Summertime Reflections on Sleepaway Camp

Our daughter-in-law Allison sent a short video of five-year-old Dagny cannonballing into a neighborhood pool along with a note that seven-year-old “Finley passed their deep end test by swimming the length of the pool down and back and then treaded water for a minute!” 

Naturally I am proud of them, but also envious, as I am, at 68, still a non swimmer. But what her note really accomplished was stimulating me to write this blog.

Actually, I’m a little late writing and posting this entry. A year late, to be perfectly honest. I had intended back in 2016 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of my first year at sleepaway camp, but I wound up spending too much time channeling Gloucester Island, Mass., summer resident Walt Whittaker (played by Carl Reiner) trying to warn fellow Americans, “The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!”

Okay, I promise you—no more Trump talk this time.

I was just four months passed my seventh birthday when my parents shipped me and my brother and sister out for eight weeks to Camp Massad Aleph in Tannersville, PA, at the base of Mount Pocono. We did not want to go. When they first told us about our upcoming summer adventure, while driving on the highway, we instantly rebelled. Dad threatened to stop the car if we didn’t quit complaining. We had grown accustomed to our annual stay at the Takanassee Hotel in Fleischmann’s, NY, (subject of a future blog) and had no interest in being away from our parents for two solid months, especially if we had to be at a camp where you were expected to speak Hebrew all the time. 

As if the trauma of being away from our parents wasn’t enough, we soon found out our mother would be taking an extended trip to Israel, Italy and France and therefore would miss both visiting days. Quite an adventurous trip for a woman by herself in 1956 traveling to countries where she did not speak any of the languages (Dad had to stay home to run their business). 

When school ended in late June away we went. To get to Massad we had to board buses somewhere in midtown Manhattan for the more than two-hour ride. My loneliness and trepidation began at the bus when my older brother and sister entered separate buses. I sat way in the back, on the right side of my bus, my head propped up against the window to stave off nausea. 

Of course, we all wound up loving summer camp. I spent 15 July-Augusts at sleepaway camps, the first five at Massad, winning all-around camper awards despite never learning to swim (each year my division head counselor would caution I would not win the award the following year if I failed to achieve aquatic success).

The years at Massad have a way of jumbling together in my mind but I have some very distinct memories of that first summer. We were, for example, warned not to play catch with a baseball. Softballs only. Naturally, some boys didn’t follow orders, until one bunkmate miscalculated his lunge for the hard ball and was struck right in his two front teeth which promptly exited his mouth. 

Another boy, Dennis Keene, had to retrieve a ball thrown over a fence behind our bunk. He found the ball among the trees sitting atop what turned out to be a yellow jacket nest. He emerged from the thicket shrieking, for good reason. His shirt and shorts were covered with yellow jackets dead after stinging him. No one dared go on the other side of that fence for the rest of the summer.

Every group had its own schedule. We ran on “camp time,” one hour earlier than time back in the outside world, so that it was dark by 8 pm. Each day counselors issued marks for your performance at various activities and for speaking Hebrew. Awards were handed out for each activity at the end of the year.

My first year arts and crafts project reflected the mores of the time—I made ashtrays for each of my parents, a brown one for my father, a sandstone one for my mother. On a bookshelf in my living room sits the sandstone ashtray. 

Twice a day we had swimming in the man-made lake, instructional in the morning, free swim in the afternoon. I remember being cold, standing waist-deep in the water, a thin reed of a boy unable to stay afloat when putting my head in the water, flailing my arms, kicking my legs. I did, at least, put my head under the water, not like an even thinner bunkmate, Michael Khan, who would shake his hands wildly when the instructor would ask him to dip his head in the water. 

Every day we would raise the American and Israeli flags in the morning, lower them in the afternoon. We learned the special way the American flag is folded into a tri-cornered shape. 

Around 4 pm every day we had chocolate milk and crackers or cookies. Thin kids like me could get a second helping of chocolate milk.

Friday afternoons the camp mother came by to wash our hair, vigorously. I never realized until many years later she was checking scalps for lice.

For Friday evening Sabbath services we’d dress in white shirts and blue shorts or pants, the colors of the Israeli flag. After dinner, we’d sing Jewish folk songs in the dining room. Before it got too dark, the girls our age would join the boys outside for Israeli folk dancing. Few boys were interested in this activity.

Saturdays were spent praying in the morning, free time in the afternoon except for a mandatory discussion hour on Jewish subjects, all conducted in Hebrew. 

At the end of summer camp we had color war, called maccabiah at Massad. My first year team was “Poalim,” Hebrew for workers. I can still recite the words and melody of our Hebrew cheer song. My team won.

I went back to summer camp for 14 of the next 15 years. I learned how to play different sports. I learned how to be competitive but always show good sportsmanship. I learned leadership skills. I learned how to be independent. I learned about young love. But unlike my grandchildren, I did not learn to swim.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Uncle Murray

It’s a week before Thanksgiving. I’m still waiting for my invitation to your turkey chomp. What? You can’t recall adding me to your guest list? Apparently you’re not on Minnesota U.S. Senator Al Franken’s email list (neither am I, but my sister is even though she lives in Los Angeles), for he wrote: 

“This time of year I always look forward to the usual Thanksgiving things: turkey, Franni’s famous pies, stuffing, friends, family, and football.

“And of course, Uncle Murray.”

Long-time readers of No Socks Needed Anymore may recall my being less than enamored with the pleasure comedians have in casting my given name for misanthropic characters or dogs in their films and TV shows (i.e., Murray the policeman in The Odd Couple, or Murray the dog in Mad About You, or the numerous stories about Murray told by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner in their 2,000-year-old man skits). 

So it wasn’t too surprising that Saturday Night Live alumnus-cum-politician Franken jumped on the make-fun-of-Murray bandwagon. He did, however, redeem my namesake in the rest of his email:   

“Uncle Murray isn’t a real person. Uncle Murray represents the family member at the dinner table who inevitably brings up politics, every single year.

“Now, some people get annoyed by Uncle Murray. But I think at least some of the things Uncle Murray talks about at the table are important. After all, Senators like me are supposed to know what concerns families share with each other at dinner. Those are actually the issues that matter -- they are experienced by real people -- and they are the ones we need to focus on.

“So I want you to tell me what your “Uncle Murray” (or you) will be talking about at the Thanksgiving table this year. It can be as simple as corporations aren’t people or that women deserve equal pay for equal work. It could be that LGBT friends and family deserve equal rights. It could be that climate change is real and happening and a serious risk to the future of the planet.

“What issues are you and your family most likely to discuss this year? What problems are affecting your family the most? (Franken asked that responses be sent to http://minnesota.alfranken.com/e51118m

“Can’t wait to read your responses.

“Al”

As long as we’re on the subject of politics, let’s stick with an item culled from the newspaper:

I’ve fashioned myself into a slow, careful reader. You might say slow reading is an occupational hazard of being an editor—if you are going to review other people’s writing you best do it carefully. Without haste. 

My snail-like pace reading all things from books to newspapers might explain why I find so many anomalies, mistakes and interesting items in the stories I read. I’m often disappointed when I fail to uncover a miscue. On the other hand, I exult in discovering a mistake or contradiction. Take, for instance, the Talk interview of David Brat in last Sunday’s New York Times magazine.

A 51-year-old Tea Party Republican congressman from Glen Allen, Va., Brat is a former college professor who took over Eric Cantor’s seat. Asked what he has learned in Washington, Brat said, “It’s hard. I like Plato’s maxim to start politics at 50 because you’re near death and the appetites are —whatever. You’re past the wine, women and song.”

Oh, really? Perhaps a visit to Wikipedia’s page entitled “List of federal political sex scandals in the United States” is in order for the ol’ professor. From 2000 through 2015, there have been 22 sex scandals, of which 14 involved politicos 50 years or older!

Seems to me the evidence is overwhelming that age is no barrier to a male politician seeking sex with women or men, and, in some cases, even boys.

Blackout Memories, Mel Brooks Got It Right, and Judges of the Same Sounding Name

Hey, New Yorkers, how did you get home from work 10 years ago today? 

For those who don’t remember August 14, 2003, the city suffered a massive mid-afternoon blackout that extended well into the night, forcing many to walk home across bridges, camp out in offices, or crash at a relative’s, friend’s or co-worker’s pad. 

For many, it became an invitation for impromptu libations, as revelers “volunteered” to help restaurants and bars dispose of perishable stock before it spoiled. Gilda was one of those. She joined a co-worker and her husband for a delicious seafood meal at a restaurant abutting the Hudson in Battery Park in Lower Manhattan. 

My staff and I were in our sixth fIoor offices on Park Avenue between 55th and 56th streets when the power stopped. Sunlight streamed through the western-facing windows. As shadows started to darken the office, individual plans became more desperate and disparate. Risa decided to walk across the 59th Street Bridge on her way to Long Island. She fortuitously hitched a ride in mid-bridge with someone serendipitously going to her North Shore town. Ken opted to sleep in the office rather than attempt to get home to New Jersey. Marianne chose to gamble on getting a bus out of the Port Authority back to Jersey. She boarded a bus going to a town near her home. Mary Beth decided it would be better to go to her sister in Jersey rather than go home to Dutchess County, NY. She had to walk hours to reach her, a feat the rest of the staff marveled at the next day considering Mary Beth’s troubled feet. Farida was in no mood to walk to Brooklyn by herself. Kyung agreed to house her for the night at her Upper East Side apartment, but Farida was equally reluctant to walk there alone as dusk approached (Kyung had left earlier to be with her infant daughter). So I trudged up Park Avenue with her. Kyung lived near my aunt on East 81st Street. I figured I could stay with her if I didn’t link up with Gilda, whose whereabouts I still had not ascertained since our phones weren’t working. 

Walking to Kyung’s was not easy. It was hot and muggy. But New Yorkers were taking the blackout in stride. Few car horns ahonking. Pedestrians helped direct traffic at intersections. Cars were angled in front of bars and restaurants, their headlights illuminating the interiors. When Farida and I climbed the stairs to Kyung’s apartment, she wasn’t there. We suppressed panic and waited about 15 minutes till she arrived. Kyung offered to put me up overnight as well, but I declined since I wanted to check up on my aunt.

When I arrived at her apartment, her phone was working. I called Gilda’s brother on the Upper West Side. Luckily, Gilda had been able to reach him. Carl graciously picked me up and lent me his car so I could get Gilda and drive home to Westchester. It was among the more eerie rides of our lives in New York. Like a scene from a disaster movie. Hardly any other cars on the road. Skyscrapers dark, except for the occasional emergency light, or even eerier, a whole building lit up by generator. We got home around 11 pm. 

Mel Got It Right: Mel Brooks makes me and millions of others laugh out loud, but he may well be laughing harder than anyone today. 

Did you see Tuesday’s NY Times front-page article, “Much Ado About Who: Is It Really Shakespeare?” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/arts/further-proof-of-shakespeares-hand-in-the-spanish-tragedy.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)? The thrust of the article is that Shakespeare had lousy handwriting and that some of his words may have been transcribed incorrectly because of poor penmanship.

You may recall in my second to last post on July 30 I sourced a 2,000-year-old-man routine Brooks did with Carl Reiner wherein he disputed that Shakespeare was a good writer. He wasn’t a good writer. He had lousy penmanship, Brooks argued. 

What’s that saying, “Many a truth was said in jest”? According to the Web site, The Phrase Finder, “The first author to express this thought in English was probably Geoffrey Chaucer. He included it in The Cook's Tale, 1390: 

‘But yet I pray thee be not wroth for game; [don't be angry with my jesting]

A man may say full sooth [the truth] in game and play.’

“Shakespeare later came closer to our contemporary version of the expression, in King Lear, 1605:

‘Jesters do oft prove prophets.’

Judge Not: A quick check of the Internet proved I wasn’t alone in thinking there might be a link between Judge Judy and the federal judge who ruled New York City’s stop-and-frisk police tactic violated the constitutional rights of minorities.

The names are pronounced the same, but that’s where the similarities end. Judge Judy Sheindlin works the TV circuit. Judge Shira Scheindlin serves on the federal bench. Judge Shira’s last name has a “c” in it.  

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.

Whose History Is This, Anyway?

One of the reasons I write this blog is to provide a written record of my family’s history for my children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Of course, these are my memories. It’s been said, history is written by the victors. In today’s world, history, at least family history, is written by the blogger.

But that doesn’t mean my family always agrees with my recall. My sister Lee insists our father disdained tomatoes for many years until he was offered one by a kindly customer on his stationery sales route outside Danzig, Poland. He had resisted tomatoes, she said, because that’s what he ate almost daily in his small hometown of Ottynia. 

Rubbish, say my brother Bernie and I. How credible would it have been to have caches of tomatoes to eat in the dead of winter in a shtetl in Galicia where indoor plumbing was scarce and paved roads were an anomaly? We think she confused tomatoes with potatoes, a staple of the peasants and townfolk who lived through brutal winters and hot summers. 

Lee also maintains our father liked ham during his years in Danzig. News to Bernie and me. In the 50 years I knew him, Dad never ate any meat or fish that was not from a kosher animal (though it might not have been slaughtered according to Jewish custom). Never did I hear him ever talk about eating ham. Bernie agrees.

Bernie believes our Hebrew elementary school Lag Ba’Omer trips were to a park on Staten Island. He forgets the Verrazano Bridge linking Brooklyn to Staten Island opened in 1964, six years after he graduated Yeshiva Rambam, four years after Lee did and two years after I. There’s no way the school bus trip of several hundred students and parents took the ferry across the Narrows. No, we went to Cunningham Park in Queens.

Lee is of the opinion we all attended Rambam because Bernie was encouraged to do so by a teacher he had at the Talmud Torah affiliated with our parents’ synagogue. That teacher, she says, also taught at Rambam. Bernie agrees he was influenced by the teacher but he was not affiliated with Rambam. Eight-year-old Bernie wanted to attend the yeshiva but his Hebrew skills were not up to snuff. Indeed, the school’s Hebrew principal, Isadore Lefkowitz, tried to talk him out of it, telling him he’d have to give up most of his summer vacation in exchange for intensive tutoring. Bernie enthusiastically agreed. I just heard this story a week or so ago. I am still stunned by his response.

I’ve written several times about Mel Brooks’ penchant for making fun of my given name during his 2,000-year-old-man routines with Carl Reiner. Turns out, my brother was singled out, as well. Here’s dialogue from a 1966 appearance on The Andy Williams Show:

Reiner: Of all the discoveries of all time, what was the greatest—the wheel, the lever, fire?

Brooks: Fire. Far and away, fire. It was the hottest thing going. You can’t beat fire. It used to warm us, it used to light up our caves so you wouldn’t walk into the wall, so we wouldn’t marry our brother Bernie.

Yeah. For once he didn’t say “marry our brother, Murray.” Brooks actually had a brother Bernie, as well as a brother Irving and Lenny. Why he couldn’t stick with those names instead of introducing Murray into many of his routines is a burden I’ll have to bear all my life. 

Speaking of exercise, it’s one of Gilda’s and my recurring disagreements, my lack of interest in physical activity other than team sports. Now, a new study suggests I can blame my parents. Here’s how The NY Times positioned the findings: “A study on rats suggests that portions of the brain that control reward behavior may play a role in the decision to work out or to remain on the couch. If you give a rat a running wheel and it decides not to use it, are genes to blame? And if so, what does that tell us about why many people skip exercise?” (http://nyti.ms/XFqSVO)

Gilda and I recently visited my sister in Los Angeles. A problem with visiting relatives is it feeds my hypochondria. Lee wears a night guard because she grinds her teeth. So do I, meaning, I grind my teeth and wear a night guard, as well. Over dinner one night I found out one of our cousins on our mother’s side suffers from gout, as does one of Lee’s children. When I said my toes sometimes hurt, Gilda chided me for thinking I, too, had gout. 

One of Gilda’s missions in life is to cure my hypochondria, or at least puncture some of my more outrageous self-diagnoses. She also is there to expose my indiscretions and correct my mistakes. She’s pretty good at those last two, still has lots of work to do on the first. 

I guess that’s enough Forseter family history for one day. I’ll close with a short comment from the opening of a eulogy our friend Barbara delivered last week for her father who died at the age of 87. The last few years of his life he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. 

Barbara related how at the recent graduation of her daughter Alexandra from Brandeis University, one of the speakers from the Sociology department asked how well the students knew their parents’ life stories. Her father, Barbara said, rarely talked about his early life. My parents, as well, left many of their early years blank in my mind. Through this blog I hope to leave the next generation a more complete picture of our history, even if it is filtered through my imperfect memory. 

Paddling Along

I’m an old newspaperman, and if there’s one thing we wizened scribes hate it’s getting beat on a story, especially one you’ve been sitting on till the time was right. You can imagine, then, my disappointment and anguish when I read deep into the NY Times on Monday and came across the headline, “A Goal Met Before Age 50, And No Training Wheels!”. It ran over an article about a Bike New York program in Brooklyn that teaches adults to overcome their fears and race off on two wheels (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/nyregion/learning-to-bike-at-adulthood.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=training%20wheels&st=cse).

It was an article I could relate to as I was a late bicycler. It was a story idea I had been planning to incorporate into a future blog after promising to do so last December when I seconded the notion of a different Times piece, “Fell Off My Bike and Vowed Never To Get Back On” (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/12/two-wheeled-trauma.html).

I learned to ride after four decades of disdain for the two-wheeled conveyance. I learned via the Amanda Steinberg system, as taught to Ellie Forseter and passed on to her father. Ellie was all of 7 when Amanda took her under her slightly older wing to teach the finer points of balance and pedaling. I was 40.

As I am quite confident Amanda has not patented her system, I am at liberty to convey its rudimentary form to you. As noted, it works for young and old alike.

First, make sure your bike has no training wheels. For adult men, I recommend an old-style woman’s bicycle because there is no center bar to shall we say, challenge your manhood. The bike seat should be low enough to enable your feet to fully touch the ground so if you ever feel yourself tipping over you can comfortably and without panic steady yourself without falling.

Balancing yourself on the bike, with your legs dangling at the sides, not on the pedals, paddle forward with your feet. After moving a few yards, lift your feet onto the pedals and try to turn them. Don’t be discouraged if you lose your balance. Try again. Sooner, rather than later, hopefully, your balance will become second nature and you’ll be able to continuously pedal.

There. You’ve just learned to ride a bike.

I won’t pretend it’s easy, especially when you’re older and fear consumes you, memories of prior falls and failures freeze you and embarrassment haunts your every attempt. What will the neighbors think?, is constantly going through your mind.

If you’re lucky (I use that word advisedly), as I was, you’ll have a life-partner who will shove you outside the moment you come home from work. Your spouse will exhort you to “man up” and do it before dinner is ready. Don’t come inside unless you’re bicycle-trained. If you do, it’s back outside after dinner, old man. Learn, or be forever left alone while the rest of the family pedals off on wonderful eco-friendly rides.

Futility engulfed my first attempt. I gave up when it became too dark even on our protected cul-de-sac. The next day I was sent out again before dinner. No luck. I moaned over meat loaf I’d never be able to learn. I just couldn’t coordinate more than two turns of the pedals before losing my balance. Ten-year-old Dan volunteered to observe and correct my faulty approach.

We marched out after dinner, I climbed onto Gilda’s old bike, and as I proceeded to explain to Dan how I couldn’t pedal more than two revolutions...I was halfway down the block, the wind in my exhilarated face, tension turning my smile into a grimace as I realized I had no idea how to stop or turn. While Dan called for Gilda to come outside, quick, I figured the only way to stop was to plow into a curb. I got back on the bike. Lo and behold, I was able to pedal again. I was riding a bicycle. Far from laughing at me, neighbors came out and applauded.

Oh, the joy of conquering a childhood phantom.

Truth be told, I hated biking. My ass hurt after a short spin. My neck hurt from looking up with my back bent over the handlebars. My hands and wrists hurt from holding the handlebars too tightly. And I didn’t like falling, which I did repeatedly (see above mentioned blog on two-wheeled trauma).

But at least I learned to ride. I hope it’s true what they say about never forgetting how to ride a bicycle, just in case I find myself in a desperate situation, as Carl Reiner’s character did in The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming. You never know when knowing how to ride a bike can help you save the world.