TBT to 1991: What To Wear To Orchestra Camp: An Illustrated Guide.

For this week's installment in our Throwback to Hell series, please rid your surroundings of any distractions so as to gain maximum enjoyment. Because, people, we have ILLUSTRATIONS.

Of what, you might ask? Not the optimal level of liquid hand soap as recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency; no, something much more relevant: what to wear to (are you ready for this?) ORCHESTRA CAMP.

I played the violin for...I don't know, maybe four or five years? I don't recall if I was good or bad, and all I retained from my years of school-based instruction is a dim ability to read music and a scar on my knee from that time I tripped getting off the bus and landed on my violin case. I quit in seventh or eighth grade, once my classmates started getting increasingly serious...and talented. More to the point, one year I was making my class schedule and had to choose between Dorkestra and Photography with ~*~Mrs. York~*~. It was no contest, and I went from smelling like rosin to smelling like stop bath without a second glance.

Prior to my photography-induced freefall into teenage emo-hood, though, I was a skinny fifth-grade graduate preparing for a summer trip to Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. I'm pretty sure we were required to go to Blue Lake if we wanted to play violin in sixth grade, but I really can't remember. In fact, I had completely forgotten about Orchestra Camp until I stumbled on this journal entry.

Let me preface this by saying I STILL love to make lists of what to pack. But I don't...illustrate them anymore. *sigh* Here we go...

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Summer 1991

SUGGESTIONS FOR CLOTHES TO WEAR TO ORCHESTRA CAMP

(Thank goodness for the key at the top of the page, letting us know how to decipher the "white socks" drawing. Also, it's SUCH a relief to have those white socks as a backup if the purple socks just aren't possible. #blessed)

(Just to clarify, I had to actually draw the designs on my suggested shirts. For you Bloomfield Hills folks, there's an Eastover sweatshirt and a Surf Club t-shirt. Awesome.)

So these lists started out pretty basic, right? Pictures of what I planned to wear aren't THAT strange. But then I had to take it a (über-dorky) step further: a packing chart listing each of the items I planned to bring, organized first by clothing category and then by day. (omg.)

(When I say "good shoes," I meant my newest, and therefore whitest, pair of Keds.)

AND.

In the event that I was actively PACKING and simply couldn't decipher my previous charts, there was yet ANOTHER chart - a handy little packing checklist:

Should we double-check that awesome concert outfit? On POINT. And complete with photobomb by the girl in the background, who sort of stalked me during camp and then sent me letters for months and months afterwards. Awkward.

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A very happy Throwback Thursday to each of you, and may this shitastic week come to an end quickly and quietly (more on that tomorrow).

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