Hey there, Moms and Dads!

Today is a very special day. What makes it so special, you ask? It’s special because it’s all about you! Happy Parents’ Day, Parents! Today celebrates you: that proud, loving, and often times very tired group—the parents of our world! Though it may be a little hard for some of us to admit it at times, at some point in our lives our parents were most likely the most important people in it.

You’d think this day has been celebrated all throughout history since moms and dad have been around since…FOREVER, but actually it came around in the much more recent past. Its interesting history goes back only to the 1920’s or so when one Ms. Sonora Smart Dodd from Spokane fought to make an equivalent to Mother’s Day for male parents—Father’s Day.

As was covered on the previous Father’s Day post, most fathers confronted the idea of Father’s Day unfavorably, displeased with its celebration of a domesticated male figure being gifted with flowers and other frills. One response was a movement that lasted about a decade that tried to get rid of both Mother’s AND Father’s Day entirely to make just one, unified Parents’ Day.

Parents’ Day was fought for with the rationale that both parents should be respected and admired equally, however, the Great Depression put an end to the fight as retailers did their best to promote ‘manly’ gifts like neckties, hats, and golf clubs for Father’s Day. With that, Father’s Day won the battle.

It took nearly 65 years before anything happened with Parent’s Day, until 1994 when President Clinton noted that Mother’s Day landed on the second Sunday of May and Father’s Day on the third Sunday of July. So following suit, he decided that the fourth Sunday in July had ought to be Parents’ Day.

From everyone at Everything Summer Camp, happy Parents’ Day! As always, thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, History Fans!

Today is Amelia Earhart’s birthday; what better day to honor this adventurous American icon by discussing her life and the accomplishments that she made during a time when women typically weren’t as expressive and daring as she was.

For someone whose life is so well-documented, her death is shrouded in mystery. However, while the mystery of her disappearance is what gathers so much attention, her life was very interesting.

Amelia was born in 1897. She was full of life, a captivating person, and beautiful. She is portrayed in the bulk of her biographies as a tomboy in her younger days. Like usual children, Amelia and her younger sister, Pidge, would collect moths, toads, and katydids (also known as the Green Leaf Bug) as they would frequently go out on adventuresome hikes.

Amelia did a lot of the usual childhood things, but also did some things that most children wouldn’t dare…

Once when she was 7-years-old, Amelia (with the help of her uncle) made her own little home-style roller coaster. She fastened a ramp to the roof of her father’s toolshed and took it for a ride in a little wooden box. She crashed, broke the box, bruised her lip, and tore her dress. She didn’t once think to cry about it, though. Instead, she called to her sister, “Oh, Pidge. It’s just like flying!”

There was another side to Amelia than this spirited tomboy, though. She was a thinker as well as a writer. She enjoyed motivating people too. She once wrote, “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”

With this rationale, Amelia became the first female aviator to cross the Atlantic Ocean alone. Three years later she crossed the Pacific on her own as well. Then she flew coast to coast across the United States. She helped to form the 99’s (an international organization of women pilots).

After all these accomplishments and many more, Amelia strived for one more. In 1937, she and her navigator tried to fly across the entire earth—heading east from Miami. She nearly made it the entire way around the planet, but disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean.

While myths and legends are still passed around today, the Crash and Sink Theory is the most widely accepted that the Electra (Amelia’s plane) ran out of fuel and crashed in the Pacific.

The world could learn a thing or two from Ms. Earhart, so don’t stop here. Look further into her life for your own fun and inspiration! And thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

It’s National Hot Dog Day. Standing tall alongside burgers and apple pie, hot dogs are one of the most iconic of American foods. Whether you’re having a simple cookout with the family or taking a trip out to the ballpark to catch a ballgame—hot dogs are an essential part of summer!

Wieners, Franks, Foot Longs, Dogs—no matter what you call them, they’re delicious! They’re traditionally served on a bun with ketchup and mustard on top, but the fun doesn’t have to end there. Like its cousin, the burger, there’s a whole slew of condiments you can use to dress up the hotdog.

Sprinkle some diced onion on there, decorate it with some tasty relish (hot giardiniera if you’re daring enough), then load it all with one more layer of chili! Now THAT’S a hotdog!

Hotdogs don’t NEED to go inside a bun either. You can get a corndog—a hotdog with a cornmeal coating, deep-fried, and served on a stick. Otherwise, cut some hotdogs into bite-sized pieces and put them in your Mac n’ Cheese—it’s great!

But really—even if you don’t have a single condiment or a bun to put it on—hotdogs are still beyond enjoyable. And since they’re so independently satisfying, they make for the number one most convenient camping food. All you need to do is find yourself a skewer (any ol’ stick will do) and roast it by a campfire. It’s that easy and dinner is served!

It was the 13th Century when pork sausages (essentially hotdogs) were first made in Frankfurt, Germany (you can take a wild guess at how the name frankfurter came along). But encased sausage and other meats have been made since at least 700 B.C.—it’s mentioned in Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’.

From grill outs to hotdog stands to eating contests, Americans consume somewhere around 20 billion hotdogs a year! That’s A LOT!

We’ll certainly be having our share of hotdogs today thanks to our employee grill out! I can smell it already! Mmmm. Happy Hotdog Day to everyone from Everything Summer Camp!

Eat up, Dog Lovers. And thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Daydreamers!

Where’s the best place to lie down or even catch a few Zzz’s in the middle of the day? Well, the living room sofa is often a popular place. There’s also the obvious and overdone bed. Comfy recliners and rockers can be great for this situation, but even they take a backseat to one simple contraption.

Today we celebrate the best place for a quick snooze: the hammock. Swaying in a summer breeze, hammocks typically deliver an incomparable level of luxury. Its simple design can be deceiving as it’s often surprising just how comfortable you are in a hammock. Today is National Hammock Day.

Tried and true, the hammock has been around for many centuries (about a thousand years, maybe more). Evidence suggests that the hammock was conceived and created in what is now Mexico. It was the Mayan civilization of the Yucatan Peninsula that invented this simple, swaying apparatus for sleep.

Never really intended for anything but sleep and relaxation, hammocks are thought to have been the Mayan’s sole sleeping structure. While the Mayan’s may have invented hammocks, they weren’t the only ones to enjoy them. It’s surprising to discover that—even back in those days—trade routes among native tribes were so far-reaching; they stretched from Central America to Brazil.

Hammocks quickly became, not just a popular trading item, but THE thing to sleep on. You wouldn’t dream of not owning a hammock back in those days. What would you sleep on?!

Nowadays, we typically sleep through the night on our beds. Even so, hammocks haven’t gone away. You’ll see them randomly set up between two trees in a yard or even in the bedroom of a really cool kid.

I fondly recollect the one tied up on the solarium of my friend’s apartment building. It was large enough that my friends and I would lie sideways so four of us could fit on it, swaying back and forth and staring up at the stars.

Hammocks are magical. So, if your yard is blessed with one—go appreciate it! If not, go make friends with someone who owns one or get one for yourself. In honor of National Hammock Day, Everything Summer Camp has started to carry these ingenious sleeping mechanisms. Get them now while they’re on sale and enjoy your Hammock Day. Thanks for reading.

- John

Hey, History Buffs!

I think one of the best sensations in life is when that perfect summer breeze comes and goes whispering past you, up against you, and, sometimes, seemingly THROUGH you. It’s great being swept away in a cool breeze or even a strong, gusting zephyr.

Since the first summer, people have always desired that feeling of airflow—a concentrated breeze. Pharos and kings were fanned with giant palms while hand fans were a cheap means of cooling yourself since ancient times. But nowadays, we have the convenience of fans run on electricity.

These days, fans are an essential summer item found in pretty much every home. But things weren’t always so. In fact, electric fans didn’t even exist until sometime around 1883. Fans made at this time had fully-exposed blades and inner workings. They were expensive and found only in large offices or wealthy homes.

It took roughly ten years before motor enclosures and fan cages came along, not so much as a safety measure for the user but more so for the protection of the fan and its expensive blades. In another ten years they figured out how to make them oscillate back and forth.

Other improvements were made along the way, but the game-changer for the electric fan finally came along in the 1930s. Better materials became available for wrapping wire which allowed for the use of smaller wires which in turn allowed for manufacturing smaller motors. While already in some homes, this benefit brought the fan to every home.

With the onset of air conditioning, the market for fans went way down. Over the years, however, fans have remained because of their ability to adapt. Using cheaper materials like plastic instead of metal as well as introducing different shapes like the box fan for windows and tower fans for optimal air flow.

Everything Summer Camp is happy to offer such innovative shapes and designs for personal fans like our Funky Flexi-Fan, the Squeeze Breeze Water Misting Fan, the Desktop Fan, and the Deluxe Fan/Light. These fun electric fans are always handy on those hot days at camp!

Thanks for reading, Fan Fans and stay cool.

- John