In the middle school years, teammates  parents of teammates of Sherlock and Holmes bragged about how hard their kids worked at Ralph Lundy Camp, or complained about having to drive to Duke Camp, etc. I smiled sympathetically while smugly calculating how much money they must have spent on these “investments in little Pele’s future soccer career”.

We did spend equal, if not higher, amounts of money-we-did-not-have to let the boys go to sleepaway summer camps. Camps with lakes were preferred, ideally with boating, but at least with the Blob. Ropes courses, nature hikes, backpacking, bike riding, campfires, and some kind of Indian names and secret handshakes were what Mr. Watson and I thought would a nice change from the eleven and a half months of soccer they were used to.

When the boys entered high school, their summers were filled with club soccer tournaments, even Regionals. The high school coach required the whole team to attend an “elite” camp at a college. So we saw no need nor time to attend any other camps.

Now that Holmes, our junior, seriously wants to play college soccer, coaches are strongly encouraging him to attend their camps this summer. One coach even responded to a recent email with a form letter that said, “. . . due to our success, there is higher interest than ever in our program. When you come to our camp we can evaluate you among your peers . . .”

In other words, save your personal best DVDs and local newspaper clippings. Sign up for $495 and let us decide if you should even breathe our air.

Ahhhh, air. Reminds me of Camp Lotsa-Bugs-and-Far-From-Homa.