Always a Campfire Girl

The summer I was 12 years old, my mother packed me off to a sleep-away camp in the Poconos. It was called Timber Tops, and the camp still exists, a fourth generation family run operation in Greeley, Pennsylvania. Described as an overnight camp for girls offering an overall-activity program with an emphasis on “FUN,” the fun is posted daily on FB now with lots of wonderful pictures of girls swimming, performing, canoeing, dancing, and having campfires by starlight.

My start at Timber Tops was rocky; about 3 days into to my month-long adventure, I spent a night in the infirmary for colic. Or maybe it was food poisoning. I did not like the food or the sweltering dining hall and I hated the mandatory morning swim in a lake of freezing water. Until Timber Tops, I’d never swum in anything besides a pool or the Atlantic Ocean. I hated the uniform, which was a white tee shirt and red shorts. Can you believe there was a uniform? The second week of camp my life took a turn for the better when I landed a role in the camp play, cast as Shroeder in “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown,” which thanks to the rigorous rehearsal schedule, got me out of tennis, which I hated.

The reason my mother gave for sending me to camp was she wanted me to have a more well rounded childhood. She also had just started dating a man named Maurice, but more on him later. A friend of hers, Ruth, was sending her girls, Leslie and Barbara, to the same camp; I was friendly with both Ruth’s daughters. Another girl we knew, Wendy, was also going.

What I remember most about Camp Timber Tops was that everything happened on a schedule. There was a rotation of waterfront activities including swimming and canoeing; there was tennis, arts and crafts, theater arts, and riflery. I actually was very good at riflery. I didn’t like walking en masse to the showers and I was very grateful a toilet and a sink were inside our rough-hewn bunk house. There were 12 girls in my bunk, including Leslie and Wendy. Barbara, being a year younger, was placed in another bunk dwelling. Wendy was certain this was going to be the summer when she got her period. Her trunk was packed with Kotex.

One of the girls in my bunk was named Reisman and her family was in the pretzel business. We had pretzels at every meal. Most of the girls at camp came from lovely upper middle class Jewish homes in the Philadelphia area. Today the girls come from all over the country. On a recent video I watched on the camp’s website, one girl was from Scarsdale. Back in the 60’s, the camp was dubbed “The Mountain Camp for Girls,” and even though we lived in bunks not tents, it was pretty close to providing a wilderness camping experience. Built from scratch on the banks of Lake Selma (the wife of the couple who were the camp’s founders), and carved into the side of a mountaintop of pine trees, Timber Tops embodied the spirit of adventure.

I spent the month of August at the camp. When I returned home, my mother had married Maurice in my absence. He and I met for the first time at the train station in Philadelphia on the platform when my mother came to meet the camp train. Maurice bought me a fall (a hair piece very popular in the ‘60’s) and we all went to Bookbinder’s  Restaurant in center city for dinner. He asked me that night if I had ever considered boarding school. To this day I regret my smart-ass answer.

The takeaway from my Timber Tops experience was that camp was very good for me overall. At camp I learned water tastes so much better than the sweet soft drink they served called “bug juice.’ I learned to shoot and clean a weapon and perfected my aim. I learned about flip flops. Prior to Timber Tops, it was strictly boots or barefoot for me. From early May through late September, if I didn’t have to, I wore shoes. I didn’t even know the word ‘sandal.’ But at camp every girl wore flip flops, except for our bunk counselor whose name Leslie (but not me) still remembers, a large, soft, grouchy girl in her early 20’s who snuffled in her sleep and cursed us. I am still a reluctant flip flop wearer after being chewed out at work in my early 20’s for my footwear. I can still hear Ira Kirschenbaum, one of the bosses, saying, “The workplace is not a beach,” and let’s face it, I’m always working and when I’m not, only an idiot would wear flip flops to a stable.

The most important thing I learned at camp was independence and a sense of ‘can do.’ And being in an all-female environment at that particular time of my life was inspiring. It’s thrilling to me that the legacy of Timber Tops lives on, although I see they no longer offer riflery. But now they have horseback riding. Even better.

All About Eve

Images&Impressions magazine, June 2013

http://iandimag.epubxp.com/t/21053

Father's Day with multiple fathers

Father’s Day has always made me a little uncomfortable although I should say from the git that I like fathers, I think fathers should be honored, and I’ve got nothing against Father’s Day. And if it’s your custom to gift a new tie, or little bags of golf tees (the Pride Golf Tee Co. sells a 70 count bag for $6.99 on line), or barbecue or gardening tools to the man you call Dad, Pop, Pa, or Papa, certainly don’t let anything I’m about to say here stand in your way. It’s only that my relationship to fathers in general is highly idiosyncratic, which means that come Father’s Day I’m always left feeling confused and a little bit anxious.

The trouble began when I was 7. My dad, or my “real dad,” as I later came to call him, died 3 months before of a sudden heart attack. I remember the awkwardness of my second grade teacher when it was time for the class to make cards. That was the year the second grade curriculum dictated we make paper doily portraits and glue them to construction paper. Even after I bluntly told the teacher my father was dead and there was no one for me to give the card to, Mrs. Englehart insisted I participate. “Don’t you have a grandfather or something you can give the card to?” she said, unhelpfully, as my mother and her own father were not on speaking terms. When it came time to select what color construction paper I was supposed to glue the doily on, I insisted on black, which already was my favorite color, but just happened, unbeknownst to me (after all, I was only 7) to be the international shade of mourning. The teacher was so flustered at my choice, she sent me to the principal’s office where I sat alone in a corner, reading “Mrs. Piggle Wiggle’s Magic,” so as not to upset the other children.

My mother acquired a boyfriend shortly after, and for the next few years I dutifully, even happily, gave Father’s Day gifts to the man I called Uncle Charlie. Charlie, better known in South Jersey as “Camp Cotton,” was an attorney who had an illustrious, if brief career after World War II in Nuremberg, where he was part of a judicial commission investigating war crimes. By the mid 1960’s his law practice was handling minor criminal cases and the occasional divorce; he spent much of his time as an outspoken civil rights proponent. I adored him since he was funny and irreverent and introduced me to clams on the half shell and horses at the Atlantic City Racetrack. He was a source of endless frustration to my mother who wanted to marry him; already married 3 times, he eluded her grasp. Finally she broke up with him and moved far away; for a few more years I continued to live with him and his untidy brood of children from all his previous marriages. For Father’s Day every year I gave him a fishing lure, some of which were quite beautiful, and something he always appreciated. Charlie had a grand collection of rods and reels, which he stored by leaning them up against the walls of the dining room in the rented ramshackle mansion on Atlantic Avenue where we lived. Besides TB racing, fishing was his passion. He had a boat, a cabin cruiser called the Merry Chip, which he kept in a slip at the Atlantic City Marina (now Harrahs). I spent many summer mornings on that boat, studying handicapping tip sheets for his afternoons at the track.

My mother married a man named Maurice one summer while I was at sleep away camp. She met him and dated him and married him in just under six weeks. That was the summer I was 13. Imagine our mutual surprise when we met. They didn’t stay married long enough for me to celebrate with him a Father’s Day. My mother blamed me for the failure of their union. In hindsight, she probably was correct.

A couple of years later she met a man named Martin and before they married, they dated a whole year. During the 3 years I lived with them in an apartment in Woodbury, N.J. over a dental office, the only thing Martin wanted for Father’s Day was a bottle of Four Roses, or, in a pinch, Mateus. He had terrible taste in booze. He was an alcoholic and would basically drink anything that contained alcohol and was wet; once, on a Sunday night when the liquor stores were closed, in desperation, he sucked down mouthwash. I was pretty mean to Martin although he was unfailingly nice to me. My mother at the time was in one of her suicidal, dish throwing, obscenity-laced phases. Just about anything could set her off, including Martin’s most mundane habits. He was a cigarette smoker and she loathed cigarettes; plus he didn’t much care for food, or going out, and she loved restaurants and a night of glamour. Even though I didn’t like him, I defended him to her. One of the best things he ever did was drive around with me when I got my learner's permit. The moment we got in the car, he strapped a sleep mask around his head. Eyes fully covered, he dozed for 40 minutes as I steered his Impala around town, never commenting, never criticizing. That was great.

This year for Father’s Day I will give the father of my son the gift of lunch out in Greenwich, possibly, or maybe New Canaan, at his favorite Indian restaurant. If he's in the mood, we may tarry awhile in the men's department at Ralph Lauren’s. I haven’t asked my son what he is giving his dad for Father's Day, only that it won’t be a lace paper doily on construction paper. Bless his heart; he’s way too old for that.

Discovering the Horses of Sable Island

Sable Island is a tiny body of land located approximately 190 miles off of the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia.  For most of the year, to visit, and few do, a person must call ahead to find out if the airstrip is firm enough to land on, or if it is underwater. Nine or ten months out of the year, Sable Island is home to no more than 4 or 5 people who work for the Canadian Coast Guard’s weather station, although in the summer, with the Coast Guard’s permission only, the population swells with scientists and the occasional tourist – or photographer.

The climate on Sable Island is inhospitable. Not many species thrive save for the harbor and grey seals, and the Savannah sparrow and Arctic tern. And then there are the wild horses, protected now by the Canadian government.

Some call the Sable Island horses ponies because they are small, but in fact they are horses, hardy small equines who thrive in a tough environment.

There are about 400 of them. They eat, breed, play, and die naturally, completely free of human interference. This was not always the case; the horses are believed to originally have arrived on the island thanks to shipwrecks centuries before, and until 1960, many were rounded up to be shipped off the island to work in the coal mines of Cape Breton until the Canadian government put that to a stop.

The Sable Island horses are quite attractive. Naturally stocky and muscular, their coats are mostly dark. As a completely protected and unmanaged population, few people have ever seen them, at least until 1994 when the fashion photographer Roberto Dutesco went to the island and photographed them, and exhibited his work in a gallery in New York. In 2005 the Nova Scotian photographer Paul Illsley took pictures of them, inspiring both a Canadian stamp and coin.

Drew Doggett, a New York City based photographer also trained in fashion photography, made a name for himself in the documentary and fine art world with his images of some of the planet’s most unique and isolated indigenous cultures. He has traveled to the most isolated parts of the Himalayas as well as Ethiopia. In June 2012 he spent two weeks on Sable Island, spending every day documenting the horses he found there. On Sunday, June 23^rd from 6:00 p.m. until 8:30 p.m., an exhibit of his photographs of the Sable Island horses will be on exhibit in Bedford at Historical Hall. The event is free and open to the public. The show is hosted by Anne Alexander and her husband Carl, Bedford residents and enthusiasts of Mr. Doggett’s work.

Mr. Doggett grew up riding casually a few times a year, and has a love of horses.

“I’ve always been fascinated and drawn to them,” he said in a recent telephone interview from Colorado where he was at work on another project. “On Sable Island I wanted to focus on their form and musculature and movement and examine their relationship with their landscape,” he said. “Sable Island is undergoing several changes as well as a national park. The process for me to get there was difficult. I had to apply and be approved and charter a plane to get there and deal with the weather in the region. The beauty and the treasure the islands have to offer are worth the trip.”

Mr. Doggett said he spent every day of his time there documenting the horses and picking a direction to walk. “The horses are completely unhindered and unmanaged,” he said. “You could walk for hours on end and not see one, and then suddenly see 90 horses.”

Sable Island, he said, is often called the ‘graveyard of the Atlantic’ due to its history of shipwreck. “Using the island’s rolling, shifting dunes and abundant fog as a canvas, I sought to uncover Sable’s singular treasures and to encounter these powerful animals on their own terms.” His exhibition, entitled, “Discovering the Wild Horses of Sable Island,” tells a story of power and beauty and wild equines. “The strength of these horses is evident in their form and in their movements,” Mr. Doggett said in his artist’s statement about the work. “Depicted in these photographs is the physicality of the horses as they relate to one another within their social hierarchy, but also the progress of time. The unhindered range these horses have over the landscape mirrors the dynamism of the island itself, which is constantly being carved out and reshaped by the wind. The resulting body of work, both intimate and expansive, captures the sometimes difficult realities of the island and offers a portrait of the relationship between these horses and the environment that supports them. Although the landscape is harsh — fresh water is scarce, and bone-chilling sea winds thwart the growth of any vegetation taller than dune grass — the wild horses of Sable Island have adapted to thrive in their unusual habitat. The only land mammals on Sable, they know no fear and have no predators. Entirely unmanaged and unimpeded by humans, the wild horses of Sable Island embody a unique freedom and independence.”

The exhibit presents 48 black & white or sepia toned images, archival pigment prints, signed by the artist. Prints 18x27 and larger are limited to an edition of 500 with 25 artists proofs subject to a tiered pricing structure with prices starting at $1,000. Sizes are customizable. Frame-ready open-edition prints are also available in 8x12 and 12x18 sizes.

The Alexanders have known Mr. Doggett for several years. One of Ms. Alexander’s close friends from college is married to Mr. Doggett’s older brother. “Drew invited my husband, Carl, and me to attend one of his photography openings in Soho last Fall,” Ms. Alexander said. “Although the evening highlighted his recent trip to Ethiopia, Drew also had several photographs previewing the horses of Sable Island. Needless to say- it was amazing! We have kept in touch and thought that Bedford would be a wonderful place to feature his Sable Island collection. As we are limited with art galleries in the area, Carl and I decided to "host" an evening at Historical Hall for Drew.  We are not "horse people" but have several friends that are and thought that we could help make that connection for him. We are collectors of his work, our favorite being one of his Sable Island Horses, and we look forward to acquiring more!” she said.

Mr. Doggett has visited Bedford on numerous occasions. “My wife and I have lunched at The Bedford Post. We’re very drawn to the beauty of the area. We love the wide open spaces and the charm,” he said. “I’m very much looking forward to meeting the community at the exhibit.”

Since 2009, Mr. Doggett has incorporated a philanthropic element into his artistic pursuits with Art Cares. Thanks to this non-profit project, proceeds from the book and fine art prints of Slow Road to China have already funded all operations at a health center in rural Nepal for a year.

In 2012, the Omo collection was accepted into the Smithsonian African Art Museum’s photographic archives. Mr. Doggett’s fine art photography is on display in buildings and private collections around the world, but for one special day in Bedford, it can be seen at Historic Hall.

“Discovering the Horses of Sable Island: An exhibition at Historic Hall” takes place on Sunday, June 23^rd from 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The exhibition is free and open to the public. 

'Candelabra' recreates best of times, worst of times

Last night I watched “Behind the Candelabra,” a made-for-HBO biopic about Liberace and his seven-year romantic relationship with Scott Thorson, who was 40 years his junior. Based on the 1988 memoir by Thorson and co-writer Alex Thorliefson, the book was adapted to film by Steven Soderbergh to star Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. I was unable to watch it the night it premiered because I was too busy watching “Mad Men” and “Nurse Jackie,” two cable series that air on Sunday nights, which is, annoyingly, when all the great television happens.

Liberace, who was born in 1919, always seemed like a freak to me. The first time I saw him was on the Ed Sullivan Show in the 1960s. My mother was a big Liberace fan and eagerly tuned in whenever he appeared on any TV show, for whatever reason. (I should say here Geraldine was also in love with Charo, the singing star and wife of bandleader Xavier Cugat. The “cuchi-cuchi girl,” as she was known, was a sassy Latin sexpot/bimbo who, like Liberace, was completely flamboyant and over the top. In case you don’t remember Charo, there’s a great video of her on YouTube clowning around and dancing and singing with Dean Martin and Danny Thomas on the Dean Martin Show. “Modern Family” actress and Diet Pepsi pitchwoman Sofia Vergara, adorable as she is, is the watered-down version.)

But back to Liberace. Unlike my mother, I was not a fan. He annoyed me when he appeared in a cameo on “The Monkees” and later on an episode of “Batman” with Adam West in which he played a dual role as a concert pianist and his gangster twin. Embracing hippie culture as I did, I hated his sequined outfits and his capes and furs. His chest and hands covered in gold and diamonds looked cheesy and tasteless, while his stage presence and campiness struck me as offensive. I couldn’t watch the few times he appeared on Saturday Night Live. By then I was repulsed merely at the sound of his name, which I associated with all things phony. By the ’80s my main issue with Liberace was his refusal to acknowledge what was obvious to me, that he was a gay man. His refusal to be open about his sexual orientation seemed an insult to all the brave and out gay men I’d met in college and later working in the city who were dying of AIDS.

Right up until his death in February 1987, my mother was one of the legions of Liberace fans who believed the love of his life was Sonja Henie. My mother went to her grave herself a few months later, still believing. In the days following his death, a scandal erupted when the Riverside County coroner refuted Liberace’s physician’s report that the performer had died of heart disease, instead ordering an autopsy based on tissue samples taken from the embalmed body, which told a different story entirely: Liberace had died of complications from HIV. When the news broke, I remember my mother throwing a mini-tantrum, asking why anyone felt the need to besmirch the star’s reputation.

On Facebook, after the airing of the HBO biopic, I posed a question on my forum. I say “my forum” jokingly because, as everyone knows, FB is just one giant forum. My old writer friend Cindy from our mutual 1980s magazine days pronounced Matt Damon’s performance as Scott Thorson “brilliant” and Michael Douglas “surprisingly good in a tough role.” As did several other FB friends, Cindy loved Debbie Reynolds’ depiction of Liberace’s mother. I personally loved Rob Lowe as Dr. Jack Startz, the celebrity doctor who got Thorson started on his addiction to diet pills and other amphetamines, setting the young man on a crash course. Lowe plays Dr. Startz as a stunning dissolute in an Emmy-worthy performance.

“Behind the Candalabra” is a film one can’t soon forget. I remarked on Facebook that I really wished some of my gay friends would weigh in with their comments. For me and other heterosexuals to comment intelligently on a gay relationship that happened 35 years ago seems kind of absurd. The ’70s were heady times for everyone, especially in places like New York, Las Vegas, L.A. and San Francisco. It was the beginning of the great Coming Out. But Liberace thought it would be professional suicide to tell the truth about himself, and Thorson, who at 22 was at the forefront of a new generation, was willing to risk everything for love. Thorson was Liberace’s victim — that’s my takeaway. 

Maid of Honor or Maid of Drama

My son’s lovely girlfriend is a bridesmaid in a wedding this summer. Actually she’s more than a bridesmaid; she’s the maid of honor. Being asked to be in someone’s wedding party is supposed to be an honor, but in reality it’s always filled drama and mounting expenditures.

While attempting to give my son’s girlfriend counsel on the latest bridesmaid clash, I recalled I was a bridesmaid – not once, but four times. My freshman year at college, I was in the wedding party of Candy, a high school friend. While still in college, I was in the weddings of Beth and Carol Ann, two of my college friends. A couple of years out of grad school, I was in Amanda’s wedding. Of the four marriages, only Carol Ann’s made it.  

Depending how you feel about chick flicks and graphic body functions, you either love the movie Bridesmaid’s or you dislike it. Like everybody else, I laughed at the food poisoning scene, but overall felt bad because of all the old rotten memories the film dredged up for me.

Candy’s wedding, and I’ve changed all the brides names here for libel’s sake, was a big bawdy affair held at a popular catering hall in South Jersey. The bride’s father, now deceased, was a celebrity. He was a professional wrestler and later an actor who appeared in David Lee Roth music videos. When Candy was getting married, her dad was a big pro wrestling star. The wedding of his eldest daughter, who was all of 19, was meant to be a showcase. Because I was away at college, I missed the big pow wow at the bridal salon, and had to wear a dress they all picked without me. I completely missed the bachelorette party which took place during exam week, which made the bride upset.  At the wedding, I had to walk down the aisle with the jerkiest and most despicable of the groom’s men, and sit beside him at the wedding party table while he spent the whole evening trying to stick his hand up my dress.

For Beth’s wedding, which took place on a beach on a beach in Cape Cod, as to not upstage the bride, we were told to wear sun dresses and flip flops. Beth and her fiancé fought like cats and dogs; on the afternoon of the wedding, she marched towards the altar with her tiny hands clenched in fists. During the ceremony, one of the groom’s best friends, already inebriated, threw up. Beth’s mother, who was against the marriage, cried noisily from the start.

Carol Ann’s wedding was an eye opener because of her religion. Her family and the groom’s were Salvation Army. Until I met Carol Ann, I thought the Salvation Army to be a band of bell ringers for charity; I didn’t yet understand the organization to be a Christian denomination whose thrust and focus is offering salvation to the poor, the destitute, and the hungry. Their theology is mainstream Methodist, although the Army has its own distinctive practices. Carol Ann’s wedding was proscribed going in. There was no conversation regarding what the wedding party would wear. Someone in the Army made our dresses; hooded, voluminous, long sleeved slate blue tunics that dropped to the floor, tied at the waist with braided rope. And I do mean rope. It was hemp. The dress was really hard to walk in, as there weren’t even side slits. Another bridesmaid joked we looked like monks. There was no liquor at the wedding which peeved me since I’d just turned 21, and no dancing either. The Salvation Army band played songs, but they were all hymns.

Amanda’s wedding in San Francisco was a class act. The wedding was held in The Sir Francis Drake Hotel, which is gorgeous. Because I was working in New York City slaving away at a magazine, once again I missed out on the dress selection and most of the fittings. Three days before the wedding, I flew out to the coast to be immersed in a whirlwind of pre-wedding activities, including an outing to Fisherman’s Wharf. We also had tea at The Ritz and rode a cable car. In between manicure and hair appointments, I was given the job of individually wrapping 250 handmade chocolate truffles to be used as place settings, and bullying Amanda’s cleaning person into ironing Amanda’s honeymoon wardrobe and packing it. The woman, who clearly disliked Amanda, was loath to do it. Amanda yelled at me. “Evie,” she said. “You just don’t know how to talk to servants.”

The piece de resistance to being in Amanda’s wedding was the expensive, ugly bridesmaid’s dress, which was apricot silk with puffed sleeves and a high neck. In 1982, it cost me over $500. At the reception afterwards, I inadvertently let it slip to Amanda’s very WASP-y new sister- in-law a piece of information of which the family was not aware. “Amanda is Jewish?” she said. “How curious. She never said a word.” I was so freaked out by this exchange that my stomach turned to knots. The minute the reception was over, I rushed upstairs to my hotel room and tore off the dress, which I deposited in the trash. In the morning I was on the first flight out. Amanda and I didn’t speak again until a few years later when she told me she was divorcing.

Let that be a lesson to all you future bridesmaids. Being in a wedding sounds fun. Until it isn’t. 

Yes, you can resume intimacy after a devastating illness

http://www.thirdage.com/sex/your-sex-life-after-illness