Foster's Sunday Citizen
Camp Alamar very much alive in our hearts

Their names and faces are as deeply embedded in my brain as my own. At any moment, I can summon to my mind's eye the most vivid memories of the hallowed ground and the experiences we shared 40 years ago. Certain smells - a Hershey bar with almonds, for instance-instantaneously trigger the sights and sounds.

Alamar. Merely uttering the word sends shivers of ecstasy through a couple of thousand Baby Boomers. We were the kids of Camp Alamar, a sleep-away camp in Stormville, N.Y that existed from 1941 to 1973. For us, an afterlife in heaven offers little appeal; it couldn't possibly hold a candle to Alamar.

For the past three decades, we have been a group in exile. Scattered across the country, with a high concentration in the New York metropolitan area, where we all grew up, each of us has maintained contact with a couple of our former compatriots.

For example, a fellow nine-year-old who instantly became my best friend when we met during my first year at Alamar in 1959 retains that role to this day. And despite having shared the experiences of 40 years' friendship, any time we talk our conversations invariably return to camp days.

The world is divided into two groups: camp people and everyone else. If you were fortunate enough to go to camp, you already understand everything I'm talking about. If you didn't, unfortunately nothing I can possibly write or say could accurately convey the experience.

It was idyllic. The setting was magnificent - lush green surroundings, our own private lake, no signs that a world existed outside our small haven.

We were away from home and parental supervision. Our counselors, usually college kids, were charged with ensuring our safety; beyond that, they pretty much let us do whatever we wanted. Our basic needs - food, shelter, laundry - were all taken care of.

Our job, as campers, was to have as much fun as possible all day, every day, playing ball, reading comic books, going swimming, making lanyards, indulging in youthful romances. The negative aspect about camp was that we had to leave at the end of August each year.

Most of us returned to this utopia summer after summer - I was there eight years, not uncommonly long among Alamar campers. As you'd expect, living together 24 hours a day, seven days a week for two months each year, spawned innumerable close relationships.

And while the reality of growing up and moving on with our lives forced us to separate and lose touch with one another, there was not a soul among us who didn't often yearn for the good old days at Alamar.

Enter the Internet, with its continually surprising powers. In June, a former camper, now well into her 50s, posted a message on a bulletin board at www.KidsCamps.com, seeking to find other Alamar alumni who attended camp when she did in the mid-1950s.

Within a week, three more campers had surfaced on the message board, and e-mail exchanges began, recounting long-forgotten names and stories from bygone days.

By August, I was pulled into the loop, and less than a week later, the husband of one of the original group of message posters, Richie Weledniger, a dentist who designs web pages in his spare time, had created www.CampAlamar.com.

The effort began to snowball, and the excitement was palpable. I proposed we aim for a reunion, dubbed "Alamar 2000," and that each of us contact those we knew and encourage them, in turn, to spread the word to their camp buddies.

We also began searching web phone directories to see who else we could locate and will probably run an ad in the Sunday New York Times, too, seeking campmates.

To date, more than 75 former campers and counselors have been located, and the expanding network that has created promises exponential growth in our numbers.

Friendships have been reestablished after 30 and 40 years; I recently talked with a former counselor of mine who I hadn't heard from in 32 years. He was in college then; today, he's 54 with two married kids.

What's most astounding, aside from the hundreds of memories that have been revived, is this: Every single person who we've found recalls their Alamar days as the happiest of their lives.

And these are folks, in most cases, who've achieved great success personally and professionally. Yet, if they could magically return to any point in their lives, it would be to Alamar.

While that's not a possibility, the promise of recapturing, if only for a night, the paradise that was Camp Alamar, has truly got us all astir. Thanks to the Internet, Alamar 2000 is a realistic prospect.

If, perchance, any of you are Alamar alums, please get in touch with me. And if anyone is interested in seeing what memories are all about, not to mention what a dorky little kid I was, visit www.campalamar.com. I guarantee it'll make you smile.