Camp transsexual, Pennsylvania

I realised that today is Independence Day across the pond, so it made the topic of today's blog entry pretty easy. And an excuse to show off the photo on the left, which is an atmospheric view of New York taken a few years ago.

I'm lucky (some might say unlucky?) enough to have spent quite a bit of time in the States, the first time was when I was aged 19 and did a summer working on a children's camp. There were a large number of UK and Australian staff, and after a while we were fed up of all the American patriotism and superficiality, so in the middle of the night before Independence Day, we switched the large American flag on the main flagpole for a sheet with the Union Jack painted on it. All the camp gathered for the morning flag-raising ceremony, stood to attention with fists placed firmly over their hearts whilst they recited the Pledge of allegiance, then the flag was hoisted and unfurled to reveal our imposter. Didn't go down too well, as I recall... In fact, quite a lot of what the Brits got up to didn't go down too well - the Yanks were amazed at the amount of underage drinking that went on which they didn't dare partake in (they failed to understand that we were mostly uni students and it was perfectly legal had we been back home). There were also our overnight excursions to the spooky "Camp Polio" down the road - an old summer camp by a nearby lake which had been deserted for many years, rumour had it since there was a fatal outbreak of polio during a summer season, or since some campers were eaten by alligators while swimming in the lake, depending who you believe. Anyway, these rumours borrowed heavily from "Halloween", and it was the only place we could all go to overnight when we had our off-duty, as none of us had cars. We brought so much beer in from the local town, that the floor in one of the rooms collapsed and we all fell shrieking into the ground.

The main camp itself was very big on music and drama, and my job was to be musical director for the shows that were put on every fortnight over the summer. The kids were split into 3 age groups and each had a fortnight to learn and put on a musical - we did the Sound of Music, the Lion King, and Little Shop of Horrors, and I was pretty impressed with what we were able to knock up in such a short space of time. The counselors then wanted in on it, so we decided to make 1995 the year of the inaugural staff musical, and what could be less appropriate than the Rocky Horror show? I had to do some serious editing of the lyrics, so that it would not be deemed too rude for the kids, for example, the song which goes:

"I'm just a sweet transvestite ... from Transsexual ...Transylvania-aaaa-aaah!"

became:

"I'm just the head Boys Counselor ... from Camp Tyler Hill ... Pennsylvania-aaa-aaah!"

(it works if you sing it to the tune). Oops, I just revealed the name of the camp, never mind, not as if I'm planning on going back! The staff not involved in the show were horrified, but the kids loved it as it turned into a piss-take of all the high-up camp staff, not that we at all insinuated that after campers had gone to bed, the male staff changed out of their camp uniform t-shirts into full drag and basques. Happy days, but bloody hard work! The camp was so rich that they hired a celebrity each year to open their Colour War competition, 1995's was Matthew Perry (aka Chandler off of "Friends"), except at that time nobody in England knew who he was so I managed a quick chat with him and got his autograph seeing as all the Yanks were going crazy over him, it was only when Friends took off in the UK that I realised who I'd been chatting with. Friend of the stars, me...