THE OBSERVER

ON RELIVING ADOLESCENT ANXIETY AT CAMP TACO

WHAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF NOSTALGIA? CAMPER, WE FOUND IT.

Now faded and admittedly unreliable, The Observer’s memory from three weeks at an all-girls summer camp in 1987 consists mainly of physical discomfort, social isolation and an intractable terror that I would be permanently disfigured by a horse. My dad, an insurance guy, had once mentioned his company having to pay out a sizable claim when a horse at another summer camp bit a girl’s boob off. That throw-away dinner table comment took up residence in my head, adding to the gardenvariety anxiety of being away from home and making for white knuckles at the reins during the required horseback riding lessons.

While The Observer escaped unscathed by a horse’s bite, the summer camp experience failed to build the lifelong friendships and leadership skills the promotional pamphlet had promised. It turns out that communal living and a regimented schedule of crafts, tennis, water sports and camp songs doesn’t float everyone’s canoe.

It was largely for this reason that the nostalgiainfused Camp Taco, a newly opened theme restaurant light on the tacos and heavy on the camp, wasn’t really calling The Observer’s name. They’d simply done too good of a job curating a vibe that dredged up unwelcome memories of my crush at the boys’ camp across the lake who showed initial interest, but soon ditched me for a girl with a bald spot at the crown of her head. A stack of decades passed since I last thought about the poor kid at our brother camp that summer who was too terrified to use the communal bathroom and ended up in the hospital after he started vomiting fecal matter. Did I want to be remembering him now?

And so it was with some trepidation that The Observer attended a birthday party at Camp Taco on a recent Sunday night. We couldn’t help but admire such full commitment to a theme: the petite blonde hostess who was perfectly polite and not at all friendly, lidded plastic water pitchers on tables, walls covered in what’s likely the only wood paneling installed for aesthetic rather than budgetary reasons in this century. Whatever the opposite of nostalgia is, The Observer found it here.

It’s possible a need for oblivion brought on by a wash of angsty adolescent memories is the inspiration behind the Buddy System, Camp Taco’s signature drink comprising a brass bowl filled with boozy punch and chilled by a fluted ice mold shaped in a Bundt pan. Perfectly curated photos of this Buddy System on social media showed happy tablemates with heads together, slurping from straws all stabbed into the same broad bowl. And in 2019 that would have seemed a fine idea. But in COVID times, I was about as eager for communal slurping as I would have been back at camp with Patty, my plumpest cabin mate, whose pitiable fever blister-pocked lips signaled that others were suffering, too. We opted for a ladle and individual glasses instead.

Campers, punch-induced oblivion proved out of reach. Our Bundt was simply too big. Embarrassingly and awkwardly so, making it impossible to dip the ladle deep enough to get much punch out at a time. Prying the enormous Bundt sideways to plunge the ladle deeper was a group activity (fitting, I suppose), but the hefty ice ring slipped and splashed precious punch over the side.

Despite all that, the night was a memory maker. A pack of girls laughing and gossiping over communal fare at a formica table, snapping photos and making plans for next time. The Observer walked away feeling placidly ho-hum, honored to have been in such golden company but still ready, eager, to get home. Thanks, Camp Taco, for the memories.