Quaker Lake Flashbacks

From 1978 until 1983 I spent my summers working at a summer camp. I loved that job and have so many great memories. However...looking back I sometimes question my sanity. Long days, short nights, no air conditioning, no carbonated beverages and only one night a week to do anything else doesn't sound like anything a normal young adult would choose to do. And yet we considered it both a blessing and an honor to work there, as have so many others since then. Sometime in the late 1980's I stole from Jimmy Buffet and parodied his song We Are the People Our Parents Warned Us About for a Quaker Lake Camp reunion event that never happened. I have always thought the song expressed a little bit of the craziness that came with working at Quaker Lake. The song is now WAY out of date; instead of Neal, I could say Heather and instead of the campers are the staff it could read "now the campers kids are the staff."  Everyone who has ever worked at QLC can identify with the spirit of the song, if not the particulars, because to survive working there you have to LOVE it. And it helped if you were just a little bit crazy...

I was supposed to have been a computer wiz or a naval academy grad (HA!)

That was the way that my parents perceived me, those were the plans that they had

But I couldn't fit the part, too dumb? Or too smart? Ain't it funny how we all turned out

I guess we are the people our parents warned us about

I could have worked at Pizza Inn, or Sears, or McD's, 
but instead I worked at Quaker Lake

It did permanent mental damage, the campers wouldn't give me a break

Now those campers are the staff and I just have to laugh
 'cause I know that it's so easy to see

That they're all demented, just like we taught them to be!

We are the people, they still can't figure out

We are the people, our parents warned us about

Hey, hey, Neal what do you say? Let me come back to Quaker Lake with you

Blue skies and the sun shining high, playing on lake so blue...well, green...
I've see it red!

Now I've got quarters in my loafers trying to fight inflation 
when it only used to take a cent

What happened to my Quaker Lake pension; now even my dog is for rent

But still I miss that crazy place, it put a smile on my face

and I'll never be normal again

'Cause I love tuna cheesies, and singing Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann!

We are the people, there isn't any doubt

We are the people our parents warned us about

We are the people who make you do a double take

We are the people who use to work at Quaker Lake

So here's to all the crazies without whom my life would have never been the same! The early Christians were like that- people thought they were either crazy or demon possessed. There is something about living life in the Light of Christ that makes us all a little dangerous- may we always be those people!

Because of Jesus,