A Reflection On A Summer Camp For Girls Along A River, Called Camp Hagan…
The task of writing this story became quite a challenge for me without intention. I appreciate that I made it more difficult. Thoughts, feelings, reflections, and remembrances were still swirling around in my head and in my heart even as I began to put words down on paper. My senses and soul came alive as they did everyday that I spent at Hagan. Hagan was a rare and special place…
There surfaced a common thread running throughout all my musings – the words to a particular Council Fire song called Remember. For fear of “taking the easy way out” and not coming up with something original for the story, I kept trying to dismiss the song. Finally, I realized that if I was supposed to write something truly about Hagan, it was these words…
Remember the times you’ve had here
Remember when you’re away.
Remember the friends you’ve made here
And don’t forget to come back some day.
Remember the hills and woodlands
They sky of silver and blue.
For you girls belong to Hagan
And Hagan belongs to you.
Many words and images capture Hagan, but none more succinctly for me than these words with perhaps one small addition…remember the river. I know and am eternally grateful that my parents gave me a gift called Hagan, a place that helped mold and shape me into the human being that I am still becoming. A fundamental foundation was laid at Hagan that helped ground me by learning early in Life what is truly GOOD.
I do REMEMBER some 50 plus years later and always will.