Childhood still safely camped at Cleawox.

Byline: Bob Welch / The Register-Guard

FLORENCE - The invitation was like no other I've received. "Are you man enough," it said, "to be a Girl Scout?"

And so there I was Tuesday, spending a day in the forested, lake-bordered environs of the Western Rivers Council's Camp Cleawox, one of two men amid 70 girls, mainly in the 12-and-under range.

One reason I accepted the challenge was curiosity. In recent years, "summer camps" have become any skill-building gathering of two or more youths between June and August. (`Math camp' seems as oddly named to me as `chess fest.') And kids have become so

overprogrammed - so stressed for success - that I wondered if Girl Scout camp hadn't morphed into some s'mores-less contributor to this fast-track travesty.

But I'm happy to report that campfires and canoeing are alive and well, as are archery, swimming, fire-building, ax safety, cheese-and-potato chip sandwiches, the spontaneous singing of Charmin commercials and, in general, an infectious spirit of innocence. "Mmm," said Marlee Chamberlain, 10, of Deadwood, after smelling a fresh-split piece of kindling. "Smells just like Home Depot."

I'm happy to report that counselors are still known by only their camp names - Butterfly, Rose, Smokey, Grasshopper, Buttercup, Beetle and a newcomer, uh, B-Dub.

And I'm happy to report that, at least at Cleawox, "summer camp" still means the sight of little girls writing home, the sound of unbridled laughter and the smell of the outhouse, affectionately referred to by Cleawoxians as the "hooslie."

I arrived at 7:45 a.m., in time for the flag salute and the singing of grace but having missed the polar-bear swim and "yawning yoga." Any inhibitions the girls had about me were seemingly dismissed at breakfast.

I had no sooner met 11-year-old Danielle Claussen of Eugene than I met her retainer, which she placed so close to my hash browns that I thought I was going to be sick.

But soon, we were stuffed into life jackets and, on Cleawox Lake, behaving like one big happy family driving bumper-canoes at the state fair.

From canoeing we transitioned to knife and ax safety, taught by Brian Ng, 23, your typical former Eagle Scout transplant from Manhattan, my lone male soulmate. "Girls want to know about safety," he told me later. "Guys just want to start swinging axes."

For a man like me, who has only sons and who coached only boys' teams, such differences - like the way girls suddenly break into a spontaneous version of "Build Me Up Buttercup" - were interesting to note. After a kindling-splitting session, most girls wanted to take their pieces with them, like souvenirs. "Boys," I told Ng, "would have started a mass sword fight."

The only friction between girls I noticed was a philosophical dispute over the value of a cartoon show called "SpongeBob." And some intense competitiveness in the who-can-get-a-fire-started-using-only-a-match contest.

I confess, I didn't help matters in the latter. My teammates and I - Claussen and Kaycee Allen, 9, of Bend - were first to get flames. When neighboring campers begged for use of our fire to get theirs started, I suggested selling shares of our flames, which was greeted with disdain.

Ah, but the controversy - and our meager fire - were quickly doused by Grasshopper and, for me, it was on to swimming, archery and general midlife fatigue, followed by a drive home in which I found myself humming a Charmin toilet paper commercial I've never even seen.

I left Cleawox bummed that I couldn't stay for that night's campfire s'mores but affirmed that childhood still exists, among the evidence a letter that had been written to the "Ask Athena" column in the camp's weekly newspaper, Sparkle Star: "Why don't we have any food fights?" the camper asked. "Every decent camp has food fights."

You go, girl! Microbiology and Stanford may come, but you're only young once.