For eight years as a youth I went to summer camp.  I would go away to this camp for four weeks and  I believe that I would not be the same person I am today without that experience.  The memories I have, the things I learned, the music I heard, the experiences I had, the friends I made all contribute to the me that is inside of me.  My last year at the camp was 26 years ago and I have only talked to one of those many friends over much of that time.

A few months ago, the camp put a private social networking section up on their site and I reconnected with a small handful of these friends.  It was so amazing, and brought up such amazing memories that I tracked down more of those friends and invited them to the site.  There were 20 people in my unit when I was a CIT ... and we found them all.  It is amazing to speak with them again.

I had a conference in New York City two weeks ago so I set up a dinner with three of these old friends that I knew lived in the city.  They put the word out and a total of 14 people from my generation of camp showed up.  The stories and memories that floated around that table that night were amazing, however, the evening as a whol was very surreal.  For one of our friends brought news about Bob.

Bob was the camp director when we went to camp and he was going back to this year.... it would have been his 50th year at the camp.  It turns out that Bob died that day.  I hadn't seen these friends for over 25 years and the day we do see each other, Bob died.

He was such a good man and told amazing stories.  He ran a camp that shaped who I am.  He instilled good feelings into everyone he met.  Although he'll be missed, I was with the people that I should be with when I heard the news.

Thank you Bob.