{"id":261,"date":"2005-10-22T13:31:07","date_gmt":"2005-10-22T21:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/songoose.com\/?p=77"},"modified":"2025-07-22T18:37:59","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T18:37:59","slug":"memories-of-sleepaway-camp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/?p=261","title":{"rendered":"Memories of Sleepaway Camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

In between 8th and 9th grade and again between 9th and 10th grade, I attended the NewSport Experience Camp in Kents Hill, Maine<\/a>. Contrary to other sleepover camp experience that I had in my childhood, I loved this place. It was all about sports and many of my friends attended with me. Although I have a lot of hazy memories about what we did at camp, what it looked like<\/a>, and who I met, I am able to recall a few specific facts with complete certainty:<\/p>\n

1) Shinehead’s “Gimme No Crack” – Previous to downloading it a few months ago (solely for the nostalgic value), I did not hear this song before or after attending NewSport even one time. I have no idea where it came from or why we thought it was such a good song, but we listened to it constantly. It’s actually a preposterous song, but one worth having around just to see if anyone you know has ever heard it (I’ve yet to find someone).<\/p>\n

2) Geto Boys’ “Gangsta of Love” – When I heard this years later, I was quite disappointed. It seems that blending a cheesy 70’s tune with gangster rap should produce something a bit more fun, but this song really isn’t that great. (Didn’t stop us from listening to it every frickin’ day.) I suppose, however, that this could be part of the reason I liked the Steve Miller Band so much in high school, particularly “The Joker”.<\/p>\n

3) Guns N’ Roses – “Civil War” – One night my camp roommate Dennie and I were listening to the radio when we were supposed to be in bed, and we heard the debut of the new Guns N’ Roses song (which we’d anxiously been anticipating for some time) on some Maine radio station. The remarkable thing about this is that Use Your Illusion I & II did not come out for some 14 months after this fateful night, and I did not hear this song again (this is pre-internet, remember) until the day I walked from my parents house to the closest record store (because my mom would not drive me) to pick up the much anticipated double release. I suppose I should have taken this delay as a sign of things to come.<\/p>\n

4) Lauren Young – At a dance with some neighboring girls camp (NewSport was all guys), I danced with Ms. Young for several songs. I may have claimed to kiss her to several people over the course of my life, but this is not even remotely true. I wouldn’t have had any idea how to do something like that. My friends all claimed that Lauren had purple (or green, blue, w\/e) hair, but I cannot confirm this. As is common in junior high school dances, it was quite dark. I may have written to Lauren once or twice, but I really don’t remember. I can, however, picture the little scrap of paper on which she wrote her address. She had nice handwriting.<\/p>\n

5) Pete McKernan – He was my favorite counselor at NewSport, just an all-around great guy. He also happened to be the son of the Governor of Maine. Pete died a few years later, I heard through the grapevine. I don’t know much else. R.I.P. Pete.<\/p>\n

In conclusion, it sure is interesting what you remember about these experiences.<\/p>\n

BTW, if NewSport sounds fun, check out Camp GoodSport<\/a>, run by the same guy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In between 8th and 9th grade and again between 9th and 10th grade, I attended the NewSport Experience Camp in Kents Hill, Maine. Contrary to other sleepover camp experience that I had in my childhood, I loved this place. It was all about sports and many of my friends attended with me. Although I have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music","category-ramblings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":546,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions\/546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.mikemadaio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}