High View, W. Va. ? Parents’ visiting day at summer camp sure has changed since my day. But so have camps.

Only the midsummer heat is the same.

A half-century ago, we spent days building booths for a carnival that campers undoubtedly enjoyed more than their sweating parents. More recently, when Ben was a camper, we watched him participate in sports and even joined him on the tennis court. But our main activity when visiting 16-year-old Will was buying new CDs at the local Wal-Mart and replenishing his supply of reading material.

He may be the only camper at White Mountain Camp spending spare time reading the second volume of the late Stephen Ambrose’s three-part biography of Richard Nixon.

That isn’t to say his entire summer near this dusty little town some two hours west of Washington has been spent in sedentary pursuits. Will proudly reported in a recent letter home that he was one of the most valuable players in Sunday night’s flag football game, noting that it stamped him “the most athletic Leubsdorf ever.”

The competition may not be too tough, though my oldest son, Carl, is a pretty good skier and I once played a respectable game of tennis.

But Will has come a long way from the day when his brother Ben observed that he “looked like a pedestrian” on the soccer field. I was very much impressed to see him diving for loose balls last winter when a shortage of players meant he played in a junior varsity basketball game besides performing his normal managerial duties.

It reminded me of when, after several years as my camp baseball team’s scorekeeper, attrition among the better players opened an occasional spot for me. I got a single and a walk in my only two at-bats, enabling me to claim a perfect average for my career. Even then, however, it was evident my athletic skills primarily qualified me to be a spectator.

The most notable difference in camp life is evident in the trips that are the highlights of Will’s summer, as they were of mine.

During my summers in Maine under what the brochures touted as “the whispering pines of Long Lake,” we canoed into Lake Sebago and down the Saco River, taking frequent respites for swims. We slept out under the stars, swatted at the mosquitoes and, at the end, got to roll around in a sawdust pile at the local sawmill and refresh ourselves with cones from a local ice cream plant.

Carl far outdid me in the camping department, including several summers at a camp that featured a weekly camping trip.

Even Ben did some real camping, though his camp years unfortunately are best remembered for the year his summer was cut short by a collision with a rowboat as he slid down a rope called the Aqua-Zip that was supposed to guide him into the lake. It may explain why, soon after, he opted for the safer pursuit of academic programs in summer.

Will has roughed it from the jammed Atlantic Ocean beaches at Ocean City, Md., to the indoor shopping mall two blocks from our home. At least this year, he and his camp mates didn’t come by to check their e-mail.

Our main contact with the outside world was the radio. Now, modern modes of communications have infiltrated the rustic settings where Eastern city dwellers send their children. Most camps, including Will’s, provide e-mail service, so parents and offspring can remain in close contact.

Fortunately, Will has opted against this on grounds that he has quite enough close communication with his parents during the remaining 45 weeks of the year.

And at least there are no cell phones.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington bureau chief of the Dallas Morning News.