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46

FRIDAY: JULY 14: 1989'

A Jewish Center 'Activist'
Caps Her 35-Year Career

RICHARD PEARL

A

Staff Writer

Factory Incentives
Discounted Prices

Barry Fishman,
President

Bandalene, in dark shirt, leads Super Seniors.

sex class?" asked the
little old Jewish lady.
"Assessment
class!" repeated Ada Ban-
dalene, a little more loudly
this time, as they stood out-
side the classroom.
Again, the little old lady:
"A sex class? But will I enjoy
it?"
" 'Sure you will,' I said, and
shoved her in," joked Ban-
dalene, capping off one of the
spontaneous, funny incidents
in her long career with the
Jewish Community Center.
It is a career built around
humor — much of it inten-
tional — and a career which
will itself be capped off
Thursday.
That's when the 1989 edi-
tion of Butzel Vacation Days
— the camp for senior citizens
— closes and Bandalene of-
ficially retires as physical
education director at the Jim-
my Prentis Morris Center.
Her retirement ends 35
years with the Jewish Com-
munity Center, a period in
which Ada Bandalene turned
humor from a survival techni-
que into a teaching tool.
She worked part-time for
the Center the first 20 years
and has been JPM physical
education director the last 14.
It won't be a total retire-
ment, however. Bandalene
and husband Kal, who retired
this year as a Southfield
Public Schools administrator,
will move to West Palm
Beach, Fla., where Ada plans
to work for that Jewish
center.
Ada Uronovitz was one of
five children — three girls,
two boys — who grew up over
a kosher butcher shop near

12th and Hazelwood in
Detroit. Her father, Israel, a
Russian immigrant, was a
lineworker in the Freuhauf'
parts department. Her
mother, Freda, from Indiana,
reared the children.
Her childhood, Ada said,
was "unhappy." She had a
severe speech impediment —
she couldn't speak without
stuttering — and she was
lonely.
"If you don't belong to
anything, you find a place
where you can belong," she
said. Her place was the
Jewish Community Center at
Woodward and Holbrook
where, as a 13-year-old, she'd
walk almost daily — winter or
summer — despite the fact it
was about a two-mile round-
trip from home.
She had a boyfriend there.
He was a swimming instruc-
tor, always at the Center, and
she learned to swim. By age
19, she swam well enough to
take second in the Michigan
State AAU women's 200-yard
breaststroke. She also became
a certified water safety in-
structor that year — one of
the youngest around.
To hide her inferiority feel-
ings during those six years, "I
made fun out of my problems.
I tried to find the humor in
the serious side of life," she
said. She worked with a
speech therapist at Central
High School, but couldn't
help thinking she looked fun-
ny when she practiced "A, E,
I, 0, U," in the mirror. So
when she gave reports in
class, she would try to hide
her stuttering by popping
herself in the head. "I
automatically became 'the
funny lady.' "
Those were the survival
techniques of an unhappy

childhood. "You have to want
to survive," she said.
There also was a show
business of sorts, at Zukin's
Drug Store at 12th and
Hazelwood. She worked the
soda fountain and every Fri-
day afternoon, Ada and
Sylvia Zukin would sing and
clown in a "talent show."
Kalman Bandalene, a few
years older than Ada, was in
the audience for those
"shows." "Kal was always
watching me," Ada recalled.
"He wasn't like the other
guys — they were all wild and
crazy and he was kind of quiet
and nice. He was persistent so
I figured I'd give him a
break."
They married in 1956,
"which just shows we never
know how we'll end up," said
Ada.
The two were a team in the
summers at Lou Handler's
Camp Tamakwa. For 25
years, Kal was camp director
while Ada was waterfront
director. And Ada from
Zukin's, who polished her
pantomime, singing and dan-
cing routines at USO shows
during the Korean War, found
a way to use humor to teach
canoe safety.
Working with Omer
Stringer, Canada's foremost
canoeist, Ada wore a clown
face and a wig. "He (Omer)
did the 'do's' and I did the
'don't's' " — meaning she
taught what happens when
someone sits in either end of
an otherwise empty canoe. "I
used to fall out of the canoes
into the water and my 'hair'
would come off. The clowning
seemed to bring home the
point," she said.
She worked part-time for
the Center so that she could
work fulltime at the camp in