Hail to Thee, O Cimarron

A couple of months ago, Kieran and Kendall got an invitation to a birthday party for Mason, a boy in Kieran's kindergarten class. It was a great party, with two tons of stuff for bouncing (it was at Pump It Up), pizza, juice boxes, cake and ice cream, goody bags - you know, all the stuff that makes a kid do. There was a weird bit, though (and how could there not be? That's just how my life goes) ... I knew one of the other moms there (well, two, actually, but that's not really relevant here) from one of the hallmarks of my growing-up ... Camp Cimarron.

I knew the lady looked familiar, but I had to use the mental person-morph widget (that thing in your head that puts different hair styles or colors or makeup or whatever on someone and changes the background until you get a hit on a composite and realize why you know them). At last I asked if her name was Rochelle, and yes it was, and hi, I'm Donna, we were CITs together at Cimarron in 1984, and we did a Hollywood Night where we all dressed up and lip-synched to "Let's Hear It For The Boy" (because Footloose was THE movie that year). She was stunned at first, and then happily surprised, and we got to chatting (like you do) and it was great. She told me that she'd been in touch with a bunch of the "alumni" from Cimarron, and got me up to speed on some people that I'd not thought about in years. We yapped for an age, and then she asked if I had an email address, and she'd make sure I got put on a list of other Cimarron people.

Then today, I had an email from Edi - that's Miss Fozzy to you - with a "what's been up with you for the last 20+ years, here's what I've been doing, oh and did you hear that Cimarron's closed for this summer, and they're talking about selling it." Talk about a ton of bricks.

Cimarron is where I learned to ride a horse, got used to cold showers, learned some way cool cookout recipes (and it went way beyond s'mores - who knew you could make a pot roast with a campfire?), and essentially spent most of my summer from age 11 until graduation. It's a Camp Fire camp, one of two owned by the local council (it used to just be the Greater OKC Council, but I think they've changed the name) - the other is DaKaNi, a day camp, where Cimarron is resident camp, where you pack your sleeping bag and plenty of underwear. It is a completely integral part of my childhood, inseparable from some of my best and fondest memories. (Don't get me wrong, I went to DaKaNi too, and it was lovely, but there is just something so intangibly special about Cimarron ... I could never explain it, but there are hundreds if not thousands of girls who know just what I mean.) How in the world could it be tanking? Sell Cimarron? To me, that's sacred ground. I am hugely saddened today. My head knows that everything good ends someday, but I have long harbored dreams of sending Kendall to Cimarron on the bus, and driving up there myself to be a "mom counselor" while she's there.

What was it like? The songs, the flag ceremonies twice a day, chapel on Sundays (absolutely non-denominational, really a role model for the kids in government who seem to need to pander to some religious sect or other), cookout nights, watching the sunsets from Inspiration Point, the mini-golf course that was lovingly created at the site of the "old" swimming pool (which was just "the swimming pool" when my mom went there), the counselors with cool made-up names that started with Miss (and some got pretty creative, like MissChievious and MissPlaced and MissCellaneous and such, although there were also equally great counselors with equally hip made-up names that didn't make up a word, like Miss Apatchey - who was my counselor the very first time I went - and Miss Suby and Miss Bird and Miss Tadpole and Miss Muffin and Miss Gopher and Miss Buddy ... our group of CITs wound up being Miss Fozzy, Miss Bliffy, and MissStake - that was me - although I don't know what Carrie and Espanta's names were ... and it was such a big deal when you found out a counselor's real name), being freaked out by the way the statue of the Cimarron Lady watched you no matter where you went in the Lodge, free swim in the afternoons followed by canteen time (soda and candy bars, yay!), coffee cake on a Sunday morning before chapel (and did I mention how cool chapel was, with all of us dressed in white t-shirts and shorts, even though nobody ever thought to sweep off the benches and we all wound up with dirty bums), and of course the Council Fire on the last night, where all the counselors gave out bead sheets and patches denoting how many years each camper had been there, and each living group gave its counselor something they'd made on the sly during the session, with many tears and hugs as we all filed out afterward. That's only skimming the surface, but geez, I know so many other women have similar memories.

I can't believe Cimarron's in that kind of trouble. I've got to go now, because I have to help figure out how to stop it.

WoHeLo! MissStake signing (and sighing!) off for now.