CAMP...and Carry On (or what’s in a name?) 

Last week I was reading the news online and discovered that a couple in Louisiana had named their son ESPN (and, by the way, they were not the first). For his sake I sure hope little ESPN is not gay. I would guess that a parent who names his child after a sports network just might not be all that understanding when it comes to matters of sexual diversity. Surely a gay boy, if he had to be named after a network at all, would prefer to be called Showtime, or Logo.

I was named after my great grandfather—Robert Murray Archibald—but my parents didn’t call me Robert or Bob because that was my father’s name and they didn’t want me to be known as "Little Bob," which, I’m glad to say, never happened. I won’t go so far to say that as a child I was embarrassed by my name, but it was a little hard to say. I’m told, that as a four year old I pronounced it Money Ahble. As an adult I have to say that I’m very fond of my name. It’s different. Would I be the same person today if my parents had called me Little Bob?

When I looked up that quote online to make sure I had it just right, I also found the following on The Phrase Finder web site:

"A story, much favored by tour guides, and as such highly suspect, is that in this line Shakespeare was also making a joke at the expense of the Rose Theatre. The Rose was a local rival to his Globe Theatre and is reputed to have had less than effective sanitary arrangements. The story goes that this was a coy joke about the smell. This certainly has the whiff of folk etymology about it, but it might just be true."

A thing is what it is, of course, not what it is called, but we all know how identity and perception can change who we are in the eyes of others—which is why the name of something and its logo is so important in today’s media saturated world.

In a roundabout way all of this brings me to my point—the name and identity of CAMP Rehoboth. Almost 17 years ago we started our organization to improve the relationship between the longtime residents of the city and an ever growing gay and lesbian population—both as tourists, and summer and fulltime residents. CAMP as we’ve said many times over the years, is an acronym for Create A More Positive, in this case, Rehoboth—thus the name, CAMP Rehoboth. The name CAMP has always seemed perfect to me. Rehoboth was, after all, started as a Methodist church campground. Add to that the wonderful, gay sense of humor known as camp and our childhood memories of "summer camp" and the name almost seems inspired (if I do say so myself!).

One of my major goals for the last couple of years has been the redesign of the CAMP Rehoboth logo and eventually of the Web site as well. As in most of my projects of late, everything seems to take a lot longer than intended but, in this case, it has, at least, kept the ideas and concepts of the name itself in the front of my mind and on my computer. At this point I’m still not ready to unveil the final product but I have made some important decisions and, as I’ve discovered over the years, putting them in print quite often speeds up the design process, either because it makes me focus on the matter or because someone else is able to provide an element I haven’t considered as yet.

The word CAMP is the key. Those four letters are the anchor from which all else will hang—CAMP Rehoboth; The CAMP Rehoboth Community Center; CAMPsafe; Letters from CAMP Rehoboth and all the titles that go along with it (CAMPshots, CAMPmatters, CAMPout etc.); and the CAMP Courtyard and CAMPus, to name a few. The word CAMP should be strong and easily read in whatever size it is used, and easily recognized as the logo for anything associated with CAMP Rehoboth.

Also of importance is the "house and heart" logo developed for the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center Project and its Founders’ Circle. Providing a welcoming place—a home—and being the "heart of the community" are vital elements of the community center concept and I hope we are able to retain them as important graphic symbols in any future design.

Not long ago I found a box with some of the CAMP Rehoboth t-shirts we created in the early days of the organization. There was a simple one with a little pocket design that read "Basic CAMP," and one that proclaimed "Boot CAMP," and my favorite, "CAMP and carry on." I cut the sleeves off that last one and wore in on a recent trip to Provincetown. No one knew what it was I’m sure, but I enjoyed the message, especially after getting through another long and busy summer season.

Creating a positive approach has always been important to the concept of CAMP Rehoboth, and what better way to get through the tough times and bad days that inevitably come our way—CAMP and carry on.

I’ll continue my work designing a new look for the name CAMP Rehoboth but I have to say, I can’t imagine calling it anything else. After all, a CAMP by any other name…