Stage Tears

But now it was summer. I’d spent the last ten years at Camp Mogen Av in Swan Lake, New York, and it was all I had to look forward to. Mogen Av was special, and summer to summer, it was where I grew into myself.

Despite the probability of overhyping the summer, camp did not disappoint. Until then, I had found it difficult to confide in someone about what I was going through in my head. This all changed when one afternoon I spilled everything to someone who at that point was just another counselor, but who would eventually be my shomer on my wedding day. And it wasn’t just my coworkers — the kids also made a difference. I had a bunk with representation from St. Louis, Dallas, Passaic, Brooklyn, Queens, and Westchester. They had such an impact on my life that I attended several bar mitzvahs that winter, even if it meant flying in, and in one case, the relationship was so strong, I attended his wedding over a decade later. These boys reminded me of all the things I had to be thankful for, about why the winter is not so bad, about why feeling sorry for myself was never the answer.

The highlight of the summer was being chosen as captain of Field Day (our version of Color War). As anyone who has ever attended a boys’ camp knows, Field Day is serious business. This year, something extra special happened: As the events and festivities wound to a close, the head counselor Rabbi Elimelech Chanales broke out a new song. Up there on stage, flanked by the generals and captains, he sang what was lyrically an extremely cheesy song about camp.

But the song itself was about a budding friendship between two camp friends that ends with lines that spoke directly to me: