[Philmont] Cameras and notepads. A differing opinion.

Kinda feeling a bit nostalgic today based on yesterday's conversations.

John made some interesting observations about notes, marking maps and
cameras. Having spent a week with him I can assure you he is not
bluffing. he takes careful notes of everything from what he does to the
menu choices at the St. James restaurant.

For him this is a good thing. For others that may not be fun as much as
a bunch of work that gets in the way of pleasant memories.

I am not a camera guy. I have throw away cameras at home with god knows
what on them taken in the early 1990's. We have boxes of pictures that
get moved from place to place and now that I have a digital camera I
have literally thousands of photos with names like 000001243.jpg and I
struggle to remember where or when they are from.

Never have been good with notepads either. For me they are a lot of
work and I don't enjoy writing when I am outdoors. I really appreciate
those who do like writing because I love to read.

None of the above have impacted my ability to enjoy or remember camp.
Last summer I took my son to his very first Sumer camp. Camp Winton,
Golden Empire Council. It took less than 5 minutes for me to be fluent
with the entire place, just as if I never left. The reason it took 5
minutes was I had to see a CURRENT map to locate the few things that had
been moved.

I spent a lot of time that week wandering around looking at "pictures"
that came from memories of long ago camps with friends and brothers. I
have nothing "solid" from those summers other than memories and patches.
    I would trade neither for all the film at Kodak.

But I did take another 200 or so pictures of the camp, my son, and
whatever else caught my fancy. They are sitting in a folder with bad
numbers on my hard drive.

Things are different now than when I was 14. Now I can stop and enjoy
taking the photo's. Back then I wanted to be IN the pictures, and IN
the action. I offered the camera to my son several times, he was not
interested, way to much other stuff to do.

So don't force your kids to take notes and pictures. Let them remember
the trips the way they want. Rest assured that SOMEONE will be taking
pictures and notes. The trip is supposed to be fun, not a summer job.

Just another opinion.

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Received on Tue Oct 16 18:56:01 2007