The Jewish side of camp

Underpinning everything about ERN was Edna's and Irv's strong sense of the faith and the underpinning social values therein. As a non-Jew at camp much the flavor and meaning of the camp experiences was hidden in terms of experience and understanding that would have come from learning and speaking Hebrew, growing up the Jewish community in the Bay Area as well is in the families and synagogues.

I got a very nice note from a former camper, Rabbi Mark Bloom (camper from 75-79,) sharing some of his thoughts about camp and Irv that he had shared at Irv's funeral. For me they not only bring up great memories, the last moments of campfire before heading up the path to the cabins, they bring up strongly the sense of "structure" that made ERN work as culture habits and traditions. And also make me ponder, Where did this come from?"

Here are his thoughts--

IT’S IRVING NEWMAN TIME

Remember the times you’ve had here, remember when you’re away.
Remember the friends you’ve made here, and don’t forget to come back some day.
Remember beside the campfire, amidst the hills so blue.
That you belong to El Rancho Navarro, and El Rancho Navarro belongs to you (Irv).

I. No clear line between Irv and the camp in Mendocino County he ran with his beloved Edna. Hard to say where one began and the other ended.

II. Irv not a Rabbi (though he certainly could have been with both his knowledge and his righteousness as a human being), but he was a Rebbe for so many of us, someone we followed, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, who grew up in the Bay Area in the 60’s and 70’s. Fond memories of him…
A. Leading us in Hineh Ma Tov, how good to be together.
B. Telling stories by the campfire, where we would hang on his every word.
C. Could tell us same things our parents told us, but we would listen to him. Little things we learned like.
1. Wash your hands and face before dinner.
2. Bring long sleeves in the early morning and evening.
3. Loving the earth, putting us by the beauty of the Navarro River, walking in the creek, hiking in the hills and conserving toilet paper, as in his annual speech.
D. Dispensing wonderful advice
1. Through notes at Och Narley
2. When you got in trouble at Irv’s tree.
3. Calling us all mulliganheads and treating us all equally, from the most popular to the most insecure of campers.
E. Doing things many of us never imagined like milking cows or moving irrigation pipes.
F. Very strict. No radios, comic books or candy, the six inch rule for slow dancing at the camp dances.

III. Shammai said: “Greet everyone with a cheerful disposition.”
Irv was a people person. He knew how to relate to young and old, no matter what age he was. And he worked at it. Every year after camp he traveled up and down the state visiting the home of virtually every camper to ask what you liked about camp, and then the social worker in him would come out, as you had to go in another room while he discussed what you were really like with your parents.

IV. Irv had tzadik like qualities, like he was one of the most righteous. Not self-righteous either, because he was so humble. But as the kind, wise, moral Grandfather you wished you had yourself. When a person dies just before Rosh Hashana, which we will be celebrating in a matter of hours, it’s a sign of the tzaddik, a righteous person, because it’s a way of saying this person lived the maximum amount of days he could, since, theoretically, the idea that he wouldn’t be written in the Book of Life was decreed a full year ago. In Pirke Avot it says:
Kanah shem tov kana ‘atzmo, kana li divrei Torah kana lo chayei ha’olam haba.
One who has aquired a good name has acquired something for himself.
One who has acquired Torah has acquired eternal life.

V. Irv has certainly acquired eternal life. I’d like to conclude the same way I did at Edna’s funeral, where he sang with gusto, the way Irv liked to end all campfires, with Taps in English and Hebrew and Shalom Chaverim, goodbye, my dear friend.

Teaching

The Newman's house was pretty much off limits to campers and it wasn't until I was an adult, returning camp staff, that I got to see much of the inner world. I was thinking of Irv the other day, sitting in his chair, smoking a pipe and cracking nuts in an old screw-driven nutcracker. A bowl of nuts was always on the coffee table, and the nutcracker had a large threaded shaft that protruded into a bowl just large enough to hold a walnut--very effective and made a satisfying crack.
He would sit and puff on this pipe and talk. He talked about a lot of things, about camp, his upbringing, his hopes and vision for creating an environment for youth that did something different, not really clearly described in the positive as much as in terms of what it would not be--academic, awards, a sense that he had too many camp experiences with other settings and circumstances driven by values to which he did not adhere.
I remember a fairly animated conversation about an activity called, Nature hikes. Someone proposed to make them more instructive--they were often lead by staff with little or no science background and the point was made that they were opportunities to teach some science. Irv's response was pretty pointed and the gist was no teaching, campers see this enough in other settings. I've tried this on myself a number of times as I've thought about the explanation for this response. In part because we obviously taught some things, swimming, riding, and yet in this case he was adamant. I can see that putting on your creekwalk shoes and heading down to the Navarro was intrinsically fun, engaging and definitely not sciency. Even staff with fairly strong science backgrounds left this be. I can honestly say that in the camper life I experienced a lot but learned very little memorized content.
So what was the genesis of this? I have some inkling that the experiential learning philosophy was in part the foundation--I did become a scientist/teacher. The focus was on doing, on being, on activities, on responsibility, not on adults teaching in a direct sense an academic content. Know that I have the background and interest to ask why, I can no longer ask.
I also had a similar discussion with him about why he had me teaching arts and crafts as well.

Beatles, Music and Dances

I credit Marshall, and the old Bogen amp and turntable, for much of my social prowess at camp. I love, still do, music, still play almost all the record from my younger camp years. Learned about and still enjoy old Hot Tuna from Marshall's reference to their performance on the "Last Days at the Fillmore" Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning (and this was a memory from staff days he has informed me, not camper.). And music was much of the soul of the times. I'm seeing a new generation Beatles fans through "new" releases of really old music (it really should be in the public domain by now). I do wish there was a better sense of the context for this music within it's time. Camp was Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary and Dylan gave many song writers license to write wonderful and strange songs.
And the thoughts of campfire and actually signing. And singing around the campfire was, at least to me, a more meaningful sense of morality than more purported moral systems. Blow'n in the Wind has had more impact than almost any single piece of writing I can imagine. If I had a Hammer, Dona, Taps...
Of course the silly and fun song, singing loud and badly in the dining hall. It's Irving Newman (Colbert Davis) time imparted a tradition in song--it's silly, sweet, a sense of the place, of the culture. As was ShowBoat teaching Love Potion Number Nine. And Bob and Colbert's strange dirge birthday song--which showed up at my camp last year. Camps are a continua not well understood by physists.
And who was ShowBoat really--sort of like PaHoo--he was camp, made camp what it was.
I know I was a different too. I was terrified to get up and speak in the dining hall--not just nervous, terrified! This was a trait that I carried well into adulthood. But I did get up and do a couple of PSA's and I also gave the infamous "Toilet Paper" speech once.
But it was music that opened doors, made me feel things, see things. Setting up--I can still pictures the stage when they completed dramuda (Drama, Music and Dance) and hanging the speakers along the back wall. And albums, the turntable. Playing records on the turntable. Picking meaningful songs--almost all Marshall's records whcih I'm guessing he still has. Although I do wonder about his sanity when disco came along...
And girls and dancing...

I see it's been quite awhile since I wrote an essay- this is due in part to saying much of what I wanted to include and also continuing the "chewing" process of making meaning, of finding thoughts and elements that occur through the long lens of now forty or more years. Snipettes arrive, swirl around and leave. The Harlem (Nancy) sisters, Paula Bachus, now a vet in Ashland, pamper campers and race relations, my career as a communitarian, ethics and the ethos of camp, field-stripping cigarettes, the Italian Joke tree, Uncle Ray-Ray, Walled-Off Hysteria, camper council, Look bars, ShowBoat, I love a parade, Junior wranglers.

And some times I find the sense of gentleness, the sense of meaningful-ness as I think not just about the hot summer days, or of the people and places that made this matter to me. Matter enough to still think about this 40 years later.

Where is Neal Rothman?

Ryan