Hey, Summer Campers!

This Blog has featured many a famous celebrity who was once a summer camper like yourself. We’ve talked about famous actors, musicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, and all other walks of fame. Today, spotlights someone who isn’t really any of those things, yet he’s still a household name the world over—Noam Chomsky. Considered to be the most important intellectual alive, is it any surprise that he attended summer camp?

That’s right, he went to Camp Massad, a Jewish summer camp in the Pennsylvanian Poconos. In operation for 40 years, Camp Massad closed its doors in 1981. It was around his time at camp that Noam’s superior intelligence started to show.

Noam attended Oak Lane Country Day School when he was younger. This progressive school allowed its students to study their own interests in an environment that ignored competition. When Noam was only 10 years old, he wrote his first article which concentrated on the spread of fascism after the first World War.

Just two years later, he moved on to high school. He was only 16 when he started his college education at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he studied philosophy, logic, and languages—primarily Arabic.

It wasn’t difficult for him to land a teaching career at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Throughout the years, he’s written over 100 books that focus on language, war, politics, and mass media. While his writings got his name out there, it didn’t bring him to the level of popularity that he now has. Noam attributes his success to “a series of accidents”.

His name became famous for his anti-Vietnam War activism which made President Nixon put Noam down on his list of enemies. While his anti-war position brought him some trouble and did damage to his career, Noam is still considered the world’s most important living intellectual.

A voracious reader, he reads through five newspapers on a daily basis with subscriptions to publications like The Boston Globe and The New York Times.

Noam was eager to learn about everything he could get his hands on. A great quote of his is, “I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.” Fighting indoctrination and encouraging independent thought, Noam and summer camp get along great. How will you get along at camp? Learn more about Noam right here and, as always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Summer Campers!

Former summer campers are everywhere you look. So many folks have gone for summer camp adventures that a bunch of them went on to become famous celebrities. They’re in the movies we see, in professional sports leagues, and they’re singing the songs that make the young girls cry—Barry Manilow is, anyway. And, yes, he was a summer camper back in the day as well.

Attending Camp Billings, Barry was fortunate for the opportunities and great camp experience he had for two weeks on the shore of Lake Fairlee among the lush hills in eastern Vermont—nearly an hour-and-a-half-long drive from New Hampshire. Learning a wealth about himself and where he fits into the world around him, Barry had no idea camp lessons would steer his life in the direction of super-stardom!

Having grown up in Brooklyn, Barry has always brought the energy of a New Yorker to his music despite his surroundings in “laid-back L.A.” as he calls it. He went to the Eastern District High School and, after graduating, attended the City College of New York. He didn’t stay there long, however, as his musical interests were developing exponentially. He soon entered the New York College of Music instead. Eventually, he went on to study at Juilliard School of Performing Arts.

Barry worked at CBS for some time while he was going to school. Not long into his employment there, the network director approached him to request that he arrange a few songs for a musical adaptation of an old, traditional play. Barry accepted the task, but went above and beyond by creating an entire original score for it. The CBS director used Barry’s score which saw great popularity throughout an 8-year run at New York’s 13th Street Theatre.

This launched Barry’s career as a pianist, producer, and arranger. He found great work writing and performing jingles for commercials. He’s responsible for classic commercial jingles such as Band-Aid’s ‘I am stuck on Band-Aid brand ‘cause Band-Aid’s stuck on me’ as well as the ever-popular ‘Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there,’ for State Farm Insurance.

Of course, his true talent was only discovered after the release of some of his greatest masterpieces like ‘Mandy,’ ‘Can’t Smile Without You,’ ‘Ready to Take a Chance Again,’ and so many more. After summer camp, Barry Manilow achieved worldwide fame and made his dreams come true. What’s in store for you after summer camp? As always, thanks for reading, campers!

- John

Hey, Camp Kids!

Here comes the sun and you all know what that means! The time to twist and shout at summer camp is right around the corner. Whether your kid is roughin’ it overnight or if they’re a day tripper—the approaching summer camp season sure is something to sing about. Would you believe that Paul McCartney of The Beatles thought so too when he was closer to your age?

The Corf campsite has been delivering magical summers for young boys since 1937 on the Isle of Wight. The island is situated in the English Channel, four miles off the coast of Hampshire—separated from mainland. 23 acres on the west side of the island is like an infinite, rustic playground for lucky Corf Scouts like Paul was back in his early adolescence.

His first summer there, Paul and his younger brother attended a week of Scouts together. Everything went fine until Paul prompted Mike to see how long he could hang from a cliff. The experiment ended in a broken arm and a visit to the infirmary, but despite the unfortunate conclusion to Paul’s bad idea his Scout leader, Arthur Evans was impressed with Paul’s overall character.

Peter Ames Carlin, a biographer, wrote in his book, ‘Paul McCartney: A Life’, about a Scout Leader of McCartney’s recalled “Paul’s enthusiastic showmanship while leading the Scouts’ nightly campfires. He’d brought his guitar, of course, so once the Scouts gathered and the flames rose, the evenings would become full-blown McCartney concerts, complete with jokes and a set list split between rock n’ roll favorites and what Evans recalled as a few McCartney originals.”

It wasn’t long after summer camp that Paul became a part of this band that was slowly forming called ‘The Beetles’. It took a little time for the ‘Fab Four’—Paul, John, George, and Ringo—to finally unite (or for the word ‘beetle’ to finally be spelled with an ‘A’), but once they did, there was no stopping them. They went on to create unique, upbeat music that the world has since loved.

Outlasting any pop band of the time and surpassing just about every band in popularity, The Beatles delivered hit after hit. Summer camp was a great experience where Paul discovered his love for playing his music in front of a crowd. What will you discover? As always, thanks for reading and be sure to check out Paul’s performance of a song he wrote back in his summer camp days called ‘I Lost My Little Girl’ below.

- John

Hey, Campers!

We find celebrities who were once summer campers like yourselves all the time here at Everything Summer Camp because there were so many of them who went to camp. Some of them went on to become famous people.

There are musicians, athletes, actors and actresses, as well as all kinds of celebrities who were once summer campers! Did you know that Galadriel Stineman was once a summer camper too? Though you may know her better as Gwen Tennyson from the action movie, ‘Ben 10: Alien Swarm’.

Yes, Galadriel is an alum of the North Central 4-H Camp in Carlisle, Kentucky. She spent some of her best summer days a couple hours from her home in Cincinnati. Running across 350 acres of rolling hills and wooded campgrounds just off of Lake Carnico, there she learned great lessons about community life and independence.

She attended Newport Central High School in Kentucky back in 2002 where she developed her interests in cheerleading, dancing, and horseback riding. She was involved in the drama club back then, though she never played a starring role in the school plays. After completing high school, she went on to attend the Northern Kentucky University. She graduated in 2007.

Her debut role came in 2009 as a dancer in the remake of ‘Fame’. But her breakthrough didn’t come until later that same year when the Cartoon Network animated series ‘Ben 10’ announced its third film release. She landed the role of Gwen Tennyson.

Galadriel is only in the beginning stages of her career, but she’s already making a great name for herself and keeps on going! She’s appeared as a recurring character a dozen times on the family sitcom ‘The Middle’ playing Cassidy Finch.

Summer camp certainly helped Galadriel realize her dreams. Where will your dreams lead you? You can get an idea at summer camp. As, always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Summer Campers!

Did you know that the world is chock-full of former summer campers? They’re all over the place. Some are even famous celebrities now. They’re in the movies we see, in professional sports leagues, and on the radio. And speaking of radio, did you know that Howard Stern of ‘The Howard Stern Show’ was once a summer camper like yourselves? It’s true. Growing up in New York City, he spent many a summer at Camp Wel-Met.

Though it’s no longer in operation, Camp Wel-Met was the place where summer memories were born! The campgrounds were situated in wooded areas of Narrowsburg, New York. Despite the camp’s lack of funds, facilities, and equipment—they were rich with the prerogative to create fun, no matter what materials were at their disposal.

It was so much fun, in fact, that Howard kept going back not just as a camper, but as a worker in the kitchen as well as taking on cabin leader responsibilities. He’s said of his time at Camp Wel-Met that it was “The greatest experience”. From a very young age—before his days at Wel-Met even—Howard was always drawn to the performing arts.

He was enrolled in piano lessons for five years and he had developed a love for putting on amusing shows for his friends using marionettes. He was only five years old by when he discovered his desire to be on the radio. When the desire hadn’t faded five years down the road, his dad gave him a tape recorder for his birthday.

After graduating from Washington-Rose Elementary School, followed by Roosevelt High School, Howard went on to study for four years at Boston University. It didn’t take long for him to start work at WTBU—Boston U’s campus radio station. As radio host, he would play music, read news, and hold interviews for campus entertainment and education.

After his college graduation, Howard quickly found work, but declined an offer from WRNW, a progressive rock station in New York. “I freaked out,” Howard has since explained. “I got real nervous that I wasn’t good enough.” But it didn’t take him long to snap out of it. “All of a sudden…I realized I had turned down a job in radio,” he said. His mother and girlfriend gave him helpful encouragement to contact the station again and work things out.

That’s just what he did. Howard went on to establish his career and made a name for himself as a radio show personality and eventually created ‘The Howard Stern Show’—his long-running show on the air which gained great popularity from the mid-80’s to the early 2000’s.

Howard took what he found fun and formed it into his career. You’re sure to find fun at summer camp. What will you do with it? As always, thanks for reading!

- John