Camp Loyaltown; a short journey in the way-back machine

A few weeks spent at Camp Loyaltown last a lifetime.

My summer vacation 65 years ago in Hunter, New York.

This past summer one or my granddaughters went to “try-out camp.” Not the baseball kind of tryouts, but the summer camp kind. It’s a smart gimmick run by many summer camps where potential campers for the following year get to spend a couple of days at camp to see how they would do being far from folks.

Within a couple of hours of her arrival the camp had her busy zip-lining and just as quickly sent a photo of a very happy camper to her parents. Of course, they passed it on to me.

My granddaughter is eight, and her experience reminded me of my three weeks of sleepaway camp that I spent right before my 8th birthday in the summer of 1956. It was at Camp Loyaltown in Hunter, New York.

Much to my surprise, 65 years later, Camp Loyaltown still exists but unlike the Jewish-themed camp I attended, today it is, in the words of one blogger, “a camp that specially caters for people with both intellectual and developmental disabilities.”

Camp Loyaltown was created in 1948 and a July 18^th article of that year in the New York Times wrote about it.  The article headline reads, “Camp Loyaltown is dedicated in Catskills; Needy Boys Represent Many Races and Creeds.”  While the camp was to be non-sectarian, it “operated under Jewish dietary laws.”  It was to provide “a three weeks, all-expenses-paid, vacation.”  I was in 1956, I guess, “underprivileged” by someone’s standards.
Summers in Middle Village, Queens where I spent the first 12 years of my life were not exactly fun. It was always hot, and the biggest thrill of the day was when the Bungalow Bar ice cream truck made its evening trip up 75th Street where I lived. Weekends were especially brutal because my father sometimes worked on Saturday and Sunday. At least the polio vaccine had arrived, I don’t recall anyone being opposed to getting it, and we were no longer living under the cloud of that dreaded disease that spread rapidly during the summer months.

I was not involved in the decision making process about going to sleepaway camp. I do vividly remember my Aunt Ceil taking me by train from Middle Village into Manhattan to the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies building. I remember sitting in a large auditorium and then having a doctor give me a physical examination. I must have been ranked 1A because a few months later I was on my way!

Early one morning in August, my mother woke me, told me to get dressed and have breakfast because I was going to camp. My father carried a white laundry bag with my clothing down the stairs from our apartment. It was still gray outside, I hopped into my father’s Pontiac, also gray, and we headed off.

Unlike my experience getting my own kids off to summer camp, there was no conveniently located central drop off point.  We drove from Middle Village to a passenger ferry slip in Manhattan; I want to say I remember the name of the sign over the terminal saying, “B & O Railroad”, but it could have been the Erie Railroad.  In the terminal we were grouped by bunk number.  My father said goodbye and I was ready for camp.

We took the ferry to New Jersey and boarded a train. I had been on the subway in New York City before, but this was my first real train ride. In those days, seats were rattan, and there were two boys in each seat and the seats were flipped so we would face another two boys. I remember sitting by the window.

It was going to be a long ride and the camp was prepared.  At one point some counselors pulled and pushed a humongous Baby Ruth candy bar through the aisle.  They handed us a slip of paper and a pencil and asked us to write down our guess as to the number of peanuts in the candy bar.

The train ride went on and on, especially to a soon to be 8-year old kid. Suddenly there was a commotion in the aisle and counselors came through telling us there was no winner in the peanut guessing contest and then handed us a big piece of the delicious Baby Ruth. (To this day, it’s one of my favorite candy bars.)

At last, the train came to a stop. I don’t remember if we stopped in Hunter, New York or some other town that had a train station. In any event, we boarded yellow school buses (my first time on one) and headed off to Camp Loyaltown.

We passed under the camp gate and the bus dropped us off in a parking area. We were marched by our counselors up a small hill to our bunk. Can’t tell you the bunk number but it was a clapboard building with a big open room.

Marty, the counselor, told us he had to go to the office and instructed us “not to go near the lake.” Of course, as soon as he left, we went down to the lake.

The lake was not very large, but it was our lake and after taking a good look we ran back to the bunk to get yelled at by Marty for going to the lake. (The lake is still there at Camp Loyaltown but there’s a large swimming pool located nearby for campers to use. You can see it on the Web at this link to Camp Loyaltown photos.)

We were told to pick a cot and place our pillows alternately from head to toe; that way we wouldn’t spread any dreaded disease by breathing into the face of the boys on either side of us! And we were given our first instructions on how to make a bed using flat sheets and how to fold them with hospital corners. Easy-peasy.

There was a bathroom with a couple of stalls, shelves for our clothing and a shower.

For dinner, we walked up the hill to the dining room. I know it was a large room, but I don’t think it could hold the “1,000 persons” as stated in the NY Times article. Dinner was preceded by the saying of hamotzi, the customary Jewish prayer said before meals where bread was being served. After a while, I began saying the hamotzi over the microphone for the entire dining room. My Hebrew school education at the Hebrew Institute of Middle Village was paying off.

I’m not certain that we had prayer services. But one Friday night in 1992, we began to sing the lilting prayer “Yedid Nefesh,” which is customarily sung right before evening services. It was new to me that night, but as the singing started, I remembered the tune and the words. Was this a flashback to Camp Loyaltown? I just do not know.

One of the things that sticks in my mind was a poster that either sat on top of a large fireplace or was mounted on a bulletin board. It was an advertisement for a new motion picture, “Moby Dick,” starring Gregory Peck, playing at the Hunter Theatre. No, we weren’t taken to see this movie, but we did go on at least one hike. It was the day Marty told us we were going to see an inclined plane. I was excited.

After walking for a distance, Marty said “there’s the inclined plane.” I looked and didn’t see any airplane pitched into the ground at an angle. Well, I learned that Marty was not referring to a crashed airplane, but to a slope, the incline, in a hill that allows for movement up and down the hill using the principals of physics.

Inclined planes were most popularly used in New Jersey along the Morris Canal. Newark, New Jersey had a long inclined plane carrying the canal barges up and down from a point above the city to the Passaic River down below. The incline can still be seen today, but it’s now known as Raymond Boulevard!

Our days began with the sound of reveille being played over a loudspeaker. We dressed and then went to a centrally located flagpole where the flag was raised. We said the Pledge of Allegiance and sang the Star-Spangled Banner. Our evenings concluded with Taps.

After the flag raising we were off to breakfast.

Our days were filled with activities. There was baseball, soccer, and swimming, which was mandatory. This was the summer when I learned how to swim.

The lake that I mentioned was divided into three parts separated by ropes. There was what I have to call the shallow lake. It allowed us to walk into the water to mid-waist. It had a cement floor that would become slippery from algae. It was a counselor’s job to brush the cement each day to get rid of the algae. In this part of the lake, we splashed and learned how to do the “dead man’s float,” in order to alleviate our fear of going under the water. It was a fear I never had because I had been overwhelmed and submerged by large waves at Rockaway Beach many times.

To the left of the shallow area was the “deep water.” Unlike the shallow part, this area of the lake had a dock with a ladder. It was in this portion of the lake where we would be “certified” as being able to swim by taking a test—treading water for 30 seconds and not going under while swimming! I passed.

The remainder of the lake was off-limits. Visions of water moccasins danced in our heads; we didn’t realize that if there were snakes in the water, ropes wouldn’t stop them from reaching us!

There was also quiet time each day so we could write postcards home. My mother had given me pre-addressed and pre-paid post cards to write to her and my aunts. I remember lying on the bunk floor to write my postcards. Postage in those days was 3 cents for a postcard!

Then, one day catastrophe struck; I lost my Brooklyn Dodgers baseball cap.!

I think it is a given that sons (and daughters) become fans of the same baseball team as their dad. I don’t think this is a conscious decision, but one born from being taken to baseball games. Of course, your father is not going to take you to a game at the dreaded enemy team’s stadium, so, fandom follows. In my case it was the Brooklyn Dodgers which my dad rooted for. The Dodgers had won the World Series in 1955 and its fans were still flying the following year when they were in first place and what would certainly be another World Series with the hated New York Yankees.

I had left for Camp Loyaltown with my cherished Brooklyn Dodger cap and, sometime in the second week, it was gone. I have no recollection how I lost the cap. I sent a postcard home and told my mother that I had lost my cap.

The following week I received a package the size of a shoebox and when I tore off the brown wrapping paper, there, inside a shoebox, was a new Brooklyn Dodgers cap. Happy I was.

The remainder of my days at Camp Loyaltown are now a blur. But there came the day when we boarded out buses and headed for the train ride back to New York City. There was a newsletter that they gave us to bring with us. In it I was named “most talkative camper.”

The train brought us to the ferry terminal where we had departed from 3 weeks earlier, and there waiting for me was my mother and father. Marty handed my duffel bag to my father and got a $2 or $3 tip for taking such good care of me. (In 2021 dollars that would be about $20-$30.)

I had had a good summer. And six decades later, I remember it fondly.

Well, that's what I have to say. Stephen M. Flatow

The Fifth Column by Andrew Gross

I have been reading far too many non-fiction books lately.  Books about World War II battles in Europe and the Pacific, books about baseball (which I gladly add to my collection, Yogi: A Life Behind the Mask by Jon Pessah, being my latest addition) and history.

So, as I read of a famous someone's reading habits - he read fiction every night - I decided to give it a try.

As luck would  have it, my local bookstore had The Fifth Column by Andrew Gross.  It's a tale of German saboteurs in New York City in the days leading up to America's entry into World War II centered on NYC's upper east side area of Yorkville.  

There were several NYC neighborhoods that were hotbeds of pro-Germany sympathy in the 1930s including Yorkville and one in Glendale, Queens.  In fact, my father who grew up in next-door Middle Village admitted to me that they were afraid of the strength of the German Bundists who lived down the street.

Newark, New Jersey also had a pro-Nazi community but the citizens there had them differently.  The Jews and Italians of Newark formed a group called the Minutemen who went after pro-Nazi marchers with baseball bats.  Kind of put the kibosh on future marches in Newark.

Now, as to book's title, The Fifth Column, per the Britannica website definition:

Fifth column, clandestine group or faction of subversive agents who attempt to undermine a nation’s solidarity by any means at their disposal. The term is conventionally credited to Emilio Mola Vidal, a Nationalist general during the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). As four of his army columns moved on Madrid, the general referred to his militant supporters within the capital as his “fifth column,” intent on undermining the loyalist government from within.

A cardinal technique of the fifth column is the infiltration of sympathizers into the entire fabric of the nation under attack and, particularly, into positions of policy decision and national defense. From such key posts, fifth-column activists exploit the fears of a people by spreading rumours and misinformation, as well as by employing the more standard techniques of espionage and sabotage.

So, Trudi and Willie Bauer, the arch-villains of the story, are fifth columnists.

Now, I am not going to tell you more about the story, but I did notice some interesting goofs by the author and his editor(s).

I've written a small book, A Father's Story: My Fight for Justice Against Iranian Terrorism, and I have to say that the editorial process was hell.  Every fact was checked and double checked.  So, I was a bit surprised when I found a, to me, glaring factual error in The Fifth Column.

Our hero is going to make a call to someone at the US State Department in Washington, DC.  He dials the number beginning with area code "202."  Uh, there was no such thing as an area code before the 1960s. No, we had telephone exchanges, such as Davenport, Elmwood, Redwood, Twining, Butterfield (as in Butterfield 8.)  Area code 202 had not yet been invented at the time of the story!

On top of that, the editors missed another glaring boo-boo.  At one point our hero is told there will be a white Pontiac waiting for him outside the bad guy's hangout.  But  when we get to the hang out, it's a Buick!

Happy reading.

Well, that's what I have to say. 

Stephen M. Flatow

Pie in the Sky - British television scores a hit

"Pie in the Sky" - a great television show!

What a great TV show I stumbled upon while browsing through the lineup on Acorn TV.  Originally shown on the BBC1 network between March 1994 and August 1997, Pie in the Sky features Richard Griffith, a much acclaimed actor better known to Americans and Harry Potter fans around the world as Uncle Vernon Dursley.

Detective Inspector Henry Crabbe, thinking he was going to take an early retirement from the police force, and his wife Margaret sell  their home and buy a restaurant where Henry can live out his passion for cooking.  Early retirement is put on the back burner due to the machinations of his superior officer, Associate Assistant Constable Freddy Fisher, and Crabbe alternate time as chef and detective.

Pie in the Sky takes place in the fictional English county of Westershire, said to be located in South West England. This includes the also fictitious town of Middleton.

A large man, we are introduced to Henry as the consummate policeman and amateur cum-professional chef.  His wife, Margaret, is an accountant, who, as supportive as she is of Henry in his efforts, sometimes has to bring him back down to earth.

If you were puzzled by Uncle Vernon, you are going to love Henry Crabbe as he solves crimes and makes magic with his steak and kidney pies.

 I recommend Pie in the Sky.

Well, that's what I have to say. 

Stephen M. Flatow

What the heck is going on in California? Ethnic studies run amok?

The great "melting pot" that is, or should I say, was, American culture is taking a hit in California.

In Tablet, Emily Benedek writes that California is "cleansing Jews from history."

She comments on California's new Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum that was created with good intentions but seems to have gone off the rails.

She writes:

In the fall of 2016, California’s then Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law a mandate to develop an ethnic studies program for high schools in California. California’s public schools have the most ethnically diverse student body in the nation, with three-quarters of students belonging to minorities and speaking over 90 languages. Luis Alejo, the Assembly member who shepherded the bill through the 15 years required for its adoption, hailed the law, the first in the nation, as an opportunity to “give all students the opportunity to prepare for a diverse global economy, diverse university campuses and diverse workplaces,” adding, “Ethnic studies are not just for students of color.”

Elina Kaplan, a former high-tech manager who had just stepped down as senior VP of one of California’s largest affordable housing nonprofits, remembers agreeing wholeheartedly with the idea at the time. “The objective was to build bridges of understanding between people,” said Kaplan, an immigrant herself, who moved to California from the former Soviet Union with her family when she was 11. “This was as welcome as mom and apple pie. It offered students the chance to learn about the accomplishments of ethnic minorities, as well as to address issues of inequality and bigotry.”

But three years later, when the first draft of the Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) was released, Kaplan couldn’t believe what she was reading. In one sample lesson, she saw that a list of historic U.S. social movements—ones like Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Criminal Justice Reform—also included the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement for Palestine (BDS), described as a “global social movement that currently aims to establish freedom for Palestinians living under apartheid conditions.” Kaplan wondered why a foreign movement, whose target was another country, would be mischaracterized as a domestic social movement, and she was shocked that in a curriculum that would be taught to millions of students, BDS’s primary goal—the elimination of Israel—was not mentioned. Kaplan also saw that the 1948 Israel War of Independence was only referred to as the “Nakba”—“catastrophe” in Arabic—and Arabic verses included in the sample lessons were insulting and provocative to Jews.

Kaplan began calling friends. “Have you read this?” she asked, urging them to plow through the 600-page document. The language was bewildering. “Ethnic Studies is about people whose cultures, hxrstories, and social positionalities are forever changing and evolving. Thus, Ethnic Studies also examines borders, borderlands, mixtures, hybridities, nepantlas, double consciousness, and reconfigured articulations. …” This was the telltale jargon of critical race theory, a radical doctrine that has swept through academic disciplines during the last few decades.

An this is just a taste.

If you're like me living in some sort of cocoon or cave, you had to look up "hybridities, nepantlas, double consciousness, and reconfigured articulations."  It does not bode well for the students who will be subjected to this crap labeled as education, nor will it bode well for America.

The full article can be found Tablet.

Well, that's what I have to say. 

Stephen M. Flatow

When you can't say something nice, sometimes you still have to say it

When you can't say something nice, sometimes you still have to say it. Case in point - newspaper delivery by PCF Corp.  It's a nightmare!

I live in an apartment building down the Jersey Shore.  As a result, we depend on our newspaper subscriptions being timely delivered to our apartment building.  This cannot be done by a kid on a bike, so our newspapers have given PCF Corp. the contract to make those deliveries.

Unfortunately, PCF does not live up to its claim that "we’ve built a reputation for getting it right or making it right every day – accurately, safely and on time."  Now, if that was true, I would have received delivery of my newspapers on Thursday and Saturday this week.

Like businesses everywhere, PCF has a contact page.  Here's what I said today:

I live in Monmouth County, NJ; XXXX to be precise.  Your company is the delivery service for our subscriptions to the Asbury Park Press, Star-Ledger, Wall Street Journal and Jewish Press.

I wish I could say something nice about your services, but I cannot.

This week alone, we missed delivery of one paper on Thursday, and nothing was delivered yesterday.

Please don't tell me about staffing problems; if your route drivers don't show up, then your management people should be on the road making their deliveries.

I am in a service business, and if I treated my customers the way you treat your customer's customers, I'd be out of business.

Shame on you.

Stephen M. Flatow

OK, I feel better now.

Happy new year!

Well, that's what I have to say. 

Stephen M. Flatow

A shootout in Ramallah. Jews settle their differences another way. They talk.

How Jews settle their differences

Our disagreements have not boiled over into Ramallah-style gun battles. But do not assume the Jewish world is immune to lunacy.

A recent news item from Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority, caught my eye. At first glance, you might not think it can teach us much about Israeli or Jewish affairs. But it can. It seems that a nephew of Khalil Al-Sheikh, the brother of a Palestinian Authority cabinet minister, got into a personal quarrel with a member of the Palestinian security forces (the PA’s de-facto army). Determined to defend his nephew’s honor, Khalil Al-Sheikh “arrived at the scene with a group of gunmen,” according to a news report. Al-Sheikh and his gang got into a gun battle with the security forces, and Al-Sheikh ended up dead. 

Feuds? Family honor? Shoot-outs? At this point in the story, you may be wondering if you’re reading about an incident from America’s Wild West. But it didn’t end there. 

Al-Sheikh’s relatives then rampaged through downtown Ramallah, “firing into the air and at government buildings.” The news reports note that this all comes amidst “a surge in violence in recent months, including clashes between rival clans and villages.” 

Let’s see if we can translate this episode into American terms. Imagine that, say, the brother of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos showed up in downtown Washington, D.C., with a group of heavily armed friends, because his nephew was having an argument with the Capitol Hill police. In this absurd scenario, the police shot Devos’s brother dead, and other DeVos family members responded by running through the city streets, firing into the Smithsonian Institution, the Supreme Court building, and assorted trendy restaurants. And this all happened amidst a series of recent armed clashes between Republicans and Democrats, capitalists and socialists, and meat-eaters and vegetarians. 

Ridiculous? Impossible? Of course. Because reasonable, civilized people don’t settle their arguments with gunfire. Americans, like Israelis, may raise their voices and argue vigorously with each other (my granddaughter Michal once remarked that Israelis are not really mad at each other when they argue, they just talk very loudly,) but they don’t then reach for their rifles. They shake hands and move on. 

It seems that now and then, some of the Jewish community’s more vociferous pundits need to be reminded of the rules of civility. It seems that now and then, some of the Jewish community’s more vociferous pundits need to be reminded of the rules of civility. 

Stephen M. Flatow and Dani Dayan, 2016

When Dani Dayan was named Israel’s consul general in New York City four years ago, some on the Jewish left responded with unbridled hysteria. Dayan had previously chaired the Yesha Council, which represents Jewish towns that lie beyond the pre-1967 armistice lines. Passionate Jews on the left who demonize “settlers” expected Dayan to have horns, and branded him The Enemy before he even stepped foot on American shores. 

Four years have passed, and this week, as Dayan prepared to depart the U.S. after completing his service, a few voices on the left—but not enough—admitted how wrong they were to assume Dayan must be some sort of monster. 

Michael Koplow, a leader of the Labor Party-created Israel Policy Forum, tweeted: “No matter what the policy differences he has with anyone, he is unfailingly a first class mentsch and treats people with respect. Something we should all try to emulate.” 

Abe Silberstein, writing in The Forward, confessed his bewilderment that Dayan did not live up to his demonic stereotype of the Israeli diplomat. Four years ago, Silberstein urged New York Jews to “shun” Dayan. Then Silberstein discovered that Dayan is human. What a shock! “I found Ambassador Dayan to be a genial and unassuming presence who was as eager to learn my perspective as he was sharing his,” Silberstein now concedes. Thanks to Dayan’s “friendly disposition” and willingness to interact with those with whom he disagreed, he became “well-liked and respected throughout the community.” Dayan was, in short, “a mensch,” and therefore Silberstein now considers himself “among Dayan’s progressive well-wishers.” 

Kudos to Koplow and Silberstein for remembering that Jews, even those with whom they disagree, are all human and, in fact, we are all part of an extended family. I wish more people would remember that. 

There are those among us who seem to spend a lot of their time hurling mud, demanding that their critics be fired, or threatening lawsuits in order to intimidate their foes. Namecalling too often replaces civil discourse. Angry press releases and accusations of disloyalty too often substitute for calm discussion. 

Thank goodness that our disagreements have not yet boiled over into Ramallah-style gun battles. But nobody should assume that the Jewish world is immune to lunacy. We’ve all seen, in recent months, the ratcheting up of the shouting and finger-pointing on both sides of the aisle. We’ve read the long lists of grievances and strident accusations. It’s time for all of us to take a deep breath, dial back the overheated rhetoric, and remember that, at the end of the day, the alternative to Jews recognizing each other’s humanity is the madness of Ramallah. 

Well, that's what I have to say. 

Stephen M. Flatow

A Proposal for American Colleges and Universities During Covid-19 - CLOSE!

Prof. Benjamin Goldfrank had his say, "Re-opening universities will contribute to the spread of COVID-19," on the op-ed pages of the Star-Ledger about the need for New Jersey's colleges and universities to continue remote learning.

I, too, think colleges and universities should close, but I mean lock the doors, shutdown, cease to operate, for the coming school  year.

He writes,

After years of proclaiming its exceptionalism, the U.S. today distinguishes itself mainly for leading the world in cases and deaths from COVID-19. Yet our leaders – including many university presidents – continue pretending everything is fine. As a result, college faculty, staff, and students face a triple threat: a malevolently* incompetent federal government, state governments pressured to restart their economies, and anxious university administrations bringing students back to campus prematurely. Even in states like New Jersey, which managed to lower rates of transmission, reopening universities next month could have terrible consequences.

(Ed's note - he just had to get that comment in there, didn't he.)

To many in academia, American exceptionalism is a sin, something to recant at every opportunity including in what could have been a more thoughtful column on the alleged dangers of reopening schools.

In any event, I wrote a letter to the editor that did not see the light of day in either printed or on-line pages of the Star-Ledger in response to Prof. Goldfrank.  Here it:

July 29, 2020

Via E-mail to eletters@starledger.com
The Editor
The Star-Ledger
1 Star-Ledger Plaza
Newark, NJ 07102

Re Re-opening universities
Prof. Goldfrank

Dear Sir:

If re-opening colleges is the problem that Prof. Goldfrank says it is, I recommend this solution:  All universities and colleges close for the next school year.  No classes via Zoom, no webinars, no tuition, no anything.

Giving America’s college students the year off will allow them to volunteer for many worthwhile causes, the Peace Corps comes to mind, and I’m sure Star-Ledger readers could name dozens, if not hundreds, of charities here in New Jersey that could use some help.  A year of helping others is just the type of education our New Jersey boys and girls need.

With campuses closed, money will be saved on the reduction of hard costs associated with running a campus and by furloughing staff (including teaching staff.)  It will also save on the costs of defending lawsuits brought by students and parents who claim a remote education is not what they bargained for when they enrolled.

Stephen M. Flatow

You can read Prof. Goldfrank's column on-line at NJ.COM
If you have a problem viewing, let me know and I'll send a PDF file.

Well, that's what I have to say.  What do you think?