Hello muddah, hello faddah
Here I am at Camp Hillary!
Being no spring chicken myself, I'm loath to call into question the former first lady/secretary of state's mental faculties, and yeah, she was addressing a bunch of camp counselors–but really!
As I have gotten older, I have decided we really need camps for adults. And we need adults camps that you all run. Really. None of the serious stuff. None of the life-challenging stuff… more fun. I think we have a huge fun deficit in America. And we need to figure out how to fill that fun deficit, certainly for our kids but also for the rest of us. We need some [garbled] from time to time, maybe some enrichment, certainly some time outdoors. Maybe actually spending time with people that we didn’t know before.
Plus:
“We could have the red cabin, and the blue cabin have to come together and actually listen to each other. Wouldn’t that be a novel idea,” she said. “We really need camps for adults.”
Note that "have to." At Camp Hillary it would be: "Everybody into the pool!"
I'm leaving aside the fact that, historically, at most "camps for adults," the word "camp" has been preceded by "concentration," "re-education," or "death."
But just the idea of going to camp as an adult fills me with horror. I hated summer camp as a child, and I hate everything associated with camping to this day. Sleeping in a sleeping bag? Brushing my teeth in a communal sink? Having to weave one of those hideous plastic lanyards? Never being one of the counselor's pets? Spare me!
And I just can't associate the words "Hillary" and "fun."
The speech, said to be her last paid appearance before she casts her hat into the presidential ring. summed up everything that's off-kilter about Hillary Clinton. She couldn't just utter a few bromides about summer camp being a wonderful outdoors experience for children, had to turn it into a gruesome-sounding government project to coerce grown-ups into "spending time" with strangers. Sort of like like the Starbucks "Race Together" project, except without the coffee.
As for me, my idea of filling my "fun deficit" is staying right in my red cabin. I don't want Hillary organizing my fun.