What’s the song that always brings you back to those days of sun and fun?
W
hile new songs and albums emerge at a dizzying pace these days, there’s something special about the niggunim accompanying the memories of summers long past. What’s the song that always brings you back to those days of sun and fun?
The song that says “summer” to me is that catchy tune to “Hinei Mah Tov” (“Hinei mah tov, mah tov, umah naim, naim…”) originally sung by Yigal Calek’s Pirchei Yerushalayim and New York School of Jewish Song. When Ding and I spent a few summers in Camp Agudah of Toronto, we adapted this tune as the camp’s “welcome song,” and a few years later, we turned the tune into the intro to Torah Island. Decades later, it still triggers great summer memories.
I was driving up to the country, making my way to Monticello, when I ran into stand-still traffic on the Quickway. Suddenly, a station wagon pulled up alongside me, and the kids inside were pointing at me and shouting excitedly. They must have recognized me and told their father, because he opened the passenger window and signalled me to open mine.
“Are you Country Yossi?” he asked. When I admitted I was, he said his kids were big fans. I asked him how the trip was going, and he said his kids were making him “meshigah in the head.” I asked him why, and he replied that he had seven little kids in the car. “Moishe Chaim lost his kippah,” he went on to explain, “Usher Zelig spilled his drink, and Malkie said I better find a restroom quick! Yitz dropped his ice cream, and Rifky needs a tissue and Shaindy thinks she’s gonna be sick!”
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