Letters to Camp

Getting Your Camper to Write Requires Cleverness – Or Does It?

A father’s ploy to get more letters.  If you wrote over a hundred letters to your four children at camp each summer, you might want to hear back from them every once in a while.  You know, a quick  note so you’d know your kid was OK.  Having fun.  Meeting new kids, etc.  As often happens, my brother was so busy having a great time at camp, that he have any time left over to write my parents – which is very common for all campers.  And so it was that my dad hatched a clever plot to get my brother to write home from camp.  Or so he thought.

Dad wrote a colorful letter describing how he and my mom were walking through the local mall where to their surprise, store after store was offering free stuff – hockey sticks and all manner of sporting goods – to any parent who could produce a letter from their camper.  And since my brother loved sports, it would be great – if only my parents had a letter to offer.  But alas, my parents were empty-handed and couldn’t take home the free goods for bro.  But as my dad told my brother, maybe if my brother wrote, they’d be able to revisit the stores and collect the stuff!

Dad knew the likely outcome but he thought it was worth a try.  So he sent off the letter and he waited.  And waited.  And waited and waited and waited.  And it might have worked but there was just one problem.  My brother never opened the letter.