Page 141 - WhyAsInY

PunCtuate tHis: anaWana Go to CaMP
Anawana Learn
I can’t say that Irwin was immediately shown to have been right. More tears eventuated when I was at first misassigned to Bunk 4, where my bunkmates were nine years old and picked on me. The administration, in its wisdom, very quickly moved me to Bunk 2, and once I was with my contemporaries, things started to look up. (One of my contemporaries, Eddie Goren, who became my best friend at camp for all five years that I was there, went on to become head of NFL Sports at CBS and then vice chairman of Sports at Fox. Unfortunately, I was not prescient enough to keep up with him after our last year at camp.)
Much as was the case with my experience at P.S. 193 and Hebrew School, the entire camping experience at Anawana fuses and is impos- sible to recall in a linear fashion, but there were images, events, and processes that stick with me sixty to sixty-five years later.
I learned a lot of little things over the course of the five-year Anawana experience, and some big things as well. It was at Anawana that I was taught to throw a ball correctly; to catch a pop-up; to play first base (I was a leftie, as you’ll recall), not to play second, third, or short (I was not a righty, as you’ll recall); and, ultimately, to emulate my cousin Peter’s contemporary Marty Pincus and not only judge fly balls prop- erly but actually catch them behind my back!
(Speaking of Cousin Peter: During the second summer and for three summers thereafter, he was at Anawana as a senior camper, pre- sumably charged by his mother, Aunt Rose, with the responsibility of watching after me. My cousin Johnny, Peter’s older brother, came to camp as a waiter for a summer or two—whether or not to watch after me, I’m not sure. One summer, Peter came to camp with his then good friend Arthur Rebell [sound familiar?], who was not much of an athlete but who, to the amazement of one and all, caught a soft line drive at second base to end an important Watermelon League game. Peter and Arthur’s friendship did not survive the summer, but my mother’s friend- ship, via Aunt Rose, with Sylvia Rebell, Arthur’s mother, did.)
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