HAPPY CAMPERS : Escaping the Real World at Summer Camp

Every other summer Sunday, a line of cars forms a processional that snakes into a hidden valley in the Santa Monica Mountains. One by one, the cars stop to deliver their human cargo.

Matt Kerper, 14, pops out, firing the first of many questions.

“Is D.B. (a former counselor) back this summer?” asks Matt, who lives in Anaheim.

“No, he’s a physical therapist in Pasadena,” says Tom Jorgenson, 25, of Woodland Hills, head of instructors. “He got a real job.”

Real jobs don’t exist in this land of the unreal. After all, summer camp is a three-month diversion from school and work, from Mom and Dad, and from society’s constant scrutiny.

The camp is Cottontail Ranch, a 23-acre retreat in Calabasas, 5 miles south of the Ventura Freeway. Hidden among the mountains, the land was purchased in 1958 by four Los Angeles elementary school teachers aiming for extra income. In three decades, Cottontail has grown from a handful of campers to hundreds.

$995 for 2 Weeks

The price has grown, too. Today, a two-week session costs $995;four weeks are $1,950, and six weeks are $2,925. About 200 youngsters, ages 6 to 15, fill each two-week session, and this summer’s last session ends Sept. 3. Most campers live in Southern California, although the camp attracts teen-agers from Europe, Japan and Australia.

On a recent opening day, a long procession of Jaguars, Porsches, and BMWs turns the camp into a fancy auto show. And a delivery service, too.

“It’s sad that some of the parents just drop the kids off and leave,” says camp director Mark Drucker, 34. But in many cases, the youngsters seem grateful for the early parental exit. It is often embarrassing to be with one’s parents. They don’t belong here. They cramp your style. One boy wipes off his mother’s goodby kiss. Another tells his dad to “get lost.”

“They think it’s their vacation,” says Craig Kaplan, 14, of Huntington Beach, “but it’s really ours away from them.”

Parents, keenly aware of their children’s bad habits, warn counselors to be prepared. And counselors, keenly aware that those warnings are probably accurate, offer words of reassurance. The parents don’t look too reassured.

Counselors and campers do a lot of hugging, especially on the first day. It’s a popular hobby in camp, and many of the youngsters have been here before.

Important Journey

Veteran or rookie, campers are quickly escorted to their cabins. This is an important journey because they form their first impressions of their new homes, new guardians and new friends. The experienced camper isn’t shy.

“I’ve been here for five years,” says the 11-year-

old to the first-timer. “You can ask me any questions.”

Joey Martin, 7, of Beverly Hills, only wants to know if his spelling is OK. Two hours at camp, and already he’s writing home. His counselor would later say Joey spent every night the first week staring almost endlessly at his family pictures.

“That’s not unusual,” says Jennifer Edge, 23, a camp nurse from Birmingham, Ala. “The first night they’re fine. It’s usually the second night when they’ll come in here saying, ‘My stomach feels funny.’ What’s wrong with them isn’t medical. They miss home.”

After scouting the cabins, campers scout themselves, especially the teen-agers, who are eager to evaluate this summer’s harvest of the opposite sex. All angles must be considered.

“It’s funny, but the girls really check out the other girls before they check out the other guys,” says Jennifer Smith, 20, a counselor from Chico. “They don’t want the other girls to take away their boyfriends.”

Both sexes, for the most part, travel in packs. It doesn’t take the female pack long to confront Jeff Kirschner, 14, of Valencia, a good-looking kid clearly at the top of many individual shopping lists.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” asks the self-appointed spokeswoman, 12-year-old Bahareh Mobasseri of Beverly Hills.

Jeff smiles.

“She’s probably blind,” Bahareh says.

Jeff smiles again.

The interrogation goes on, but Jeff walks away.

Smooch Patrol

“I hate him,” Bahareh says to anyone who will listen--but no one believes her.

Boys and girls at Cottontail are watched closely by the staff. There even is an unofficial “smooch patrol” of counselors who try to ensure that kids don’t engage in too much hanky-panky. On beach overnights, teen-age girls and boys must sleep on separate sides, with counselors in between.

“We call it an imaginary line,” Smith says, “but it does disappear.”

Bella Sapozhnikov, 12, of Beverly Hills, doesn’t need to cross the line. This summer’s boys don’t do much for her. “They are absolute dogs. There are only three guys I would talk to.”

Smith quickly interrupts her camper. “Say the truth, Bella.”

“OK,” Bella responds. “They’re pretty good.”

Whatever their reviews of the males, the camp’s teen-age girls spare little time in upgrading their appearances. Although the first day’s wake-up call won’t come till 7 a.m., the line to the shower begins almost an hour earlier.

“Today was the worst day I’ve ever seen in the bathroom,” Smith says. “There were hair dryers everywhere.”

Campers aren’t the only self-conscious ones. As a group staff picture is about to be taken, Cherie Pipkin, 21, a swimming instructor from Santa Barbara, objects: “Not tonight, I haven’t taken a shower yet.”

Broken Window

Occasionally, the curiosity between the sexes gets out of control. One afternoon, while the girls are trying to catch a glimpse inside the male teen-agers’ cabin, they push too hard, smashing a window. The event touches off a campwide controversy. The older girls blame the younger ones and vice-versa. The boys blame all the girls.

Tom Stephens, a counselor, initially assumes the boys will have to move to another cabin, but a brown curtain replaces the window, and everything is calm. For now.

“This kind of thing happens whenever the teen boys are too close to the rest of the camp,” Stephens, of Woodland Hills, says.

The other major camp appetite concerns food. Among the first week’s offerings: lasagna, hotdogs, pizza, enchiladas.

Campers and counselors eat without much complaining, which is highly unusual; this is camp food, after all. They especially dig into each day’s salad bar. Twice a day, there’s snack time, usually ice cream or a granola bar. But candy is a noticeable omission from the camp menu. The camp forbids it because it attracts too many ants. Not all campers accept this prohibition. Nothing bothers them “more than the last day when you find the gum and candy wrappers,” Pipkin says. “They do anything to hide the candy, filling their stuffed animals with it. One person filled a box of Irish Spring with candy. You don’t catch them. You get so mad, and then you realize you did the same thing at their age.”

The camp is so strict on this matter that staff members actually search the packages that campers receive from home during their stay. Rules are taken seriously here.

Serious Pranks

And so are pranks. On the first night of the recent camp session, counselor Gonzalo Fernandez, 21, of San Diego, decides to play a little trick on his gang of 13-year-old boys. While they sleep, he paints black mustaches and other symbols on their bodies. “I love Bugs Bunny,” is painted on one youngster; “I miss mommy,” on another. The kids toss and turn a bit, but none wake up. Co-counselor Todd Lewis, 21, of Tempe, Ariz., says: “They never suspect the counselors. They always think someone from another bunk did it.”

Lewis is right. The next day, the shocked campers wake up and immediately accuse another bunk. A few suspect the counselors, but quickly dismiss that possibility. One kid awakes, sees nothing on his face and responds: “They wouldn’t have the nerve to do it to me.” A second look shows handwriting all over his beefy legs. The whole cabin laughs hysterically.

Fernandez plays dumb to perfection. For the next two days, discussion is rarely about anything else. Those kids want revenge.

Revenge will wait, though. Campers are too busy pursuing the camp’s activities, including horseback riding, archery, riflery, sailing, water-skiing, basketball, fishing and mini-bikes. Many activities are away from camp. They are clearly the foundation of Cottontail, the bait that brings in the campers. Each day, the first choice of activities rotates to another age group.

“I’m going to go jet-skiing tomorrow,” says an elated Matt Skura, 9, of Woodland Hills. “And mini-bikes the next day.”

Nurturing Ground

But Cottontail is more than a playground. It is also a nurturing ground, where growing adolescents take giant steps toward adulthood. On the morning after a teen overnight on the beach, the boys prepare breakfast. They work hard and won’t let the teen-age girls contribute.

“I like the responsibility,” says Steve Cohen, 14, of Marina del Rey. “I can do things my own way here. I can show that I’m an older teen.”

Many campers openly crave the spoils of their elders. There are always a few hanging around the entrance to the hallowed staff lounge, or the retreat, as the counselors call it. With its Ping-Pong table, soda machine and couches, this is where the exhausted counselor relaxes after a day of stern supervision. Many smoke here. It’s also where they say things they would never say to the camper.

“There’s a kid in cabin 10 who has been messing with me,” says Jon Gunn, 25, sailing instructor from Agoura Hills, to a few fellow counselors. “I’m going to nail him tonight.”

For Cottontail can also be a place to avoid growing up. Many of the 60 counselors see the summer as a reprieve from outside pressures.

“It is a place to hide from the bad things,” says Lynn Lyneis, 24, of Calabasas, in charge of all female counselors. “Someone in my family asked me, ‘Lynn, did you hear about the plane that went down?’ And I hadn’t.”

Camp, Lyneis continues, is a world where society’s expectations don’t matter, where anything goes.

“You’re allowed to be anything, and no one will destroy you,” Lyneis says. “You can sing off-key or make an idiot of yourself. That’s because everyone makes an idiot of himself. No one is testing you. You just be .”

You certainly don’t become rich. But counselors, who get room and board and are paid between $1,000 and $2,000 for the summer, excluding tips, clearly don’t run to Cottontail for the money.

Camp Professional

“I’m not a millionaire, but I’m comfortable,” says Stephens, 27, head of the male counselors. “These people are my family. Seeing them grow makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something. I’m what they call a camp professional.”

Curt Tyler could be called a camp amateur. At 19, a relatively young age for a counselor--most are older than 21--Tyler admits he’s often overburdened with his supervision chores.

“I feel a lot of pressure talking to them,” says Tyler, of Burbank, who oversees 11-year-olds. “I’m surprised at how much they look up to us as role models. I don’t want to influence them too much. What if their parents got upset? It’s not my child. I have no right to teach them certain things.”

Besides, Tyler says, he’s frequently too preoccupied with his own life to offer constructive guidance.

“I’m at the age where I might be thinking about the world or about that girl who is driving me crazy, or what I should be doing with my life, and then some kid will come up and ask me some question. I’ll lose sight of why I’m here, to help the kids,” he says.

To escape their pressures, counselors are given one day off a week, and one night off every other week. Many go to malls, or go home. Yet camp life is never far from their thoughts.

“I’ll see kids running in the mall,” Smith says, “and I’ll tell them to slow down. And this is on my day off!”

Still, the counselors welcome the time away from the kids and from Cottontail’s primitive life.

“When you do go back to the real world,” Lyneis says, “it seems greater. TV seems better. Food seems better. You should see the kids here. After camp’s over, so many kids stop at McDonald’s on the way home.”

But Lyneis will take isolation any time. She says the friends she has acquired at Cottontail mean more than the ones she gained in college.

Keeps in Touch

“I was the sorority girl at UCLA, the whole thing,” she says. “I keep in touch with the people here, and I’ve lost touch with my UCLA friends. I tell people things here in a week that I would never have told someone in the sorority.”

Lyneis, a graduate psychology student at Loyola Marymount, is fully aware, however, that the real world and real work can’t be too far away.

“Every year, I think I have to get a real job,” she says, “and then I find a real job that will let me take the summer off. I can’t quit this place. I’m afraid I’ll miss something.”