Another View Of

‘Shake and Bake’

To the Editor:

I am responding to the letter by Ms Barrett on July 26, titled, “What’s Going On At Parks And Rec Camp?” This will be my second year as a counselor-in-training (CIT) at the Treadwell day camp. I understand Ms Barrett’s points about how “shake and bake” could be viewed as an act of hazing, but I do think that she might have misunderstood the counselors’ intentions.

Last year when I attended camp orientation, I was informed about shake and bake. As a new CIT, I was actually excited about the tradition. From what I heard at orientation, shake and bake could happen to you if you were CIT or counselor of the week. When you are rewarded this title, you get an item you have to hold onto the whole week and you have to be careful not to leave it behind or you can get shake and baked. This is when a bunch of counselors pick you up and carefully drop you into the pool, then bring you over to the softball field and roll you around in the dirt. This does not only happen to females, males have been shake and baked as well. I know it may sound a bit out of line, but it is actually quite fun. The campers even enjoy it and sometimes take part in it. This happened to me last year.

I wasn’t there the week Ms Barrett witnessed the ritual, but from the times I have seen it happen, there were no campers crying or looking sad at all. In fact, the whole camp would gather around the field and chant, “shake and bake” over and over. I have never seen the person or, as you put it, “victim” almost in tears, but again, I was not there and the girl could have had a different reaction to the shake and bake than I have seen others have. Some may call this hazing, but I wouldn’t view it as that. If the camp takes the shake and bake away, many counselors and campers will be disappointed because it is something to look forward to, especially from a campers point of view. They find it amusing.

Ms Barrett, some of the counselors you see may in fact be young, but that does not make them at all less responsible than an older counselor. The Park and Rec camps have always had a good reputation, and I hope that something like a shake and bake won’t bring the camp down.

Thank you,

Amy Rosentel

41 Osborne Hill Rd, Sandy Hook                                    July 30, 2004