Last night, my annual stay in Munchkinland commenced. For your information, I’m not really in Munchkinland. It’s the Riverview Bible Camp in Cedar Falls, where the Iowa Christian Writers’ Conference is held. I’s also where I attended church camp as a kid.
That’s where Munchkinland comes in. Numerous decades ago, and don’t ask how many decades or you won’t be my friend anymore, this campground was absolutely humongous. I spent the first half of every camp week worrying about getting lost and never finding the way back to my cabin. Also, the cabins were palatial, gigantic edifices, one of which I was sure, was used as the model for the Beverly Hillbillies mansion. And the swimming pool, well, it was as glamourous and enticing as the hillbillies’ cement pond. As an added benefit, it required no admission, and the admission price as the local pool back home was the major reason Mom said we couldn’t go swimming most days all summer long.
My annual three days at the yearly writers’ conferences show me what a Munchkin I was back then. On my morning walks, I circle the camp’s circumference, all four blocks, in less than ten minutes. Why did I think I would get lost in such a tiny place all those nebulous decades ago? These days the cabins don’t look like mansions, more like children’s playhouses. And the aging swimming pool, which might be enticing on a hot day, comes across as more pathetic than glamourous.
Tiny as the campground is, a certain we’re-not-in-Kansas-anymore charm lingers around the edges of the place. Somewhere in the shadows, where the scent of flowers collects and the air is cool, the voices of my childhood beckon. In the presence of their light and lilting music, I am once again over the rainbow in a magical place, small and safe from all harm. I am, this undetermined number of decades later, home again.
