Hey, Cool Campers!

I know all your futures are SO bright that you need to wear shades! Easy to obtain, you can pick a pair up for yourself at any ol’ convenience store. But things weren’t always so. No, sunglasses may have been around for a long time, but they weren’t around forever. When were these crafty specs invented and who were the first folks to wear these cool shades?

Well, I suppose the very first ‘sunglasses’ were invented by the Alaskan Inuits—also known as Eskimos. They didn’t look cool as opposed to the shades we wear today, but they worked and they’re at least 2000 years old!

The Eskimos (or more like ancestors of the Eskimos) usually made these ‘snow goggles’ as they were called out of bone or ivory. They didn’t have lenses but, instead, simple slits for your eyes to see through while still blocking out the harsh sunlight reflecting off the brilliantly blinding ice and snow.

For at least a few hundred years, Chinese judges in the Middle Ages wore sunglasses. They were made with a smoke-colored quartz for the lenses and therefore actually looked somewhat familiar to our sunglasses today. They didn’t wear them as protective eyewear from sunlight, however. These judges wore them to hide any expression that their eyes may reveal—the same purpose as hardcore Poker players.

Darkened glasses were thought to help to correct certain impairments in vision around the 18th Century and by were finally sold as ‘sunglasses’ once again on the beaches of Atlantic City by one Sam Foster. Seven years later, a man named Ray Ban made the first polarized pair of sunglasses that reduce glare from sunlight.

A commercial for Foster Grant sunglasses in 1960 skyrocketed the popularity for this product making them the cool, long-lasting fashion that they still are today.

Thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Friendly Folks!

Welcome to my fourth and final segment on the topic of making friends at summer camp. Over the course of the previous three posts in this series, I’ve talked a lot about how friendship is an effortless and certain affair in the world of summer camp. You’ll naturally start talking to other kids and become fast friends with them.

Making friends is simply what happens at camp—a given.

Today I want to talk about the lifelong benefits of the assured friendships you’re going to build at camp. Having a network of friends can create opportunities of a lifetime for you. I know of a married couple who first met one another at—you guessed it—summer camp!

That’s probably one of the more extreme cases, but nevertheless, it’s true! There are plenty of other opportunities besides finding your future spouse that can open up to you by making friends with the right people at camp.

For instance, if you make friends with someone at camp who lives on the other side of the country, you might learn a thing or two about wherever your friend is from—you might even be able to arrange a visit to your friend’s house and see life in someone else’s neck of the woods.

Not everyone can find ways to hang out with the friends they made at summer camp OUTside of camp. But that doesn’t mean that making those friends was pointless and a waste of time—NO! That was just giving you some practice at what you’ll be doing all throughout your life.

No matter where you are, there are always going to be other people around you. Camp offers you a great experience to become a part of a community. This is what you’ll do come high school (if that hasn’t come already), it’s what you’ll do in college, and what you’ll do all throughout adulthood.

And that’s a good thing too, because one thing you’ll always need around is a friend.

Thanks for reading, Campers.

- John

Hey, Camp Fans!

Today I want to look into the history of bed sheets. They date back at least 10,000 years—possibly over 36,000! Mankind has been catching Zzz’s since before we walked on two legs…and then some. But they certainly weren’t fitted mattress sheets with colorful patterns and prints of favorite superheroes. So just what did our very first bed sheets look like?

Mankind’s first attempt at using ‘bed sheets’ was more-or-less just a crude pile of straw, leaves, and twigs. At the same time, however, dyed fibers of the flax plant have been found in prehistoric caves, suggesting that these were once woven fabrics made from wild flax.

Flax became the leading fabric for woven linen—in fact, flax is actually where the word ‘linen’ comes from as the Latin word for flax is ‘linum’. It was so popular in ancient Egypt that they would use it as a form of money. The wraps of their preserved mummies were made of linen.

Linen fabrics aren’t the easiest to spin and they’re typically expensive (which is why mummies were wrapped in it, displaying their wealth). But it is a very durable, long-lasting fabric (which we also see from Egyptian mummies).

Still linen sheets couldn’t truly be considered ‘bedding’ as beds didn’t exist until over 3000 years ago when ancient Egyptians invented the elevated sleeping platform—the precursor of the bed.

Hard-to-spin flax was soon replaced in 1793 when Eli Whitney invented the Cotton Gin (the Gin is short for engine, by the way), creating a much faster method of separating seeds from cotton. Cotton became the new fabric for bed sheets. And while the fabric changed, the name didn’t. We still call our bed sheets linens when they’re 100% cotton.

True linen, made from flax is still spun today and preferred by some as it’s a softer, healthier material.

I hope you learned a thing or two today and go to bed tonight with a new appreciation of your bed sheets. Thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Camp Libbers!

For today’s Camp Lib, I paid Juliann a visit. Juliann is our Graphic Artist as you may recall my mentioning in previous posts. Appropriately, I wrote Juliann’s Camp Lib about personalized products that we make here at Everything Summer Camp—often times with artwork designed by Juliann. Then I filled it full of blanks and had her fill them in!

If you want, you can write down your own words for the blanks too. Just use the following list of requested words and enjoy your own version of Juliann’s Camp Lib below. And remember—a noun is a person, place, thing, or idea; a verb is an action word; and an adjective is a word that describes a noun while an adverb is a word that describes a verb.

Enjoy!

A Past Tense Verb

• A Verb Ending in ‘ing’

• A Noun

• A Noun

• A Number

• A Noun

• A Plural Noun

• A Celebrity

• A Noun

• A Nonsense Word

• A Plural Noun

• A Verb Ending in ‘ing’

• A Noun

• A Verb

• A Verb

• A Noun

• An Adverb

• A Past Tense Verb

• An Adjective

• A Verb Ending in ‘ing’

• An Adjective

• An Adjective

• A Noun

• An Adjective

I’m all ran up for my upcoming season of summer camp. All my frolicking gear and other camping supplies reflect my own armadillo thanks to cool designer tools online.

My sunglasses trunk has 45 different colors with the coolest design on the dumpster and it’s just covered with camp boxes as well as pictures of Dennis Rodman because s/he’s my fav!

My gut clothing all sport the colors of my summer camp (Camp Kerplunk) and they have cute little fire hydrants and sayings on them like “I’m a Bathing Anteater,” and “Inhale, Laugh, Camp.”

My ointment and laundry bag are monogrammed so I’ll know effortlessly which is mine. I also ordered personalized name labels for my clothes and other fuzzy items.

I’m also all set for gliding my letters home with my cool camp stationery. It’s decorated with poofy artwork and campy designs. How PIMPLY!

Just wait for everyone at camp to get a cottage cheese of me and all my moist camp gear!

-John

Hey, Camp Preppers!

Or should I say, ‘Camp Procrastinators’?! June 21 is the first official day of summer! So first of all, allow me to say Happy Summer to you all! And secondly, let me ask why you haven’t yet purchased everything off your kid’s packing list for summer camp?

Well…?!

Just kidding. My purpose isn’t to make you feel bad, it’s to give you fair warning that the time you keep on pushing forward has now hit its limit. The first day of summer is always a good way of marking the deadline to complete your kid’s packing list. It’s like an alarm that goes off today: DING DING DING!!! Time to get your camp gear!

And now for a shameless plug:

To all you parents out there reading this and slowly growing more and more panicked with every word you digest—stop. You’re okay. That’s right—there’s no call for alarm. Today is simply your queue. It’s a great reminder. It’s a good day to go by to start gathering gear.

No matter how much of your list you have left, you’re not too late. I can’t tell you how often we get calls this time of year from flustered parents saying, “I know I’m probably calling too late, but…”

Well, you’re not.

See, we here at Everything Summer Camp understand the hectic schedules and busy lifestyles of the modern parent. Give us a call. It may be last minute—but it’s not too late. At Everything Summer Camp, we ship FAST.

Our competitors will have you ordering a whole month in advance or emptying your wallet to get your stuff on time. At Everything Summer Camp we stock all products or make them in-house so your entire order will ship in days not weeks. It’s as simple as that.

Place your order with us today and you’re sure to receive within two to seven business days. Happy Summer, Camp Fans!

- John