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Did you know I used to be a camp director?

If you’ve been around here for very long, you’re well aware that I spent most of my teenage and young adult summers either counseling or program directing at a summer camp on a lovely little island off the coast of BC.

When I got older, I ended up running the program full-time for three years. Year-round. 50 + hours a week in the off-season, and then 16 or so hours each day on the island in the summer. I started as the assistant, and ended up in charge. I started by working with another director, and ended up alone. Woo!

At the full zenith of my responsibility, I hired the 100 + member staff, I planned parts of the program, I co-ordinated the marketing and communications, I planned and monitored the million-dollar budget, I ordered the equipment and supplies, I designed the t-shirts, I dealt with the problems, and yes… I did night watch, and busted twentysomething drunken men trying to mack on my 16 year-old girl campers.

You wouldn’t want to come across me in a field with a MagLite. They certainly have no fond memories of the experience.

Ah, it was a busy time.

And by the time I was done… I was DONE.

But when I was in full swing, there were many, many moments that I absolutely loved. Those moments made up for the panicky ones in-between.

I loved watching kids play and find their freedom and leave the stresses of their home lives behind. I loved watching our single moms get pampered beyond all recognition at one of our special “Mum and Me” weekends. I loved watching nerdy teenagers discover things they were impossibly good at — things that would change their career aspirations and confidence forever. I loved watching young people become leaders and solid friends. I loved going to the endless stream of weddings that came from summer romances. And I really loved being thisclose to the ocean every day, close enough that I could smell the salt and feel alive, alive, alive.

I can forget about all the times I was sick, the times the budget would not stretch, the times I was understaffed, the time I got sucker punched by a 17 year-old boy, the times of dealing with the odd sociopathic grade schooler, and the time the entire dock began to sink. With 100 children on it.

Well, I can’t really forget them, but I know I lived through them. And that’s saying something.

Anyone who has ever done that job will tell you: if you can run a camp with those challenges, you can do a few other things in life, too.

Like, say, help celebrities.

Not that they asked me to. Or plan to ask me to.

But sometimes I’ll find myself reading some gossip tidbit or watching some famous person do a nosedive on TV, and I think, “Damn. What you need is to scrub pots for a whole day and forget about how attractive you are.” Or, “Yeesh. I could save you from the paparazzi with my MagLite.” Or, “If I caught you doing that with a girl down at the archery range, I would stick an arrow up your…”

So.

Here, calling on the resources I built up after 15 years on the job (more or less), is what I would do with five very troubled public figures, if they showed up on my island:

1. Mel Gibson: Every camp has a slightly manic person with grandiose artistic vision and a consistent issue with offending everyone around them. We like to call them the Summer Program Director. I know, because I was one. But as soon as I was in charge of an SPD, I suddenly realized how annoying some of their plans were. Fireworks in the middle of a summer-dry field? An epic theme meal where everyone eats with their hands and can only grunt instead of speaking? A contest to see who can snarf bananas and drink 7-Up in ridiculous amounts without throwing up? Blasting air horns next to nine year-olds to wake them up in the middle of the night to play volleyball? Mel is completely and utterly one of these people. And while that kind of manic creativity can be a form of genius, it also brings out a lot of asshole behaviour that needs to be smacked down and FAST. So I would give Mel the three questions I gave all my summer directors to evaluate their behaviours and plans: 1) Could you explain this to a parent after the fact if their child died doing it? 2) If you said that to ME, would I kill you? and 3) Does it put you over your $500 budget? I think asking these questions would prevent a ton of Mel movies AND Mel news events. Try doing “The Passion of the Christ” with a broken video camera and a bunch of ten year-olds. No. Wait. Don’t.
2. Lindsay Lohan: Well, right off the bat, I would be getting her away from Mystic Tan, and I think that’s a HUGE start. Over the course of my time on the island, though, I dealt with a lot of very attractive, very talented girls who had nil judgment as far as life choices or men or how to handle themselves in front of people. Not to mention a distinct lack of clothing. Having to wear a staff t-shirt and shorts solves two of those problems in one go, and as to the men? The secret is to make them all terrified of ME, so they avoid her like Kryptonite. Granted, I got way too used to being scary to men, but that’s okay. And the odd makeup? Yeah. No time when the morning bell rings. Certainly not when you have 10 grade two girls to get into their clothes and outside the cabin in fifteen minutes. Islands also have no clubs, no shopping (other than the tuck shop), no one with cameras except your fellow staffers, and bikinis are off limits (you can’t waterski or wakeboard in a bikini without losing either top or bottom the first time you crash the wake.) Come to think of it, this could work for Britney, too. But let us turn now to the guy Lindsay was apparently dating before her recent entry into rehab…
3. Joe Francis: I would pay the lifeguards to turn away while I “accidentally” backed the ski boat into him as he snorkeled. I think that’s best for everyone, don’t you?
4. Nicole Ritchie: I seriously defy anyone to lose weight while eating camp food. Starch! Carbs! Candy! Most of the girls were thankful they were so physically busy, or they would have gained their body weight over again from eating cinnamon buns in the morning and mac and cheese for lunch and spaghetti for dinner. With garlic bread. And did I mention the cookies? And the juice crystals? We should have had a program for actors looking to gain weight for roles. We could have bulked up Renee Zellweger in a matter of days. Now, this doesn’t begin to deal with the thought processes and medical issues that might be behind her thinness, but that’s where the camp nurse would come in. Some people may have scary memories of camp nurses who trafficked in horribly tingly peroxide and poked you when they put on BandAids, but my camp nurses were like gentle, benevolent moms bearing Advil. A few porch-chats with these women, and even my most emo camp girls were lulled into peace. Sometimes all you need is a cup of hot cocoa and an ice pack. I believe this with all my heart. In fact, I could use both of those right now. And finally…
5. Kevin Federline: I think he would have given up the rap career before all hell broke loose if he’d ever had to perform in a high-school camp talent show. Merciless, I tell you. MERCILESS. If you think you can do pretty much ANYTHING well, you should try doing it in front of a bunch of tenth-graders high on Mars bars, Coca-Cola, and hormones. This is where I developed my crowd-wrangling skills and my kid-entertaining skills, not to mention about 1,001 polite ways to say, “Be quiet before I bury you all in the volleyball court.” And as to getting a long line of females knocked up? One good run through the mountain bike course with a loose seat and bad shocks would leave him clutching his privates in an entirely non-b-boy way. I’m GOOD with a wrench.

See? Camp.

It’s like rehab, jail, psych ward, and paradise, all rolled into one.