.

"The thing about it is that I'll be home before you, I get all the holidays off, there's teacher conferences and breaks. You're stuck working every day for the next twenty years, and we eat up all the money you make."

I may not chant to the kids anymore.

Yet it was a wonderful season here at Camp Clifford.

Rooms were trashed on a daily basis.

Chicken nuggets, chicken fingers and popcorn chicken were real popular on the menu. They ate enough ice cream to sink a freaking ship.

The chores were minimal. They didn't really have to mow the lawn or pick weeds because nothing grew during the hot summer.

And don't get me started on how they kept the quarters in their summer rooms.

Let's just say that one of their parents is OCD about clutter and the other parent is happy with debris.

They didn't take after the OCD guy.

Whoops.

Did I tip my hand there?

Yet there is a bit of sadness as the Camp closes for the season.

One of the hoodlums is already going to sleep elsewhere in a Camp Clifford sponsored dorm room...the 2nd in line is just a couple of seasons away. The last guy, thankfully, will be Camp chairman for a few more years.

I remember the excitement and the dread of the new school year starting. It had seemed like summer just started and Christmas break seemed like a hundred months away.

"It must suck never to get a real break," Sam said.

Uh, yeah.

Don't be in such a rush to find out how much it sucks.

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