From JuJu with Love

Some of my very first adventures away from home didn’t involve airplanes or passports. They involved bunk beds, camp songs, care packages, and summers that felt like they would last forever.

From the time I was nine until I was thirteen, I spent my summers at Camp Walden in Cheboygan, Michigan—five summers that shaped me more than I probably realized at the time. My sister Margo started even younger, at seven, and Katie followed a few years later when she was finally old enough.

Some summers, when we were already up north at our cottage in Harbor Springs, my parents would drive us straight to camp. But the first few years, my sister Margo and I were lucky enough to do something that felt incredibly grown up—we rode the camp buses.

Early one morning, parents from all over would drop their kids off at a parking lot in Southfield, where a line of Greyhound buses waited for us. Camp staff assigned us to buses based on our age or cabin, and then—just like that—we were off.

For four and a half hours, a caravan of Greyhound buses headed north, filled with kids laughing, singing, making friends, and buzzing with excitement. No parents. Just counselors, camp songs, and the feeling that summer had officially begun. Even before we reached Camp Walden, the adventure was already underway.

By the time I arrived, Walden already felt like family—my older cousins Jamie and Lee had gone there for several years before us.

And five summers mattered. Because at Camp Walden, if you made it through five years, you earned something special—a Camp Walden jacket. It wasn’t just clothing. It was a badge of honor. Proof that you stuck it out, grew up there, and truly belonged.

I remember counting the summers, knowing that if I made it to year five, that jacket would be mine. When I finally received it, I was beyond excited. I wore it with pride, knowing I had earned my place among the campers who came before me. It felt like independence you could put on and zip up.

To my younger eyes, my cousin Jamie and her friends were everything. They were CITs—confident, capable, and just old enough to seem impossibly cool. And Lee? Lee was a total star. Watching him perform in Walden Under the Stars, I thought he was the coolest person on the planet.

One summer, Aunt Barbara and Uncle Jerry came up to see the performance and brought us care packages from home—not just any care packages, but the good stuff. Pop-Tarts. Brownies. Potato chips. The kind of junk food that turned my cabin into the most popular place at camp. My cabin mates were beside themselves with excitement, and I secretly loved being the girl with the best care package.

Those summers were even more special because so much of my family was woven into them. My cousins Tracey and Laurie came up from Florida and spent their summers at Walden too. Laurie and I are only six months apart, and many summers we ended up in the same cabin—carefree days filled with laughter, whispered secrets, and the kind of closeness only summer camp can create.

But Walden wasn’t just about family. Some of my school friends went with me, and I also met girls from places far beyond my own world. One camp friend, Pam from Chicago, became my favorite pen pal. This was long before email or texting, and we wrote each other weekly. I remember running to the mailbox, hoping a letter from Pam would be waiting for me.

One summer, Pam flew to Harbor Springs to spend a week up north with my family. And because we were clearly very grown up—or at least thought we were—Pam and I were allowed to drive my 1983 white Camaro all the way down to Detroit to see a concert with a group of my friends from home. Looking back now, I can’t believe my parents let us. But that freedom felt like the natural next step after all those summers away.

Camp Walden gave me confidence before I knew I needed it. It taught me how to leave home, build community, and return changed—sometimes with a care package, sometimes with a pen-pal letter, and sometimes wearing a jacket I had earned.

Long before I was traveling the world, collecting passport stamps and stories, I was learning how to belong somewhere on my own.

And every once in a while, I still think about that jacket.

From Juju with love 💙🚌