{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Camp Mac","description":"There are some parts of human evolution that have not changed. What made a kid happy a long long time ago is the same stuff that makes kids happy today. And what made a parent happy a long time ago remains unchanged, too.  _________________________________________________ "My fifteen-year-old twins will have been at camp for nearly a month when I pick them up late next week. It will be wonderful to see them again. All my kids have loved Camp Mac and my oldest kids, who haven\u2019t been to camp for a few years, still stay in touch with many of the friends they made  there. Listening to parents and teachers and the media talk, Camp Mac is not a place one would think young teenagers would enjoy. It has no air conditioning in the sleeping cabins \u2013 just widows with screens. No cell phones are allowed, in fact no electronics are allowed at all. A few times over their four-week term they hike into the Talladega National Forest, pitch tents, start fires, and sleep outdoors and at some point on that hike, they skinny-dip under a waterfall. During the days they play games outside, they wait in line to eat in the mess hall, they have girl-boy dance parties where, I\u2019m told, they dance with each other. They attend patriotic flag raisings, and dress in all whites for their weekly Sunday service. According to the stereotypes, none of these things sound anything like \u201cfun\u201d for today\u2019s young teenager. Kids today like comfort and instant gratification. But my kids love Camp Mac, and they\u2019ll quietly cry when I drive them away late next week. There\u2019s an assumption that kids these days are different and there certainly are some differences. I remember as a kid blushing any time I even spotted a girlie magazine on a magazine rack far behind the counter at a service station. There was nothing in that magazine that any child today can\u2019t find in twenty seconds on their cell phone. So there are certainly some differences. But, deep down, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve changed all that much. As people, even as a species, we\u2019re still very much like the way we were way way back in the past. I\u2019m betting one hundred years ago when a city kid went camping, they got excited about it. It was fun. And I\u2019m betting it might have been the same two hundred years ago and the same maybe two thousand years ago. We like to think we\u2019ve evolved and advanced as a species, but I don\u2019t think we have. Child or adult, we\u2019re still much the same as we\u2019ve always been. Our tools have changed and by using these tools, we\u2019ve changed our environment, but what made kids happy a long long long time ago is what\u2019s making kids happy today. Not what gives them pleasure, mind you, but makes them happy. What made adults happy and sad a long long time ago is what makes adults like you and me happy and sad today, too. I don\u2019t know why but there\u2019s great comfort in knowing that these things are unchanged. Like the happiness I\u2019ll feel seeing my twins this time late next week. I\u2019m Cam Marston and I\u2019m just trying to Keep It Real." ","author_name":"Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston","author_url":"https:\/\/cammarston.com\/keepin-it-real-with-cam-marston\/","html":"