Remembering when Hawaii came to Milton

I have never been to Hawaii. The closest I’ve come so far, as it happens, is Rotary Park in Milton, Ont., in the late 1970s.

Bear with me. Nothing about Rotary Park, where I spent many summers as a kid and then a parks and recreation employee, is even vaguely reminiscent of a tropical island. But at the end of one long-ago summer, the park was the site for our big, season-ending event for Milton’s day campers: a Hawaiian luau.

We had Hawaiian-themed games, such as anyone understood them back then — our knowledge of the island mainly gathered from TV shows and the odd Elvis Presley movie or two. We had hula-dancing contests, grass-skirt costumes, leis made out of coloured Kleenex. The signature event of the celebration was to be a real, roasted pig on a spit, which would be carved and served to all attendees.

Realistically, there was no way to roast a pig on a spit in Rotary Park. So the organizers cheated a bit: they managed to access the industrial-size ovens at Maplehurst Correctional Institute. The pig would be cooked at the prison and then put on a spit for the final sear on the park grounds.

I know. What could possibly go wrong?

The mini-events went well enough. One set of playground campers took the stage and belted out a version of the “Hawaii Five-0” TV theme song; the lyrics adjusted to boast all the fun they had at Robert Baldwin schoolyard. The hula dancers were cute and hilarious.

It was when the pig came out that all mayhem broke loose. In short, as soon as it emerged on the scene, there was a stampede to get at the roasted meat. People got burned. First-aid training for the camp counsellors turned out to be a handy skill.

An important point: It wasn’t the kids. It was their parents — the grown-ups — who led the stampede on the pig.

The scene, like that “Hawaii Five-0” song, flashes through my memory from time to time, even all these years later. It was my first experience with the fact children are often better behaved than adults. I am reminded of this regularly when I see question period in the House of Commons, for instance, or a convoy protest on Parliament Hill.

It’s been a tough couple of years in Canadian politics, filled with adults behaving badly. That’s probably why the Hawaiian luau was the first thing to come to mind when I was asked to write about the Star’s Fresh Air Fund. For more than a century, the Star has been helping send underprivileged and disadvantaged kids to summer camps for one, simple reason: every kid should get a chance at a summer escape.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a small town where the outdoors and summer-camp activities were freely and widely available. All a kid needed to do was show up at one of the halfdozen or so schools and a day of fun awaited.

In addition, for a nominal fee, Milton’s parks and recreation department also offered a fullfledged day camp, where kids were bused daily to a more rural location.

The pandemic has served as a reminder of the importance of nature and fresh air in all of our lives. As the pandemic dragged past the two-year mark earlier this year, a growing field of research emerged about how lockdowns and school closures were leaving developmental marks on children.

Study after study has shown that exposure to nature and summer camps is a balm for troubled times. A landmark study carried out by researchers at the University of Waterloo found that summer-camp experience produced positive outcomes in five key areas: social integration and citizenship; attitudes to physical activity; self-confidence and personal development; environmental awareness and emotional intelligence.

Summer camp, in short, is much more than a vacation or an escape. It helps build children into better adults. In a world filled with uncertainty over everything from the postpandemic future to the effects of climate change, the benefits listed in that University of Waterloo study should be available to as many kids as possible.

Joseph Atkinson, then publisher of the Daily Star, knew this in1901when he raised more than $1,000 to send 26 children to camp — and the Fresh Air Fund was born. I saw first hand over many summers how camp turned children into healthy, happy people — often better behaved than the grown-ups, especially when the food is served at luaus in the park.