Archive for 'Herzl History'
Two Miles North of Webster, Turn Right onto “Memory Lane”
March 2, 2012 by Herzl Camp Admin, under General Posts, Herzl History, Letters from Alumni, Music.
By: Flip Frisch
Editor’s Note: Flip will be back at camp once again this summer in the role of Shira “Coach” where she will share her talents (and beautiful voice) with the staff and campers.
I have a terrible memory. I constantly forget song lyrics*, people’s names, where I put my keys. But there are songs, no matter how many times I hear them, that trigger memories and transport me back in time with astonishing ease.
Sometimes a song will elicit a general nostalgia, but other songs trigger very specific memories. There is a melody of Adon Olam I heard as a child at Beth El Synagogue, for example, that to this day still brings back the taste of sponge cake and faintly, somewhere across the room, the smell of pickled herring.
The songs I sing each night to help my daughter fall asleep are mostly songs I learned or sang at Herzl. It’s like I have a standing lights out gig, minus the milk crate and candle. One of her favorites is Dona Dona. I’ve probably sung that song a million times, yet whenever I sing “they laugh with all their might; laugh and laugh the whole day through and half the summer’s night” I’m hurrying back to my cabin after song session, past the tetherball court, avoiding the big puddle. I can also hear voices of other kids leaving the old chadar, and the door nearest the kitchen slamming again and again. Why am I hurrying? Because I’m afraid of “Shabbos kisses.” Boys are gross; I am ten years old.
Another song my daughter falls asleep to is “Where have all the Flowers Gone?” to which my memory traces the walk from flag circle to Mercaz: the slight bottleneck where the road passes between the drainage ditch and cabin 20. Ozrim passing out packets. The gnats mostly left behind.
Debbie Friedman’s Shema V’Ahavta, though I’ve sung it in many other places, nevertheless puts me right back on a Mercaz bench, Friday night. The sun twinkles off tiny waves on the lake. Somewhere nearby sits a boy I have a crush on but who will never know. I make a smooth flat spot in the sand with my sandal.
Cat Stevens’ “Moonshadow” takes me to Kadimah play practice. Our feet have kicked up Ulam dust and I have to sneeze. Someone is yelling at us, not for the first time, you guys, stop talking. I feel I’ve been waiting my whole life to be in Kadimah and can’t believe it’s finally here.
“American Pie” reminds me of our Kadimah canoe trip. “Brass Monkey” brings back faces of the ‘93 Deavers who I lived with that summer. “These Are The Days” reminds me of Havdallah when the ’93 Ozrim fell backward into the shallows of the lake. Anything Steve Miller reminds me of shower parties in the north haks. And don’t even get me started on my shoebox full of mix tapes. A few notes of “I Melt With You” and I’m back in the Ulam for another final banquet. I’m happy, I’m sad. Nothing will ever be the same after tomorrow morning.
So many songs trigger flag song memories that my non-camp friends must think I know alternative lyrics to every song, ever. Billy Joel’s “For The Longest Time” becomes “O O Z O (Good Shabbos) Ozrim ‘89.” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” now contains the line “A chicken breast, a caravan, a chicken breast, a caravan.” And who could forget John Mellencamp’s “Herzl Good”? Not me, it seems.
A counselor from a summer I lived in cabin 9 played a cassette of the Carpenters every night. I not only remember the feeling of drifting to sleep in a top bunk after having spent a whole day playing and a whole evening giggling, but also listening to those same bittersweet songs on an old record player in my high school library a few years later. Huge green plastic and rubber headphones keeping out the pressures of school while I try to go back in my mind to those happier camp times. Rainy days and Mondays, indeed.
“Mitachat Lashamayim” reminds me of singing with Bryan Grone, “Love The One You’re With” – Aaron Gelperin. And although last summer seems too recent for real nostalgia, I can’t hear “Sounds of Silence” without remembering Bobby Lewis; “Here Comes The Sun” is now forever linked to Yonatan Dotan.
It’s not just music. The fragrance of certain toothpastes elicits memories of the old central haks. Anna Simon recently mentioned the old, smelly tablecloths we used in the old chadar. And just like that, I am right back there again, rolling a red and white checked piece of vinyl onto a PVC tube that hangs on the wall between the chadar and chadar bet. We’ve had pepper steak for dinner. Today, though I approach middle-age, I still get teary whenever I smell diesel exhaust from a bus.
And wherever I am, if I turn from pavement onto a dirt road and hear gravel crunch beneath the tires, I get butterflies. I hear faint strains of “The Herzl Song”. I am home again for another summer.
*Keep me cockatoos cool, Cal, keep me cockatoos cool. um…don’t, um, overchlorinate the pool? Cal, just keep me cockatoos cool. All together now!
"Here's to Dear Old Herzl..."
Shabbat Shalom.