When I was 8, I went to day camp. I know I was 8 because we were singing “Purple People Eater,” and I just looked that up and learned that it was released in 1958. I don’t remember much about day camp, especially compared to all I recall from the summer I was 5½, but here is what I find.

It was a topic of disagreement between my parents. Mom had gone to camp when she was a kid; she remembers attending when her sister Ruth was a counselor. She has good memories about getting away from summertime New York City. She intended to send me away too.

Dad disliked the idea to the point of determined refusal. He was into spending time with the whole family and he couldn’t be talked into accepting my absence. Although he told us some snippets about traveling to a farm in the summer when he was young, about eating corn uncooked and fresh off the stalk, camp wasn’t part of his culture.

The compromise was that YMCA summer day program.

So I recall singing One-eyed One-horned Flying Purple People Eater. I remember making trivets out of white glue and popsicle sticks. But my most persistent and vivid memory is this: there was a large grassy playing field that we all looked upon as we entered the camp grounds. It was low turf a bit below the road, and I was told that it was four acres in area. It had room for baseball and football and dodgeball and kickball. I remember looking at it, day after day, and informing the gauge in my head that what I saw was four acres.

And that’s it. I don’t think that program was a success for me. Maybe Mom was right; for camp to be an experience it should involve sleeping away from home.

My kids went to day camp in the late 80s and early 90s. Kee Tov in Berkeley. Perhaps they got more from it than I did; maybe they’ll tell us. There were some sleepovers. And I know they had more songs.