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Camp Mac

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Release Date: 07/08/2022

Infantilized show art Infantilized

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keeping It Real, Cam Marston reacts to a book review about society and how we're raising kids. It's not the kids fault, Cam says, it's definitely the parents. ----- The Economist magazine reviewed a book called Infantilised: How Our Culture Killed Adulthood. The author, Keith Hayward, argues that western society is keeping kids less mature than previous generations. He tells of a young lady who insisted on spelling the word hamster with a P. When corrected repeatedly, she called her mom and put her on speakerphone to tell her boss not to be so mean. That’s laughable, but...

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Lucy At The Vet show art Lucy At The Vet

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam's family dog heard what he said to the vet. And she has something to say about it. ----- When I walked through the back door our dog, Lucy, looked at me as if to say “you and I have some unfinished business.” Lucy had been feeling bad. She was lethargic and had thrown up in four or five places in the house. On the rugs, of course. I got to my hands and knees to try to clean them up. It was nasty. She definitely wasn’t herself and my wife, who Lucy seems to regard as The Kind One, took her to the vet. My wife texted that afternoon saying, “Please go...

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Questions show art Questions

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam Marston says he has a question for you. And he's curious if you have a question for him. ----- A story that lives in legend in my family is the day my mother interrupted a story about a boastful largemouth bass fisherman and my mother, in full innocence, asked “Who had the large mouth? The fish or the fisherman?” She had never heard of a largemouth bass. But, considering the context of the story, it was a legitimate question. The group fell silent and stared. Someone then explained to her about the species of fish. While the story gets repeated because of...

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Waxed show art Waxed

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On Keeping It Real this week, Cam reacts to Tuesday's presidential debate and shares something he's learned about himself in the recent years.  ----- Trump got waxed Tuesday night. Wow, did he get waxed. I watched the debate not knowing what to expect but man, to me, he got crushed. Trump later proclaimed it his best debate performance ever. He was outgunned. In hindsight, he never stood a chance. The pundits downplayed his shellacking. They emphasized some of the points he made but largely overlooked how badly he performed. Fox News was doing cartwheels to find something to like about...

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Gettin' Lucky show art Gettin' Lucky

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

Cam's back from his one month sabbatical and creating commentaries again. This one he simply calls Gettin' Lucky. ----- Dr Suchan Shenoy is one of the regulars at Restaurant Five in Tuscaloosa on Saturday mornings. I join the regulars when I’m in town visiting my son who is a sophomore at the University. Dr Shenoy is an OBGYN at the DCH Hospital there. He and I sat together and we made some small talk. I don’t know any of the regulars well, but I enjoy their company when I’m in town. Dr Shenoy could relate to my situation. I was a new guy sitting amongst a group of old friends in their...

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Really? show art Really?

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin' it Real, Cam Marston wonders if we prefer entertainment to anything of substance. And frets over the consequences. ----- I hope everyone had a nice July Fourth holiday. On July 4th, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was officially adopted and signed. It has proven to be one of the most influential documents in world history, generating demands for independence and self-rule across the world. Eleven years later, in 1787, the US Constitution was created and was then ratified about a year later. The energy and enthusiasm and aspirations of these two documents propelled...

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The Roost is Full show art The Roost is Full

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

The roost is full at Cam's house. And on this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam shares that it may never be this way ever again. ----- My wife and I had thought our summer would be quiet and a bit boring. Two of our four children would be living away and the other two would be at home but either working during the day, away at camp for a few weeks, or playing sports. Plans changed, though, and they’re all back home for the summer. Our house is packed. The roost is full. Our four kids are between the ages of twenty-one and seventeen and they’re all living at home until the fall when my two...

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Am I My Brother's Dog's Keeper? show art Am I My Brother's Dog's Keeper?

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam is having a harder and harder time walking his dog due to his neighbor's dog that won't go away. ----- “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Cain asked this of God after his brother Abel went missing and God asked Cain, “Hey. Where’s Abel?” Cain claimed he didn’t know. Cain had killed Abel, by the way, and was trying to hide it. How about this question – “Am I my brother’s dog’s keeper?” I remember growing up in a neighborhood where everyone let their dogs run. There were few fenced in yards. No such things as invisible dog fences and fancy dog...

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Bored show art Bored

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam is board so he's thinking about paddling across the Pacific. Or planting a few ferns. ----- I’m bored. And that’s a problem. Somethings been nagging at me for a few weeks and I now know what it is – I’m bored. There’s little adventure in my world right now. Very little discovery. And when boredom sets in get panicky and a bit rash. Too often, I over compensate. This morning I spent way too much time on the Molokai to Oahu web page. It’s a 32 mile stand up paddleboard race from the Hawaiian island of Molokai to the island of Oahu and it takes most...

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Flourish show art Flourish

Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston

On this week's Keepin It Real, Cam says we know we're all busy, very busy, but are we doing what it takes to flourish? ----- What does it take for a human to flourish? Such a simple question to understand but to answer, not so easy. Listening to a podcast last weekend, this question arose between the host and his guest. The guest pointed out that, in his opinion, everything being promoted as valuable in our Western society today is detrimental to human flourishing. What is being promoted, he said, actually leads to loneliness. And he might be right. So, what is being promoted out there? One...

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There are some parts of human evolution that have not changed. What made a kid happy a long long time ago is the same stuff that makes kids happy today. And what made a parent happy a long time ago remains unchanged, too. 

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"My fifteen-year-old twins will have been at camp for nearly a month when I pick them up late next week. It will be wonderful to see them again. All my kids have loved Camp Mac and my oldest kids, who haven’t been to camp for a few years, still stay in touch with many of the friends they made  there.

Listening to parents and teachers and the media talk, Camp Mac is not a place one would think young teenagers would enjoy. It has no air conditioning in the sleeping cabins – just widows with screens. No cell phones are allowed, in fact no electronics are allowed at all. A few times over their four-week term they hike into the Talladega National Forest, pitch tents, start fires, and sleep outdoors and at some point on that hike, they skinny-dip under a waterfall. During the days they play games outside, they wait in line to eat in the mess hall, they have girl-boy dance parties where, I’m told, they dance with each other. They attend patriotic flag raisings, and dress in all whites for their weekly Sunday service. According to the stereotypes, none of these things sound anything like “fun” for today’s young teenager. Kids today like comfort and instant gratification. But my kids love Camp Mac, and they’ll quietly cry when I drive them away late next week.

There’s an assumption that kids these days are different and there certainly are some differences. I remember as a kid blushing any time I even spotted a girlie magazine on a magazine rack far behind the counter at a service station. There was nothing in that magazine that any child today can’t find in twenty seconds on their cell phone. So there are certainly some differences. But, deep down, I don’t think we’ve changed all that much. As people, even as a species, we’re still very much like the way we were way way back in the past.

I’m betting one hundred years ago when a city kid went camping, they got excited about it. It was fun. And I’m betting it might have been the same two hundred years ago and the same maybe two thousand years ago. We like to think we’ve evolved and advanced as a species, but I don’t think we have. Child or adult, we’re still much the same as we’ve always been. Our tools have changed and by using these tools, we’ve changed our environment, but what made kids happy a long long long time ago is what’s making kids happy today. Not what gives them pleasure, mind you, but makes them happy. What made adults happy and sad a long long time ago is what makes adults like you and me happy and sad today, too.

I don’t know why but there’s great comfort in knowing that these things are unchanged. Like the happiness I’ll feel seeing my twins this time late next week.

I’m Cam Marston and I’m just trying to Keep It Real."