Then, Now, Always, Camp Mystic

Last updated on: July 7, 2025 at 8:23 am by Sherry Antonetti

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Then, Now, Always, Camp Mystic 2025-07-07T08:23:32-04:00 Sherry Antonetti

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Back in ’77 and ’78, I went to Camp Mystic. The pictures splashed over CNN, Facebook, and starting nearly every newscast showcase buildings I know the names of, I hold memories.

In those two summers, I learned to ride a horse, shoot an arrow, and snorkel but not very well. We sang all the camp songs and did camp fires. I shot an arrow through my finger before the six weeks ended. We also played musical chairs with horses, played a form of volleyball with round rubber rings, and watched cheesy old Disney movies in the big house. We wrote chicken letters on Saturday, to get fried chicken for dinner and if it was your birthday, you got ice cream and the whole camp sang to you.

To the modern world, this camp might be considered a detoxing place. There wasn’t a tv on the grounds except in the administration office. No radio. You could bring one but it picked up one and a half stations, one country, the other possibly western. No air conditioning. We took naps or read (mandatory) in the heat of the day. The only phone was a payphone, except in the administration and infirmary. We did skits on Thursday night, and had tribe meetings every Friday. Sunday Mass was held at the top of the mountain, on an altar made out of boulders, rain or shine. It seldom rained. Parents would pick us up the fifth or sixth of July, after watching canoe races, dances, and an award ceremony, and often we’d celebrate the reunion with floating in inner tubes along the Guadalupe.

My sister loved the camp even more than me. She camped nearly every year, was captain, a champion rider, and a counselor. The camp holds countless stories for our aunts and cousins as well. It was a family tradition, an heirloom of experiences that didn’t seem to change despite the decades between encounters.

So seeing it underwater, knowing there are kids missing, it breaks my heart more. One of the kids who died, went to my elementary school in my hometown. There’s a camper and a counselor from my high school, and so there are memories upon memories, upon memories. My heart breaks for these families, for all of them, for the whole place –and all the memories that won’t be and all the memories that now are.

Pray for all those caught in that storm, all caught in that water. Special prayers for all who will remember this in real time, when lives washed away.

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