Page 149 - WhyAsInY

WisH i May, WisH i MiGHt
• Frisky died one summer while I was at Starlight. My parents broke it to me in person on visiting day—and I cried uncontrollably.
• It was the habit of some teenage boys to pick on one of their peers, sometimes mercilessly, and there were campers who for some rea- son always became the victim. I was not picked on, nor did I participate in the process. I hated it. I did nothing to stop it, however, except to register disapproval.
• Laurie Phillips, a contemporary, played Lola in Damn Yankees; and I’ll never forget how she looked when she performed “Whatever Lola Wants.”
• I could not sing well enough even to be in the chorus of the musicals that my age group performed.
• We had a square dance almost every week. I still hate to square- dance.
• OneeveningwehadanintercampbasketballgamewithCampB’nai B’rith. My bunkmate and friend, Stuie Kirschenbaum, thought it amusing to wear a yarmulke when he was in the game. It was. Most amusing, and most memorable, is the time when he opted to drive to the basket and was moving so quickly that the yarmulke detached from his head and fell to the basketball floor. Without missing a beat, Stuie picked up the yarmulke, kissed it, replaced it on his head, and scored.
• Stuiehadabrother,alsocalledHowiebutknownasWhitey(hewas blond), who was Tony in the camp’s production of West Side Story. As you would have predicted, Whitey Kirschenbaum, a son of the owner of Westminster Chapels, a Jewish funeral home in Brooklyn, went on to be a member of the famous rock ’n’ roll group Jay and the Americans.
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