Haibun: No AI Needed

My great grandmother had a camp on the Great Sacandaga Lake in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York. Two cabins were left after she sold part of the property, and to make the cabins work, we had work we had to do. There was no plumbing on either property. 

Almost every day, we would go to the lake with some buckets and jugs to fill up the wash water. Dishes and hands would be washed in this water. We would make trips down to the local spring with the hand pump to fill up the drinking water. The outhouse also needed to be shoveled out at least once a year. 

Even in my childhood, there were places with more conveniences, but “Camp” was the place to be. There were endless nights filled with board games or a dice game called 5000. Constant joking and wise cracks around the screened-in porch that was also the kitchen. Days spent trying to stand the longest on an inner tube on the lake, only for the waves from a passing boat to topple the best. 

No amount of design or planning, no amount of conveniences, and no amount of technological breakthrough could create the sense of family we had at Camp. Yes we would fight, sure things could be unfair, of course words could be biting, but this was the place we came expecting to be together laughing, playing games, hauling water, and swimming the days away. We came expecting “Camp” to be this magical place.

And as technology and conveniences advance, as artificial intelligence looks to make our lives easier and more connected, I don’t see the magic of the camp on the lake in that future because it was a place where those conveniences and technologies were never needed. 

full sonoran green

only around the rivers,

summer broils on