The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

       

The late Allan Sherman R.I.P. and his famous comedic song about camp. Road signs pointing the way to Equinunk and a view of the main campus.

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah.

This week The Five Towns has seen a large exodus of our young people. No, they’re thank God not off to war or anything terrible – quite the opposite. All week long, anxious and relieved parents have been trundling their kids off to sleep away camp.

Anxious because for many parents this is their first extended separation from their kids and there is a element of post-partum depression especially for the first child. Anxious also because camp these days costs a fortune, or at least it seems to relative to the old days. Relieved because for many parents they finally get a break from the rigors and stresses of raising good kids and have passed these responsibilities off for a time to the camp professionals. Relieved also because some parents actually get some alone time as a couple to rediscover one another (for better or worse).

Those off to enjoy the fresh mountain air range from five to 21 whether as campers or counselors. My next door neighbor’s teenage son just headed out for four weeks as a lifeguard (I didn’t know he could even swim) and I have a niece who is experiencing her first summer as a C.I.T. and discovered much to her shock, horror and chagrin that working at camp bears no resemblance whatsoever to being a paying camper. But this will probably be good for her character development. A bunch of other family, neighbors and friends’ kids have also been loaded onto buses or were driven up to the Poconos or Catskills.

I freely admit to a case of “camp envy.” I wish I were headed off to camp too. They say that “youth is wasted on the young,” Well, not for me anyway. I really enjoyed being young and very much appreciated the many fun things I got to do including camp.

When I was a kid back in what are now deemed the analog Paleolithic ages of the 60s and 70s, sleep away camp was a whole two month experience, not four or six weeks. We didn’t have access to phones or email. Communication with the parents consisted of the daily three-line letters from my father (where he said next to nothing but wanted me to get a letter every day anyway) and the once or twice a week opuses from my mother, who told me everything often in excruciating detail. There were visiting days where chips, candy and the coveted kosher salamis appeared. We were awash in parental food and it amazes me to this day that raccoons, squirrels and field mice didn’t feast on all these provisions we stuffed into outdoor cubbies.

My lifelong love of sports comes from camp. A lot of kids in our area now go to camps heavy on religious and/or ideological orientations. Some go to specialty or cultural camps. I went to a “jock camp,” meaning camp was all about playing ball, morning, noon and night with some lakefront activities like sailing and waterskiing thrown in. My love of sailing and boating also hail from camp. 

Camp Equinunk in Wayne County, Pennsylvania was where I spent the majority of my camping years. This was (and still is) a place full of Jews, but it wasn’t a Jewish camp. The extent of Jewishness there were the 20 minute Friday night services and the quick prayer over bread before each meal. This was (and still is) a place steeped in traditions that span nearly a century. Extended families of cousins went there and it wasn’t unusual for your bunkmate to be a third generation camper.

Never a “natural athlete” or gifted, I became a solid “B-level” player by virtue of the patient instruction and attention of a lot of great counselors. The two who are foremost in my mind were Jon Kigner and Henny Goldman. Kigner (or “Kig” as we called him) was my counselor for two consecutive summers. All my bunkmates flat out loved him and we expressed this by cheering him on in the mess hall and building a constituency to propel him to color war chief within a few years of his arrival at camp, which was no mean feat as Kig had never been a camper there. Kig taught me how to hit a baseball well, and more significantly, how to place and aim the ball to find the gaps and holes in the field which is a skill I still retain to this day for which I’m most grateful.

Henny was the Head Counselor and had been so for decades before my arrival there in the summer of ’69. He was a high school football coach in Brooklyn and could best be compared to the Burgess Meredith character in “Rocky.” Rough, gruff and tough on the outside he was a sensitive and warm guy on the inside who loved the kids and really cared about them. He was a paradigm of the early 20^th Century guy – a man’s man who brooked no baloney and was all about imparting character to make a man out of you. Legions and generations of kids loved him as well. He always called me (or shouted at me) by my last name (never my first) but you knew it was out of affection.

Aside from being able to decently play just about any sport, camp also taught me about sportsmanship – how to win graciously and how to accept defeat and come back from it; how to treat teammates and opponents and even how to accept authority be it in the form of the umpire or your counselors. You learned how to live apart from your parents and co-exist in a group environment and deep friendships were formed. You learned about group loyalty and fighting for a cause in color war and inter-camp games (and how Luden’s and Dr. Smith’s cough drops could ameliorate a sore throat from all the shouting and cheering) and you learned patriotism at the morning and evening flagpole ceremonies.

The late Alan Sherman had a monster hit on radio in the 60s with his song lampooning sleep away camp called “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” which in the space of just a few minutes hilariously encapsulates the entire gamut of camp experiences and emotions. You can hear it on YouTube. Still as funny as ever. Everything seemed hyper real, hyper new and hyper important as a kid and it are those sensations and emotions that seem so remote all these years later. But on a week when we see so many board the camp buses it brings us back again to those days and engenders wisps of nostalgia for the carefree and privileged childhoods so many of us were afforded by generous parents who surely worked hard and sacrificed greatly to provide us with those treasured experiences and wonderful memories.

The Zeitgeist

Bachmann for President?

On Sunday, three-term Rep. Michele Bachmann declared her candidacy for President of the United States. She is now second in nationwide polls among likely Republican primary voters and tied with Mitt Romney in Iowa. I think she's going to have a very tough time of it, first, because she's a woman and women often have to be twice as smart and twice as good to get just half the respect as men; Second because of some unfavorable comparisons with Sarah Palin in that Bachmann does sometimes have silly slips of the tongue that come from either flat-out mistakes or misinformation; Third, she may not be able to raise enough money to beat Obama and fourth, she may not have positions enough towards the center to attract Independent voters who will certainly swing the general election one way or the other. 

But, I give her a lot of respect for tossing her hat into the ring. It makes the race more interesting and is an advancement for women in politics and government, which is in and of itself a good thing. Problem is that much of the mainstream media derides and attacks most women who are not liberal Democrats, so often GOP women are operating with even bigger hurdles to overcome.

On the issue of Israel, Bachmann is 100 percent rock solid. See her brief Israel video below. With friends like this in Congress, Israelis can sleep a bit more securely at night and that is also a very good thing.

The Zeitgeist with Howard Barbanel

       

Some men have Sugar Baby fantasies but what normal guys want is something like Donna Reed from "It's A Wonderful Life," and maybe some home cooking, although that's optional.

WHAT MEN WANT

Most of my male friends are married. That, as you would expect is probably the normal state of affairs for a 52 year-old. Many of these long-time married guys have no end of ribald bacchanalian fantasies of what my now single life must be like (and what theirs might be like were they unattached). I get peppered with questions about all the supposed legions of young hotties I must be surrounded with, harem or Hefner-style and all the jet-set parties I surely am attending.

There is a delusional vision on the part of many married guys that there is an ocean of centerfold-worthy 25 year-olds just panting and waiting with baited breath for their imminent arrival; that by virtue of their incredible middle-aged manliness, professional accomplishments and Amex Platinum Cards that Aphrodite herself is waiting in the wings. Al Bundy’s improbable imaginings sprung to life.

In earnest fashion, I try and dispel these feverish dreams so as to make them realize that no matter how imperfect their marriages are (and all marriages are by definition imperfect) they’re probably a damn-sight better off sticking with the devil they know, rather than the devil they don’t because divorced life in middle age is not the heaven on earth they think it may be.

First the 25 year-olds: They’re not waiting around even for such reasonably well-preserved specimens as myself. Not the nice, normal, well-adjusted sweet ones anyway. No normal, decent twenty-somethings are interested in geezers on the other side of the big 5-0 (or even of the 4-5). They, naturally, want to meet a nice guy within 10 years of their own age, as they should. Going to parties, clubs or events and trying to hit on these young women is skeezy and unseemly, sort of like the verse from Jethro Tull, “eyeing little girls with bad intent.”

You can get that near-magazine exterior quality girl but it involves money, and a lot of it. For plunking down the Black, Plum or Platinum you can treat yourself to a chimera and a mirage for a short time but you best believe that none of these gold diggers are really into you for you – it’s just a short term lease with no pretense of love that most normal men will become bored and/or disgusted with quickly if they even go this route at all. These aren’t the women you’ll be bringing to the annual synagogue dinner.

One thing is absolutely true however – it is a man’s world in terms of dating at this age. There is a never-ending stream of dates, but rather than some nirvana, in my view it is tedious. I’ve only been at this for 14 months now but it feels like being trapped in the movie “Groundhog Day,” where every day repeats itself on an endless loop. It’s the same first and second dates over and over and over again.

Women north of the big 3-5 tend towards being jaded, burnt-out, filled with a measure of bitterness and ennui. The never-marrieds often have an attitude of “well, I’ve waited this long to get married and because of that that, I’m not compromising on my list of requirements in a potential spouse,” as though this were some kind of singles endurance contest. Things as trivial as the way one cuts his broccoli (or even if one likes broccoli) can rule you out of the running in a nanosecond. You would think that approaching one’s biological point of no return would push women in the opposite direction, i.e., “I’ve waited this long and maybe I shouldn’t have, so I’m going to be more flexible in pursuit of a potential mate,” but you would be wrong, they actually get more obstinate in holding on to their lists and sense of entitlements, paradoxically in opposition to their best interests. Some of these women really don’t want to get married but it’s socially unacceptable to say such a thing, so by erecting insurmountable walls and unachievable qualifications they give themselves an out.

Many of the divorcees, as I’ve written about earlier, have an immediate presumption of guilt, or original sin towards the men they meet – you’re guilty until proven innocent and you’ll have to work real hard to prove to them you’re not a dog. Their ex-husband was a pig and all of mankind will have porcine qualities until demonstrated otherwise.

At most dates I’m subjected to a CIA-worthy interrogation just short of waterboarding where every minute aspect of my life, goals, values, interests, dating history and financial status is scrutinized like ancient Roman priests examining the entrails of sacrificial goats and lambs for signs from the gods. There is precious little just hanging out and enjoying oneself for its own sake because for these women time is precious and time is money. Hence, my tedium.

Most older single women have no sense of what men want (and often they don’t care). So here it is – the big secret – what normal guys want is just someone to be nice to them. That’s it. They don’t care if you’re a rocket scientist or a waitress. They don’t care if you have money or not. Most nice guys marry the woman who was the nicest to them. A little nurturing and empathy thrown in also doesn’t hurt. Food also helps but its not mandatory. It’s really not much more complicated than that. But over-complicating things will turn men off and send them running.

I probably have a more jaundiced view of the dating scene than many men my age owing to the fact that unlike some guys who had a midlife crisis and ran off with the secretary, the stripper, the Twitter buddy or the neighbor, I didn’t want to be here and harbored no desires to chase skirt.

Some women ask me what I want. “Dinner,” I say. “Dinner??” Yeah, just the normal humdrum every day ritual of coming home and having dinner with the same person every evening and having a best friend, someone who actually cares how your day went and who has your back in challenging times. I can’t tell you how many single women have told me this year that that sounds utterly claustrophobic, how it impinges on their need for “space” and “independence.” So therein lies the rub, marriage (a good one anyway) isn’t a part time gig that’s all about you. It’s a full time engagement that requires giving of oneself and opening one’s heart to others. Until a lot of these ladies change and start seeing the world this way, they’ll remain on the never-ending dating carousel, conducting their interminable interrogations which impede intimacy and obstruct the attainment of happiness.