A Raw Deal For The Camps

To the Editor:

Congratulations Newtown and The Newtown Bee. You have once again managed to show how truly out of touch with reality you are. I did not think it was possible for a community to look as silly as you did when you turned a beautiful town landmark into a hypodermic needle. (If you did not know we had a drug problem like every other town in America, you need to pull your head out of the sand.) Sadly, a totally harmless incident has managed to make the camp I worked at for five of the happiest summers of my life into a laughingstock.

I was a CIT and a counselor for four years, before being promoted to assistant director last summer. I am as familiar with Camp Treadwell as anyone. Simply put, a “shake and bake” is nothing more than rolling a CIT around in mud. That’s it. Then the CIT walks around in a bathing suit, takes a shower, or hops in the pool, mud free. And it only happens when the CIT loses the prize given to them honoring them for their exemplary performance the week before.

Unlike The Bee, who reported as if they saw the events unfolding, I’ll admit I was not at Treadwell as an eyewitness. It is entirely possible that the entire situation got out of hand. It is equally possible that these events were sensationalized and distorted. I have had absolutely no role in camp this year, in fact, other than four weekends; I have not even lived in Newtown this summer. But I freely admit I have seen it before and I seriously doubt that people look different muddy this summer than they did last five, or that children react differently to seeing muddy teenagers. There is something far more troubling to me going on here.

This whole chain of events seems to be the culmination of getting rid of dodge ball because it somehow promotes violence, even though millions of Americans have played the game for decades and managed to keep their self-esteem intact. (Yet many of these same parents buy trading card games from Japan that are far more violent than dodge ball). Or ending walks through the woods because of ticks, even though the pavilion is located ten feet from the woods and every Newtown resident has pulled a tick of their dog at some point.

Forget the painfully obvious fact that young children enjoy ball sports, woods, mud, or just being with teenagers. These facts have long been ignored by many parents. What I find the craziest of all is how happy every Newtown parent is of our Blue Ribbon high school, our award-winning music programs, our many fine athletic teams, and recent alumni like myself who go on to the top colleges in the nation, and then turn around and bash lazy teenagers. It’s unbelievably hypocritical.

Parks and Recreation would love to have a more adult figure in charge of the camps, and we were fortunate to have a wonderful director who supervised me last year. Interested parents are sure to find open ears when Mrs Kasbarian looks in the future for a site director. Mrs Barrett asked what is going on in her “lovely Newtown,” and I assume she wasn’t referring to the marginalization of the Jewish community as they seek expansion. I would like to take this opportunity to answer her: absolutely nothing. The bottom line is I know I and my past coworkers have been a positive force in many of Newtown youths lives and I hope that a parent reading this sees through the raw deal that one person has dealt to our camps.

Brian Budnick

13 Nutmeg Lane, Sandy Hook                                       August 9, 2004