All In The Family
his summer, Hugh
Broder is going to
camp. He'll scribble
his name in permanent
marker on his T-shirts, a
couple pairs of shorts, his
favorite jeans and a
bathing suit.
Week-long experiences and
weekend retreats have families
going to camp together:
PHOTOS BY JOHN M. DISCHER
ANNABEL COHEN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Clockwise
from top
left, Jake,
Hugh, Sarah
and Ben
Broder enjoy
camp to-
gether.
He'll drink bug juice, belt
out a few "Hits Brothers"
tunes at the talent show, trade
jokes with old buddies, get to
know some new friends and
sail across Lake Nebagamon.
And when he comes home,
he'll tell his friends what a
great time he had on his sum-
mer vacation.
Hugh Broder is 42.
A Franklin resident, he is not
the world's oldest camper and
he doesn't have a Peter Pan
complex. He just loves camp
and has been going off and on
for more than 30 years.
For the past several years,
he's also packed his three kids,
Ben, Sara and Jake, for what
has become a popular trend
among nostalgic boomers
aching for the good old days:
family camp.
"I always go with the same
friend and his kids. For the first
four years, we rented a van
and we drove with our five
kids. We were Mr. Moms —
two divorced dads. And the
first summer we went, I don't
know if the kids had more fun
or if I did."
Now the remarried dads
take along theli. wives (Broder
proposed to wife Julie at
camp).
Family camps usually offer
programs after the regular sea-
son or are former camps that
have been converted into casu-
al resorts. The programs allow
families to eat, sleep and play
together.
Alan and Nancy Simons of
West Bloomfield are doing the
camp thing. They spend at
least a week each year at
Camp Michigania, a retreat
geared to University of Michi-
gan affiliated families, located
on lower Michigan's
Walloon Lake. "I
started going in 1964,
when I was 4 ... and
we went for 10 or so
years after that," said
ME Simons. "Now
we don't miss a sum-
mer."
He attributes the
popularity of family
camps to the fact that
parents and young
children vacation to-
gether but do not
have to spend every
moment together.
Ask the Simons clan,
including their two
sets of twins, what
each likes the most
about family camp
and each will give a
different answer.
"That's what's so
great about Michiga-
nia — there are so
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