[ This article appeared in the Detroit Jewish News on Aug. 15, 2003 with photos of the author and four former Fair Ladies at the Nevele. ]

Summer’s indelible imprint

By Alan Stamm

Who says adults can’t become children again? Maybe it’s not healthy for too long, but it sure was nostalgic fun for three days in the Catskill Mountains recently when six dozen former New York City kids went back to our largely Jewish summer camp from the 1950s and ‘60s.

Anita Devine, a 50-year-old pharmacist from Bloomfield Hills, was among those who slipped into camp T-shirts , sang campfire songs, remembered teen romances, ate cupcakes, listened to oldies, watched flickering camp movies and played softball.

"I was reliving my childhood," said Devine. "We hadn’t seen each other in 40 years, but it felt like only a few years."

Two teen couples who had danced under the stars in Pine Bush, N.Y., were easy to remember. They came together as long-married grandparents.

We also gathered for Shabbat candle-lighting and prayers, just as we had 40 to 55 years ago, and then sat spellbound as a former counselor read "It Could Be Worse" and "Cunning vs. Greed" from the same tattered volume of Sholem Aleichem folk tales he held at Stern Summer Camp weekly services.

Mostly, we marveled at the power of childhood memories that pulled 74 men and women in our 50s to 80s back to our summer playground for our first reunion.

"The friends you make in childhood can never be replaced – they’re lifelong. And this reunion shows that," said Devine, who started attending the camp at age 5 when she lived in New York City and went until it closed in 1965.

We gathered from across the country and beyond at a legendary Borscht Belt hotel, the Nevele in Ellenville , N.Y. , and visited our former camp – now an artist’s studio and home. Two sisters came from London , another camper traveled from the Netherlands and the jet lag prize went to the camp cook’s son for flying in from Australia .

For three days, we were young and carefree again, on vacation from P.S. 187 or Junior High 52 in Upper Manhattan and savoring the exhilaration of summer in the mountains with friends. Hairlines and hairstyles had changed, but personalities and other traits were as crystal-clear as a mountain stream. It was like walking through scenes our parents filmed in Super 8 movies, with older actors on a familiar stage.

But on that sunny weekend, more somber reflections stretched beyond the overgrown base paths, weedy tennis court and filled-in pool. The camp was founded by German immigrants, and most of our parents were 1940s European refugees who whispered the word "camp" in a far darker context.

"My parents arrived right after the war and struggled to assimilate. It helped to have their child out of the way during summer while they continued this struggle to become Americans," said Irving Weiler of Riverdale , N.Y. , one of the reunion participants who married a camper. Our camp helped both generations, he added, "because I needed to become American, too."

Harry Hertz, a federal administrator from Boyds, Md., believes "our parents still had fears and saw camp as a safe haven for us." And for Elaine Ravich of Baltimore , "camp was my substitute extended family" after a war that claimed grandparents and other relatives. "I had no cousins, no older siblings. I needed people to show me how to grow up."

For Devine, "the continuity of my Jewish heritage at camp was important."

Poignantly, the Oakland resident added that "camp was a release" from the strict, austere atmosphere maintained at home by her parents, German immigrants. As her older brother, Lenny Loewentritt, a government lawyer in Washington , D.C. , recalled at the reunion: "There was no frivolity at home when I was young. I only found that at camp."

Against that backdrop, our daily Catskills ritual of singing "God Bless America " was repeated at the still-standing flagpole with fresh resonance and deeper meaning. We realize now why directors Ellen and Gerry Bucky considered the morning and dusk ceremonies of flag raising and folding as vital as breakfast and dinner -- nourishment for young Americans learning to savor the land of the free and the home of the brave.

After returning to Bloomfield Hills, Devine sent her 19-year-old daughter Alison off to Camp Tanuga in Kalkaska. Now a counselor, the Western Michigan University student has spent summers there since age 6.

"I told her, ‘I hope you feel as close with your campers and counselors in 40 years as we do, and that you’ll also want to go to a reunion," the Oakland mother related.

Before leaving the Catskills, we collected donations for the Fresh Air Fund of New York so other city kids can hear the cicadas, swim in a tree-framed lake, taste the fragrant air, raise the flag above a dewy lawn and dance under the sky – memories that last a lifetime, take it from us.

And oh yes, the cupcakes from Cohen’s Bakery in Ellenville were delicious.