Summer of camp, Alan Grant and meeting the world

Thanks to my wife’s scheduling gymnastics that occurred months earlier, my kids spend their summer weekdays in a variety of day camps and swimming excursions.  

Well, all but my teenager. But she keeps herself active enough with friends, marching band practice and only about 600 hours a week of Spotify. Somebody in my house knows every word to every song of that new Olivia Rodrigo album. 

Since my wife and I both work, and my teenager isn’t exactly itching at the opportunity to oversee her three siblings, it takes quite a bit of logistical maneuvering (and driving time) to get these kids to their various activities.  

Without these camps, the brain rot of the Internet would surely devour their impressionable minds. 

My almost-13-year-old won’t be eligible for many of these camps after his birthday, making it all the more important for us to keep his computer time to as little as possible. He craves his laptop like, well, I want to say drugs, but I guess I should be happy he stays away from the actual drugs. 

Even his “Interneting” could be worse – he spends most of his time building worlds and coding games in Bloxd.io, a thing that makes me wonder why he had me spend money on a Playstation version of Minecraft, but whatever. He’s creative with his computer time, but it consumes his life when not being forced by me to socialize in person and attempt mild physical activity. 

My 12-year-old daughter likes computer-time too, but she spends so much of her day policing the world around her that she prefers a more passive activity when not at camp. Lately that means binging “Boy Meets World,” a show I watched in my youth. She started with the reboot, “Girl Meets World,” and has now gone back to the 90s for the OG. At least in the early seasons, she could also get me glued to the TV watching Cory butt heads with Mr. Feeny (thankfully, I didn’t much care for the later seasons, meaning I just got my evening free time back). 

My youngest son attacks the camp activities with enthusiasm and high energy… until about 3 p.m. rolls around. He crashes out hard, and so most of the time, he just wants to relax and watch a movie – preferably a superhero movie or, lately, the 90s “X-Men” show.  

Ok, look, I know it seems like I’m forcing the things I liked in childhood on them. But they’re choosing these programs without me. Did I tell them about the awesomeness of 90s era “X-Men” and seasons 1-4 of “Boy Meets World?” Of course, but they’re free to form their own opinions. 

With all the Marvel and Star Wars movies consumed, my youngest now feels ready for more daring films. Even though he watched the entirety of “Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous” on Netflix, he didn’t want to venture into the original “Jurassic Park” for fear of nightmares.  

Again, did I maybe, accidentally, mention that “Jurassic Park” gave me nightmares at age 9 after seeing it in the theater for the first time? Yes, yes I did. But he’s a tougher 9-year-old than me, I assure you. 

Anybody familiar with my (seemingly endless) Press run probably knows “Jurassic Park” is sacred in my house. It’s my favorite movie of all time, and all the kids probably think I would disown them for speaking ill of it. Thankfully, the other children watched it a couple years ago and said all the right things to keep their room and board. 

So the whole family sat down to watch “Jurassic Park” on a Friday night, starting it way too late in the evening so as to guarantee it would be dark outside when the T-Rex cracks open her paddock.  

We screamed in terror and delight in all the right places. They all entertained my theory that Samuel L. Jackson survives the movie, sans arm, just like how he survives “Star Wars: Episode III,” also sans arms. 

And we all commented on how much we enjoyed the dynamic between Dr. Alan Grant and the two kids, Lex and Tim, who get put through hellish peril for the entire second half of the movie. Dr. Grant says he doesn’t like kids, but he knows exactly how to care for them, talk to them and help them survive.  

Regardless of my undying love for the film, it’s nice to experience something as a family. Yes, technically, it was a screen activity, but in this day-and-age, anything that’s not Tik Tok or social media seems like a win. 

Tyler Wilson is an attorney, a freelance writer and parent to four kids, ages 9-15. He is tired. 

**Just a couple days after we watched “Jurassic Park,” news broke that Sam Neill, the actor who played Dr. Grant, passed away. All due respect to the great Harrison Ford, but Dr. Grant was my Indiana Jones. My Han Solo. Before Michael Crichton wrote a sequel to “Jurassic Park,” I wrote my own sequel in 4th grade. Crichton’s version didn’t have Dr. Grant, but mine did. I still think my version would’ve been a better movie than “The Lost World.” 

***I’m going to miss Sam Neill, but I’m not going to miss the trauma of watching him in “Event Horizon,” a movie I was apparently not ready for when I saw it in the 90s, mostly because of how Neill’s character goes terrifyingly crazy.