Summer (really, all season ) Talk Shows

This being summer camp season it was inevitable someone would write about “care package wars,” the one-upsmanship parents engage in to be recognized as the best providers of treats and tech products to little Johnnie or Janie to make their stay more comfortable at sleep-away camp. They're also engaged in spy worthy subterfuge to get around camp restrictions on sending care packages to their little loved one (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/fashion/the-care-package-wars.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0).

I had low expectations during my nine camper years. My parents were not the type to indulge their kiddies with goodies beyond what they brought with them when they visited camp. I settled for letters or post cards as visible evidence they missed and cared about me. Truth is, my parents weren't big writers, either. They did, however, trek to the Poconos more often than the two visiting days sanctioned by Camp Massad Aleph. They’d spend several weekends during my first five years at summer camp soaking up the culture and heritage of our Zionist camp, enjoying the singing Friday night and the leisurely pace of each Saturday. 

Our son Dan went off to Camp Laurelwood when he was nine. I don’t recall if it was his second or third year there that we copied an ingenious plan to overcome our loneliness at not hearing his voice and possibly his sadness at not hearing ours. We sent him to camp with a tape recorder with instructions to mail back eyewitness audio reports on what was happening in camp. We, in turn, would ship tapes to him of our daily activities. 

A quarter of a century later we updated this idea for our grandson Finley. Browsing through the Hallmark store one day I came across a book of nursery rhymes, each page of which could be recorded by the reader. Gilda and I took turns reading and recording the ditties. Finley has independently taken the book off the shelf to listen to our voices, Allison has told us. 

On the subject of summer camps, I found it quite incredulous to believe this next item, that a Massachusetts camp expelled a teenage girl for kissing her boyfriend. Her parents at first sued the camp and then withdrew the suit. The story has made headlines and newscasts over the last two days. I am sure there is more to this story, but the idea that camp romances could result in expulsion (she was led out of camp by a police officer) besmirches most of my summer memories. 

More From Mel: Here are two more assaults on my given name by Mel Brooks. 

During a February 13, 1975, broadcast of The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson, Brooks was talking about his movie Young Frankenstein. He said it was an homage to James Whale who directed “all those wonderful Frankenstein movies: Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, The Son of Frankenstein, The House of Frankenstein, Frankenstein’s Friend, Murray ...”

During one of his 2,000-Year-Old Man routines with Carl Reiner, Brooks recounted how he knew Shakespeare. After insisting Shakespeare was a lousy writer (because of his poor penmanship), Brooks disputed Reiner’s assertion Shakespeare wrote 37 plays. 

Thirty-eight, Brooks insisted. The additional play was titled “Queen Alexandra and Murray.” It bombed. “It closed in Egypt,” said Brooks.

News and Views

Stay, Mr. President: President Obama is going to Louisiana today to get another first hand look at the oil spill catastrophe. My advice—stay there until the gusher (it’s ludicrous to call it a leak) is plugged.

Though Obama and his aides profess his total engagement in this crisis, and late yesterday announced postponement of a planned trip to Asia this month, nothing will convey his attachment as much as his physical presence in the Gulf Region throughout the rest of this disaster. Yes, it’s a PR ploy, but this is not just about governance. It’s about politics and perception; the populace often is swayed by visuals. FDR’s fireside chats. JFK’s press conferences. Clinton at Oklahoma City. Bush II’s bullhorn moment at Ground Zero. Obama needs to show he is on the case, literally and figuratively. He needs to take charge of the narrative. He needs to emote more, to connect with people whose way of life, whose livelihood, have been tarnished, possibly forever.

It’s not as if the business of government would come to a standstill if he sojourned in Louisiana. Wherever a president travels or vacations the White House goes with him. He would be tethered to any government agency, here or abroad, through modern communications. Anyone who has to meet with him can travel to Louisiana. Obama needs to stop burnishing his image with photo ops like the one for Paul McCartney Wednesday night and have more pictures taken with workers cleaning up the BP mess. How much better would it have been if McCartney had received his Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song at a ceremony in New Orleans and later sang for a group of workers engaged in the cleanup instead of a select White House audience?

So prepare to stay for the duration, Barack. Order up some gumbo. Some beignets from Café du Monde. If you feel too confined in Bobby Jindal’s back yard, mosey over to Alabama or the Florida panhandle. Just stay in the Gulf. Your Gulf War is with BP. Let’s win this one faster than it’s taken to master that other war half a world away.


Summer Intern: News that a Dutchman, Joran van der Sloot, is in custody in connection with the murder of a Peruvian woman in Lima, Peru, hit home. Van der Sloot was a prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway, an Alabama teenager, vacationing in Aruba in 2005. Holloway is presumed dead, her body never found.

Two or three years ago I was reviewing résumés of potential summer interns. Among the three or four I found interesting was one from a young woman from the South. I googled her name, a common reference practice. Up popped stories about Natalee Holloway. Turned out she was one of Natalee’s friends, with her on that ill-fated trip to Aruba, and one of the last people to see her alive.

I didn’t bring her in for an interview, choosing instead to go with a more local candidate.


Jefferson High: The chairman/CEO of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd Blankfein, grew up in East New York, one of the toughest neighborhoods of Brooklyn, a few blocks from where Gilda lived from the time she was eight till 14. Once a bedrock Jewish community, the neighborhood rapidly devolved in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Gilda escaped to upper Ocean Parkway just as she was entering high school. Instead of attending East New York’s Thomas Jefferson High School, Gilda went to Erasmus, one of the borough’s best.

Nearly six years younger than Gilda, Blankfein went to Jefferson. By then the community had become even more depressed. He was valedictorian of his 1971 class. No disrespect, but even I might have been able to be valedictorian of that school at that time.


Summer Camp: Heard a radio ad for an upscale summer sleep-away camp on the radio the other day—seven weeks for $10,000. Wow!

When I started shipping out to sleep-away camp in 1956, my parents paid $600 for an eight-week season. Camp Massad wasn’t upscale—no horseback riding or other exotic features. Not even a swimming pool, just a lake. Today, that $600 price point would translate to an inflation-adjusted $4,683.37.

We sent Dan and Ellie to Camp Laurelwood in Madison, Conn. It wasn’t upscale, either, but the kids really liked it. For seven weeks, Laurelwood today costs $5,500.