jews d

in
the

Camp Memories

JULIE EDGAR SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

Life-shaping experiences
to bring Sea-Gull campers
together for a reunion.

ABOVE: Campers and counselors pose near the lake. Lisa
Mark Lis is seated on the left on the bench on the left.
Nancy Rivkin Winer is standing, third from the left.
TOP: In this historic photo, a lone camper stands at the
flag pole in front of the dining hall at Camp Sea-Gull.

I

n the next few weeks, we will
send our children off to camp,
hugging them until they break
free of us and disappear into the
bus. We will wave and they will
ignore us, absorbed into a happy
knot of friends and soon-to-be
friends.
I’ve done this year after year and
the ritual always leaves me weepy.
I’ll miss my child; but more than
that, I’ll miss camp, that stretch of
lazy days and dirty feet, when the
only responsibilities we had were
written in crayon on a chore wheel
tacked to a cabin wall.
Summer camp may be the time
and place where we connect most
deeply with other people. It is
where we take our first steps in
becoming our true selves — with-
out our parents there to watch —
and pick up important social and
survival skills like sharing a bunk
with a stranger, short-sheeting
beds and carving our names in the
cabin wall.
I pondered my connection to
camp during a recent planning
meeting for a Camp Sea-Gull
reunion on Sept. 23 at the lodge-
like Camp Ticonderoga in Troy.

We are hoping for the same enthu-
siasm that brought more than
300 former campers to the first
Sea-Gull reunion 10 years ago at
Joe Dumar’s Fieldhouse (owned by
Brian Siegel, a fellow Sea-Gull alum
and CEO of the Jewish Community
Center).
The evening was a blast, a
reminder that despite our aging
shells, our true selves haven’t aged
much. Fill in the same adjective
in this Mad Lib: “At camp, I was
a _____________ kid. I’m now a
______________ adult.”
We laughed until our sides hurt.
And many of us see each other all
the time, our friendships forged
on the shores of Lake Charlevoix
many years ago.
Taking up a pen to jot notes for
a possible story in the Jewish News,
I asked the women — Lisa (Mark)
Lis, Nancy (Rivkin) Winer, Lisa
(Fishman) Langnas and Wendy
Kirsch — what they remember
most about camp.
We recalled horseback riding,
the red flatbed truck with the mat-
tress that they hauled us in, the
delicious cookies at cookies-and-
milk time, the talent shows, the

“motzi” song, dressing in white for
Shabbat, lying on the athletic field
watching stars shoot across the
night sky.
There were daring midnight
raids, playing jacks on the sandy
cabin floor on rainy afternoons,
comic books, hiking the five
miles to the Horton’s Bay General
Store for candy we wouldn’t have
touched at home, Olympic Day,
diving into the salami somebody
got in a care package, plunging
into the cool turquoise of Lake
Charlevoix, listening to Crosby,
Stills, Nash & Young, Carole King,
Cat Stevens, Lou Reed and Traffic
on the counselor’s record player.
Sublime times — and I was a
short-timer with only three sum-
mers under my belt (1972-74).
“Camp is a life-changing experi-
ence,” said Lis, a full summer Sea-
Gull camper from 1970 to 1978. “It
permeates your mind and inspires
you to connect with friends
decades later.”
Wendy Kirsch, a Sea-Gull
camper (1975-81) and a staffer
(1983-88), said, “It was a little city
of just us. It’s where I had all my
firsts, good and bad.”

continued on page 14

12

June 8 • 2017

jn

