Camp Camp

I couldn't resist one of tonight's events of the Jewish Literary Festival. Roger Bennett was speaking about (and signing) his book, Camp Camp: Where Fantasy Island Meets Lord of the Flies at Mocha Hut on U Street. His talk was primarily commentary on a slide show, which was quite amusing.

I did spend two summers at relatively normal summer camps but, as I have mentioned before, my definitive summer camp stories involve Ein Harod, a socialist Zionist camp. I get a fair amount of email from other people who went to Ein Harod and even got an email from the counselor whose major distinction was having penned the song "There's No Ism Like Socialism."

The tidbit I am thinking about now has to do with an event called Nations Day. Each group (the boy's bunk and the girl's bunk of the same age group) had to choose a different country to portray. There were definitely costumes and a skit involved and there may have been associated food, too. One summer our bunk chose Korea. But all we associated with that country was M*A*S*H, so our costumes were Army fatigues and the casting for the skit involved considerable rivalry for the role of Hot Lips.

Okay, sing along with me now:

We are Ein Harod, we're tov me'od
Though the rain has put us in the mud

Bug juice, wakey wakey, laila tov
That's why Ein Harod is tov me'od

(For the non-Hebrew speaking reader, "tov me'od" means "very good" and "laila tov" is "goodnight." "Wakey wakey" is not Hebrew but was part of the morning "get out of bed" announcement. I believe that "bug juice" is a summer camp universal term for disgusting red fruit punch and used even at camps that don't have people reenact Israeli history by playing illegal immigration and building settlements in the woods.)

I Probably Should Show Up More Often

The necessary background here is that I have an office at my corporation's building, but I rarely go there. I spend my normal workdays at my customer's facility, where I also have an office.

Yesterday, the corporate CEO was giving her quarterly talk. This is transmitted to regional offices like ours, so I went over to watch. Afterward, I was showing my secretary some of my pictures from Madagascar, when a guy came over and started talking to her about something work related.

I knew that I had met this guy before but I could not place who he was. And, of course, I was way too embarrassed to admit that, so didn't say anything.

Which is probably a good thing. Today I realized who it was.

See, we have limited space and because most of us are rarely there we don't get offices to our lonesome. It's pretty pathetic when you don't recognize your officemate.