Preserving 'an extinct world'  

By Nancy Jackson Brandeis
( Nov. 16, 2001 )

     I've always felt like the sole survivor of an extinct world as far as SSC was concerned, since I was seven when the camp closed in 1965. I honestly thought no one else on the planet except my family remembered Lilo, the Fair Ladies, Ladell (Grimes, the cook), or the pictures Lilo painted for the dining room.

     Sometimes I thought I had imagined things -- like Dr. Niv and all the purple medicine (gentian violet, an antiseptic), being given Coke from the machine before bed (what were they thinking?!) and the huge -- to me -- silver water tank that everyone sat on while watching softball games (with my dad Frank usually pitching, of course).

     Nobody believes that I was in a bunk at age three.  It's funny that the memories are so vivid. I went to other camps for years afterward, but none of the memories are as clear to me.  

     We live in Boston now, but get to the Catskills once a year or so to visit with my in-laws, who go to the remaining hotels there. Every time we pass the Pine Bush exit on Route 17, I've taught my kids to sing "Tramp, Tramp, Tramp." If my mother Marcy is with me, we really belt it out.  So there you go -- my three proper Bostonian children know the SSC theme song!

   My dad put his old camp films on video a few years ago. I pulled it out and, sure enough, there's my dad pitching a softball game, me in the pool (surrounded by what looks like the entire camp in the pool at the same time) and the grand march -- led by my cousin Marilyn (Grossman)  and Steve (Bucky). 

  I made the kids watch the footage. They were very impressed with their grandfather.

(Update: Head counselor Frank Jackson and his wife, Marcy, attended the June 2003 reunion with their daughter. Frank still is impressive on the mound and at bat)