Category Archives: general

Camp Song

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“I went to camp Matoca in Maine and I went for seven summers from 2013 to 2019 So for ages 9 to 15 and every single summer, one of the biggest camp traditions was the sing festival so basically college league every year there’s four teams in the camps divided into four different college teams, and you compete throughout the whole summer and like different like Greek games Sports whatever and then at the end the last Wednesday of camp there’s on the sing festival so basically the captain and co-captain will Lead the entire team there’s about like 90 people per team With a chant and we start with a cheer, which is basically like a remix to like any song But like with something about your team, like Pepin zest from the colors, red and yellow, if that was the colors something like that, I don’t know if that makes sense and then there was a remembrance which is like a slow song Which usually has like a deeper meaning so like for ours I remember my last year camp. It was about a girl graduating college, and going onto the next chapter of our life so it kinda tells that story but also like Jack exposes that with him. Her last summer at camp and taking that all in I guess she was probably graduating high school And then the last one is the Alma matter so this one starts like slow like The Remembrance and then the captain gives a speech halfway through and the cocaptain leads the team through like a B of Nanas like basically just like in the background everyone’s Nana Nana Nana, Nana, Nana, Nana, Nana Nana, like just as background color And the captain will give a speech, kind of thinking The whole team And like addressing like her time at camp and how it’s coming to close and everything that she’s learned leading this team and some other sappy things and then the comeback is after the speech so that’s kind of like the climax of the song so it’s like the upbeat part and this is also usually like Where the whole room shakes because it gets so loud and four teams go each do their own songs, and after everyone gets fudge popsicles, it’s camp tradition, and they announce the college winners and the senior co-captains who are also 15 years old, like the co-captain for the cat whatever Give a plaque to their captain with a nice snow and the whole camp listens to their speech and it’s like one of the best nights of camp and then there’s a fireworks ceremony by the lake and I will never forget saying after all these years oh also You wear like your sing shirt so it’s like your college league shirt that like the captains make and then white I think it’s white shorts and then French braids. Everyone is in two French braids with ribbons of their colors.”

Context

My informant attended Camp Matoaka, an all-girls summer camp in Maine, for seven consecutive summers from age 9 to 15. The Sing Festival was the climactic event of every summer, held on the last Wednesday of the season. She participated as a camper for years before eventually being on the senior side of the tradition herself. She remembers it as one of the best moments of the summer and still recalls every detail of the structure, costume, and ritual.

Analysis

This is the kind of tradition that lives inside a specific community (in this case, a summer camp) and gets transmitted year after year through performance and participation rather than through any written rulebook. Sing Festival has is made of a fixed structure (Cheer, Remembrance, Alma Mater), required costuming, specialized vocabulary (“banana,” “comeback,” “college league”), and a fixed calendar slot. None of this is written down anywhere official. It’s passed from older campers to younger ones through years of watching and eventually doing.

Knocking on Wood

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“So something about me is that ever since I was little, I would knock on wood three times And if I don’t see wood nearby, I would knock on my head three times. It started because my mom and older sister would do it all the time. I think it’s the reason I consider myself a superstitious person. Everytime I have a bad thought I knock to prevent it from happening. It gives me peace of mind.”

Context

My informant grew up in Miami and picked up this habit as a young child by watching her mom and older sister do it constantly. She still practices it today, knocking on wood three times whenever she has a bad or worrying thought, and knocking on her own head three times if no wood is around. She describes it as the reason she considers herself a superstitious person, and says it gives her peace of mind.

Analysis

Knocking on wood is one of the most widely practiced superstitions in the Western world. This account shows the ritual functioning less as a belief in literal magic and more as a tool for managing anxiety. The informant doesn’t claim that the knocking will actualy stop something bad from happening. She says it gives her peace of mind. This is a really common pattern in folk belief. The ritual survives because of what it does for the practitioner emotionally, not because anyone has confirmed it works. It’s a small action that gives her a sense of “control” over outcomes she can’t actually control. Exactly the psychological function superstition tends to serve.

Adam Walsh

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“Growing up in Miami Florida, I was around 7 when a local boy named Adam Walsh disappeared and was found decapitated in a canal. It shook the whole community. No one had seen anything like this at the time so every kid in South Florida was terrified to leave their homes. I remember I was attached at the hip to my parents for a while after.”

Context

My informant grew up in Miami, Florida, and was around seven years old when Adam Walsh, a local child, was abducted and murdered in 1981. The case had an enormous impact on South Florida and eventually on the entire country, since it led to John Walsh’s career as a victims’ advocate and the creation of America’s Most Wanted. He remembers the event as a defining moment of his childhood, one that made him cling to his parents and changed how kids in his community moved through public space.

Analysis

This is a memorate, a personal narrative tied to a real event that has since taken on legendary weight in the community where it happened. The story is folkloric because of the way it lives on in memory and gets retold. For people who grew up in South Florida in the early 1980s, the Adam Walsh case functions almost like a generational origin story for fear: a shared reference point that explains why their childhood looked the way it did, why their parents suddenly became more protective, why they couldn’t ride bikes alone to the mall anymore. The informant’s memory of being “attached at the hip” to his parents isn’t just a personal detail, it’s an experience tons of South Florida kids his age would recognize.

Campfire Story

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“One time, there was a girl and a boy on a date, and they drove into the woods. just to go on a date and sit by themselves and start a campfire. Once they put out the fire, they decided they were tired and wanted to go to bed but didn’t want to make the long drive back to their house. So they ended up trying to go to sleep in the front 2 seats of the car. 
They were trying to fall asleep for about 30 minutes when all of a sudden they heard a scratch. Scratch. Scratch. 
And it sounded like it was coming from the top of the roof. So the boyfriend, being being brave, looks out the window and looks on top of the car and sees nothing. They decide to go back to bed. 
Then 10 minutes later, scratch, scratch, scratch. have no idea what it is. So they get out of the car, annoyed with the noise, but it’s completely pitch black outside. they can’t find their flashlights. So instead, they both decide to look around the surrounding areas and see if they could find anything that was making such a weird noise. 
Thinking it was just an animal. The boyfriend separates from the girlfriend. quiet. And they end up… separated. 
After around 20 minutes of searching, the boyfriend ends up going back to the car, thinking that the girlfriend will be sitting in the car waiting for him. He goes in the car, can’t see anything. And all of a sudden, he’s sitting and hears scratch, scratch, scratch. 
He opens the door to the car, shines his flashlight around surrounding areas, doesn’t see anything. But then, he looks on top of the car. and see. His girlfriend, dead, hanging from a tree, and the only thing hanging down is her hand and her finger now that’s on the top of the car. 
Scratch, scratch, scratch.”

Context

The informant is a certified Eagle Scout from Kansas City, where he learned this campfire story.

Analysis

This is a classic “lovers’ lane” urban legend and it makes sense that my informant, an Eagle Scout from Kansas City, would carry a version of it. Scouting culture is one of the main motors of campfire horror storytelling in the U.S. These legends get passed down on overnight trips, around real fires, in exactly the kind of setting the story describes. The fact that he tells it fluently, with the rhythmic “scratch, scratch, scratch” repeated three times, reflects how oral the tradition is: the pattern of threes is a storytelling device he absorbed from hearing others tell it, not something he invented.

“Pony Wall”

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“So we used to have this pony wall in our house. Like a half wall, waist height, right by the front door. My cat would always sit on top of it, and we’d leave our shoes up there too. It was kind of like the spot where stuff just ended up. I don’t know, it was just always there. I think a lot of houses in Vegas have them which is where I was living at the time. I didn’t really think about it as a ‘thing’ until later.”

Context

My friend grew up in Las Vegas, where he lived in a house with this pony wall. After hearing him describe it, I looked into it and found that pony walls are a fairly common architectural feature in Las Vegas residential properties. Another term I came across for the same thing is “garden wall”.

Analysis

The pony wall is an example of material folk culture, a kind of vernacular architecture that shapes daily life without anyone consciously thinking of it as tradition. What makes it folkloric isn’t the wall itself but how it gets used. My friend’s family didn’t decide the pony wall was the shoe spot or the cat spot. It just became those things and was their families’ unspoken, shared agreement about how a space in their home worked. What is also interesting is that he had not noticed that the pony was was a regional feature until he moved from Las Vegas. People don’t notice the built environment they grew up in is distinctive until they encounter places that don’t have it.