Blog Entry

“Raise your hand if this is your 19th summer at Herzl Camp”

April 15, 2010 by Herzl Camp Admin, under Letters from Alumni.

By Flip Frisch

If you remember me from Herzl Camp, it’s because you knew me in the later years, when I was a staff member.  I worked at Herzl for 13 summers, and before that, I was a camper for 6 years.  If you remember me from Herzl Camp, you’d remember that I loved it, deeply.  Its name is in my heart, its fields are in my memory, to quote the Hebrew part of the Herzl song. If you remember me from Herzl Camp, you’d know that when I was there I felt truly happy, that it was there I’d found my voice.  That I probably laughed more in the few short weeks a year I spent at Herzl than during the rest of the year put together.  But let me tell you something:  if you remember me from Herzl Camp, you must not have known me during my first summer.

Let’s just say it took me a little while to warm to Herzl, and that little while turned out to be an entire session of MABA, 1982.

I had just turned 10, and I was lured to camp by my cousin’s intriguing stories from her previous summer as a camper.  “An Ozo?  What’s that?”  I asked.

“Youuuuuu’ll see!” she said.

I remember being nervous on the bus ride, anxious as we pulled onto the crunchy gravel road, and overwhelmed by those parallel rows of counselors singing and clapping. I think I ducked and ran through, hiding behind my carry-on. Moments later I was utterly terrified in that deafening Ulam when it occurred to me I might not hear my name called and could end up left all alone in that huge hall, forgotten and embarrassed.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen.  But then I remember shivering in the cold lake until it was my turn to swim from one dock to the other for the swim test.  I must have opened my eyes underwater and got freaked out, because I was put in “instructional swim.” Years later, this chug would be renamed “the Herzl Swim Team” in an effort to spare the feelings of the unfortunate “blue” swimmers.  But these weren’t such gentle times.

I remember being convinced boys were looking through holes in the (old) central haks walls. Just in case I was right, I showered with my bathing suit on, for three weeks.  My mom reminds me that when I came home, you could still quite clearly read the word “DIAL” on my bar of soap.  If the mean girls from our cabin called me “Stinky,” it was probably not hyperbole.  I’m just grateful that nickname didn’t stick.

I skinned my knee during “Capture the Flag.”  I took “Escape to Israel” way too seriously; one of the “guards” asked to see my papers and I burst into tears.  There were the aforementioned mean girls in our cabin.  I didn’t.  Like.  The food.  It rained on our overnight and my sleeping bag got soaked.

To my horror, and not until we were already walking in my first Shabbat caravan, someone behind me laughed and pointed out that you could plainly see the floral pattern of my underpants through my Shabbat whites.  Later that evening I also discovered just how badly French dressing could stain, when it landed in my lap.

Those three weeks were not without their bright spots though.  I remember laughing and running away from boys yelling “Shabbas kisses!” in the dark after Shabbat dinner.   We played mud soccer when it heavy dewed.  My cousin and I interviewed the bellybutton of the waterfront director for the MABA newspaper, and asked such intrepid questions as “Do you like to swim?” (Answer:  Yes!)  Our cabin got raided.  We went on a night swim.  I learned to harmonize Birkat Hamazon.  And toward the end of the session, a boy from soccer chug asked me to Final Banquet.  We sat next to each other at final banquet and didn’t talk, and then we sat next to each other at the talent show and didn’t talk.

But maybe the most significant bright (sort of) moment happened on the second-to-last day of the summer.  I met a girl who was as miserable as me.  We bonded.  I know it sounds ridiculous, but with that sudden camaraderie, that incredible sense that a stranger could suddenly become a friend, a light turned on for me.  I finally understood that what made camp so great was possibility, was opportunity, was making new friends.  And it’s true that misery loved company that day, because we agreed to come back the next summer and bunk together.  And the rest, as they say, is Herzl history.  Shabbat Shalom!

Tags: Flip Frisch

2 Responses to ““Raise your hand if this is your 19th summer at Herzl Camp””

Leave a Comment

• HEY HERZL FRIENDS, ALUMNI, CAMPERS, STAFF, PARENTS AND VOLUNTEERS!
• Welcome to the Herzl Camp blog! No matter where you are in the world or how you are connected to Herzl today, you'll find a little piece of Machaneh Paradise here. You'll find stories of Herzl legends, Herzl history, thoughts from camper parents, updates from camp, information on the latest in Jewish camping, parenting tips and more!
  
  Do you have an idea for a blog topic? Would you like to contribute?
  
  Email us!