We now might recognize summer camp as a journey rather than a destination, a passage toward adulthood rather than simply a parent-free play zone. Back then, of course, Being There was all.
Getting off the buses meant more than stretching our legs – it closed
the door on city life and opened a
suspended-time season. Footloose and hassle-free, we lived in the moment long
before any of us had to re-learn that as a philosophy.
Arrival day unfolded in a blur of “you’re
back!” greetings, bed-claiming, comic-inventorying, candybox-stocking and
trunk-unpacking. Reunions with past campmates took place between small knots of
kids, since many of us arrived with ready-made cliques from our school and
neighborhood.
Stern Summer Camp, owned and operated by a couple who owned a nursery
school at 1803 Riverside Drive in the Inwood section of Upper Manhattan, took
its name from the middle name of co-director Ellen Stern Bucky. It attracted
campers mainly from that area, from
A family place, in other words -- continuity and comfort.
But parents were out of sight and out of mind. We felt liberated and in
charge now, more or less, reined in only by the teen-ager counselors and a few
adults who’d stand between total anarchy and us until late August. They began
by directing our candy-fueled energy into setting up our bunks.
We customers, between 4 and 14 years old, were divided by gender and ages
into cinderblock or wood-frame barracks with group names that included the
Smarties, Fair Ladies, Wise Guys, Bigshots, Charmers, Flappers, Supermen.
Keys on string around our necks unlatched trunks delivered earlier by
truck. Savvy parents hung an extra padlock on the brass hardware, since the
trunks’ own latches all popped open with the same thin universal key.
Sheets and green woolen blankets were tucked onto metal springs with
“hospital corners” that soon would become a disliked morning ritual to be
rushed through before a counselor’s inspection.
We scoped out the newcomers, compared broken-in baseball gloves, checked
out comic and magazine stashes and inventoried contributions to each
bunkhouse’s communal candy trove – an ant-resistant metal bread box,
typically with a nausea-risking floral pattern, that was used to separate
vulnerable campers from the risk of over-indulgence. (The camp’s other
director, Gerard J. Bucky, had a doctorate in music and self-taught wisdom about
temptation, restraint and delayed gratification.)
And such a treasure-trove of treats, that box was! Jellied crescents,
lemon drops, Mallomars, Toblerone bars, toasted coconut-covered marshmallows,
Chuckles, Manner wafers, raspberry and blackberry look-alikes, Good-n-Plenty
boxes, Bazooka gum, Bit-o-Honey, Tootsie-Rolls, Hostess cupcakes, Oreos, Fig
Newtons, Drake’s cakes, chocolate babies (hey, it was the 50’s!) and other
delicacies were supplemented in the first days after arrival by half-moons and
other bakery cookies, fresh macaroons, babka and pies. Starve, we didn’t.
Theoretically, the box was opened only after dinner in a counselor’s
presence – partly so he or she could sample the wares, as well as enforce some
semblance of rationing. The goal was to grab something another kid brought,
since this was supposed to be a season of new experiences after all. Invariably,
shrinkage of the unlocked vault’s contents appeared evident within days –
hours? – and the passage of time frees me to confess I was as guilty as anyone
of possessing contraband candy.
Ah, but who among us didn’t have to wipe stealthily sneaked sugar from our lips – or test other limits during our summers of liberation?