Hey, Card Players! 

Who doesn’t love sitting down to play a game of Speed, King’s Corner, Crazy Eights, or any other number of card games from a zillion options! Bringing a deck of cards to summer camp is a great, simple way to pass some time in your cabin, breaking the ice and learning a bit about the new friends you’re making. Playing cards have become commonplace—a gaming staple found in the majority of American households. 

But how old are these popular devices of entertainment? And where did they come from? Let’s check out the history of playing cards and see what we can learn about them. 

It’s pretty common knowledge that our current-day deck of cards contains 52 cards split into four suits in red and black (along with two Joker cards). But things weren’t always so matter of course. In fact, the typical playing deck has made a great number of versions throughout the hundreds of years of its invention.    

Playing cards first show up on historical record in Western Asia during the 14^th Century, though they’re likely much older. We cannot know just how old as the fragile nature of paper cards don’t last through the ages. Super portable, playing cards traveled across the land spreading like wildfire. 

New cultures would take the concept of playing cards and create their own version as you can see in the image to the right. They progressively became something that resembles the typical deck of cards that we know and love today. 

Keep an ace up your sleeve with a deck of cards at summer camp and enjoy downtime with a card game or two! Card games are a great way to make friends fast. Enjoy some fun with friends and cards. As always, thanks for reading, Camp Folks! 

- John

Hey, Camp Folks!

We’re almost always adding and improving upon our products here at Everything Summer Camp. Sometimes our products go through quite the journey to arrive at the product you see in our store. Take a look at our Trunk Liner accessory, for example, and check out the incredibly different origin of this particular product:

Paper Lining
A number of years back, we used to line our trunks with a paper lining. The plywood we used back then wasn’t the superior, cabinet-grade wood we use now and it didn’t always look the most beautiful. We also used fasteners that would protrude into the interior of the trunk. The paper lining hid these undesirable elements of our trunks. 

Once we upgraded to a visually pleasing wood and changed fastener methods, it no longer made sense to line our trunks. We wanted to show off our new gorgeous interior—complete with that rich birch scent and old-fashioned feeling. 

Of course, we still wanted to offer the option of a liner to protect that beautiful wood so we developed our fabric liner trunk accessory. It’s been through a number of modifications over the years to arrive at its latest and greatest version. 

Fabric Liner
Similar to the lining you can find in a suitcase, our water-resistant Trunk Liner is actually thicker and tougher. The protective nylon fabric is constructed for a perfect fit in your camp trunk. It couldn’t be easier to remove and only takes a moment longer to reinstall—no tools necessary! We offer our Trunk Liner in three sizes to fit our Happy Camper, UnderGrad, and Graduate trunks. 

Click right here to browse our entire selection of traditional steel trunks as well as our extensive and innovative collection of trunk accessories. As always, thanks for reading and happy camping! 

- John

Hey, Footlocker Fans!

Here on the Everything Summer Camp Blog we love talking about the history of camping gear you’re likely to find on your camp’s packing list as well as other everyday tools—everything from hammocks to hairbrushes.

We don’t have to dig quite so deep for today’s history lesson. We’re looking back less than 30 years ago, before we switched to our esteemed trunk accessory, the Glide N’ Go Tray. Before we developed such a great product, C&N Footlockers came with a tray whether you ordered it or not.

Out with the Old…
Our original tray was made of plywood and lined with the same liner that we used to use on the interior of our trunks. It took up the entire top of the trunk so every time you needed to access the contents of the trunk below, you had to remove the tray (which offered no convenient handle) and set it down somewhere large enough. It was a very cumbersome piece.

…In with the New
Switched over to the Glide N’ Go Tray, made of very durable plastic, weighs much less, and takes up half the space of our original tray. It has a lid to it so you can pack it full and be sure nothing spills out. It’s also designed to glide along a couple of rails in the trunk that we install so you have easy access to the contents below while still making use of otherwise unusable space in your camp trunk.

From customer outreach and surveys we’ve taken, we know our switch to the Glide N’ Go Tray was well-received. We always love improving upon our products—that’s what keeps our C&N Footlockers the leading brand name in camp trunks. Click right here to browse our entire selection of traditional steel trunks as well as our extensive and innovative collection of Designer Trunks.

As always, thanks for reading and happy camping!

- John

Hey, Camp Folks!

While the summer camp experience is all about showing us a primitive and natural perspective of the world, there are some frills that no one really wants to leave behind—even when you plan on roughin’ it! Cutlery—forks, spoons, and knives—is one invention that you really don’t want to go camping without. Unless you’re just really into your chopsticks or you’re constantly opting for finger foods, you probably use a fork, a spoon, or a knife each and every day.

To be fair, primitive people in the Stone Age used eating utensils like spoons and knives pretty much since Day One. It seems we’ve never really been without eating utensils (they just didn’t look quite like the refined silverware we use so often now). What does the history of cutlery look like? Let’s investigate:

Knives
Knives are thought to be the first on the scene, long before civilization started. Sharp stones were likely collected along the way of our Stone Age ancestors’ travels as they would be used to cut meat, vegetables, fruit, and anything else they may have needed to cut.

Spoons
Spoons are thought to have come along soon after if not the same time as the knife. Folks in the early days would find hollowed out pieces of wood or seashells and connect them to wooden sticks to be used as spoons.

Forks
While there was a very early appearance of the knife and spoon, it was hundreds of thousands of years before the fork came along. Ancient Chinese civilization brought chopsticks about 5000 years ago. The fork followed after another thousand years—carved from wood or animal bones back in its beginning. They were initially made rather large as it was originally intended for serving rather than eating.

The Roman Empire’s metallurgy industry transformed eating utensils into pieces of bronze and silver—a great upgrade from the typical materials: wood, bone, and stone. Nowadays, cutlery has mostly remained metal with the same basic design, but the advent of plastic has seen plastic cutlery which experimented with the spoon and fork combination, the spork. With that, enjoy perusing our cutlery options for camping in our Mess Kit options. Take a look by clicking here. As always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Folks!

Question for ya: What’s tomorrow? The first of March has a tendency to sneak up on folks, since February is always cut short two—but more often three days. So what happens to February 29 during Non-Leap years? And why is February the only month to come in at under 30 days? Let’s take a look into the matter.

It was the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius, who tacked on two months to the calendar that would follow the month of December. The names of certain months give the calendar away as originally having just ten months. October, for example, is the tenth month, but octo means eight. It’s the same story with December—it’s the twelfth month though deca means ten.

February 30th
Along with the names of the months, the calendar got messed up in other ways thanks to the addition of these two added months, like the amount of days allotted to each month. There is record from a 13^th century historian that claims there was a 37-year period in which February saw 30 days during leap years, but that was using the Julian calendar and not the Gregorian (which we use today).

Sweden Time
In the early 1700s, Sweden reverted back and forth between the Julian and Gregorian calendars which led to years that were observed as leap years because of errors. These error years left Sweden out of sync with the Julian calendar as well as the Gregorian. In 1712, they went back to the Julian calendar, adding two leap days to that year to make it work. Eventually, in 1753, they finally joined the rest of the world, returning to the Gregorian calendar by removing 11 days from the year so that February 17 was followed by March 1. Swedes were rather upset with the management, complaining 11 days of their lives were stolen.

USSR Holidays
The Soviet Union introduced a calendar in 1929 that tried to revolutionize the calendar year. Their calendar proposed five-day weeks—meant for industrial efficiency, eliminating the typical non-work days of Saturday and Sunday. Their calendar provided 30-day months consistently through the year aside from five or six days leftover that were left as “holidays” that belonged to no month. This calendar was used from 1930-1931.

It seems that a consistent calendar is pretty much impossible to create since leap days required to fill in the gaps of our year every four years. Time’s a tricky thing. Especially if your birthday is on March 29! Anyway, till next time, Camp Fans! And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John