ALAN STAMM - CAMP LIFE
TIME OF TRANSITION
The present now
Will later be
past
Oh yes, the times
definitely were changing during our last few years at Stern Summer Camp, as
Bob sang in his 1964 anthem. And while many of us at the Catskills camp were
too young, too sheltered or too naïve to sense how Dylan, the Beatles, the
war, the civil rights movement, feminism and counter-culture forces would rock
our world, we had learned in late November of ‘63 that there wasn’t always “a
bright golden haze on the meadow,” to quote another lyric we knew back then.
I’ve been thinking
about that era as we prepare for a second reunion June 24-26, 2005, which
marks an important anniversary: Exactly 40 years ago, also near the end of
June, about eight dozen New York City area campers and counselors rode north
for our final summer in Pine Bush – though we didn’t know it’d be the last
until a “Dear Parents” letter landed in March 1966.
Little did we
imagine, in other words, how the present would soon be past.
To put the
turning-point summer of ’65 in perspective, it helps to recall events beyond
the Catskills that July and August. If this were a documentary, it’d open
with news footage from Feb. 21, 1965, when 39-year-old Malcolm X was
assassinated while speaking in the Audubon Ballroom at Broadway and 165th
Street, opposite a small park where we began and ended chartered bus rides
between Washington Heights and Pine Bush. The ballroom reopened in May 2005 as
the Malcolm X and Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Education Center.
But since I’m no Ken
Burns, you’ll have to imagine the images behind these real-world vignettes
from our last eight weeks at the sheltered setting where we’d “eat until we
burst / drink milk for our thirst / come home all tan and strong . . .”
First, some scene-setting
to sketch the backdrop for mid-1965:
q
Letters to and from home needed
a five-cent stamp, while cards cost four cents.
q
Movie theaters were showing
Ship of Fools (released that July), Doctor Zhivago (in theaters
since April) and The Sound of Music, the year’s top-grossing film and
Oscar-winer for best picture.
q
The National League won the
All-Star Game, 6-5, thanks to pitching by Juan Marichal of the Giants (MVP)
and Bob Gibson of the Cardinals, who ended the July 7 game by striking out the
Yanks’ Joe Pepitone with the tying run on second.
q
Our newest 45’s and transistor
radio tunes included I Got You Babe, Downtown, Love Potion No. 9, You’ve
Lost That Lovin’ Feeling, Mr. Tambourine Man, Mrs. Brown, Help Me Rhonda, Eve
of Destruction, Unchained Melody, Wooly Bully, I’m Telling You Now, Cara Mia
and others we may hear at the Nevele. Bobby Vinton, without whom no camp
social was complete, is on the Top 50 list with Mr. Lonely. Naturally,
Billboard’s rankings start with the Stones (Satisfaction) and Beatles (Help!)
– and include four more from the Fab Four and another by Jagger and company.
Lastly, this Motown-based writer is compelled to note that Diana Ross and The
Supremes, as they were billed by ’65, have four singles on the list.
q
The year’s best Broadway musical
was Fiddler on the Roof, which won that category’s Tony Award. The
Dick Van Dyke Show earned Emmys for its star and as best comedy.
q
Also on TV, Bonanza was the
top-rated show and Bill Cosby became the first African-American co-star of a
series, I Spy.
But that was all just fun and games, as were our
carefree days at camp. More important stuff was happening that summer 40 years
ago.
There’s a battle outside
And it’s ragin’
From whichever of New York City’s six
daily newspapers they read, our parents learned that:
q
LBJ on July 28 committed 50,000
more troops to Vietnam, boosting the U.S. force to 125,000. Monthly draft
call-ups would rise to 35,000 men, up from 17,000.
q
Two days later, Johnson signed a
bill establishing Medicare.
q
Congress on Aug. 5 passed the
Voting Rights Act, enacted into law by LBJ the next day.
q
From Aug. 11-16, rioting in the
Watts section of LA killed 34 people, injured more than 1,000 and destroyed
hundreds of buildings.
q
Johnson signed the Economic
Opportunity Act, part of his “war on poverty,” on Aug. 24.
And that’s the way it was during our break
between school years, a summer that we now know marked a dividing line between
. . . well, between pop songs like I Got You Babe and social ballads
like Eve of Destruction, as well as between attending
Stern Summer Camp and moving on to recall the oasis it provided at a time of
transition.
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’
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