The photo is from August, 1953. It’s the end of the day camp season at Har Sinai Temple in Baltimore. I am 11 years old.
The camp story is one I’ve been thinking about, and remembered the photo, somewhere hidden in a box. It took 45 minutes to retrieve the photo, but it helps me to see the story.
The cast of characters is beyond my memory, but I will attempt it. I will do a left to right but it won’t do much good. I am in the top row center, as should be obvious. The two guys on my left and the three on my right will have to remain nameless; I just can’t come up with the names. It’s been 57 years!
The two adult guys on the right end are the junior councilor and what I believe to be Dave Davidson, Camp Director. This may mean, given my recent camp stories, he may have bought Sightseeing camp the next year or sold it the year before. He is the camp director, and not Rabbi Shusterman, spiritual leader of the Temple and the camp!
In row two, the man ion the end is Ed, our councilor, who seems to be about 25 years old, a bit odd for a councilor today, but these were different times. He may just look older given the styles. The next two guys are not named, but next is Allan Rehert, my best friend in those times, Arnold Posner and Steven Posner, the focus of this story, and sitting alone in a group is Steven Goldbloom, on the right.
We all went to camp in the camp bus, a commandeered yellow school bus and sang camp songs for hours as we chugged through Jewish neighborhoods all over Baltimore picking up fragile, over privileged little boys for their summer “camping” adventure. We had arts and crafts, sports and nature, a trip to a pool somewhere (not remembered), camp lunches with “bug juice” (Kool-Aid) and spiritual guidance on Fridays with Challah (Jewish ritual bread) involved.
The focus is, as I said, Steven Posner. He didn’t come to camp in the bus, he came to camp in a chauffer driven limousine.
This was 1953, and the morning focus for the councilors, was Steven’s arrival, not because of him, but they all had a shot at sitting in an air conditioned new Cadillac limousine! This was not his fault, nor was he a bad guy, he was pretty much, at that time, like the rest of us, he just had something we all only heard about.
His father, Victor Posner, was and continued to be legendary, and remained, until his death, one of the richest people in the US, always on those lists. Their family problems in later life are legendary, as I researched, and are all available using Google. I have nothing to say about this, it’s only one summer experience, and my learning, at 11 years old, how money can screw up a perfectly normal summer experience.
The primary effect of one kid being driven to camp in a limo somehow changed my life. I had a problem processing all this through the years. It just didn’t make sense to me.
In the summer of 1968 my wife and I went to dinner at a friend’s house in Catonsville, MD, and I was driving a recent model Cadillac sedan, which belonged to my in-laws. I had it at my house while they were on a trip, and we used it from time to time so it wouldn’t sit. I experienced a similar thing, which reminded me of this story, when my friend as asked me if he could have a ride in the car. “Of course”, I said, but couldn’t quite figure it out. He told me the story of his life and how poor he had been as a child, and up to that point he’d never ridden in a Cadillac.
Times change, and Cadillac’s have been replaced by big German cars, but the effect is the same.
I may never quite understand the social implications of the whole thing. I have owned a Cadillac (just once) and a big German car (just once) and it had no major affect on my life. I do understand the impact of car air conditioning (probably the main point), the chauffer (with uniform in the day) and the big new limo, but it never got to me the way it got to them those hot summer days in Baltimore in 1953.
The camp story is one I’ve been thinking about, and remembered the photo, somewhere hidden in a box. It took 45 minutes to retrieve the photo, but it helps me to see the story.
The cast of characters is beyond my memory, but I will attempt it. I will do a left to right but it won’t do much good. I am in the top row center, as should be obvious. The two guys on my left and the three on my right will have to remain nameless; I just can’t come up with the names. It’s been 57 years!
The two adult guys on the right end are the junior councilor and what I believe to be Dave Davidson, Camp Director. This may mean, given my recent camp stories, he may have bought Sightseeing camp the next year or sold it the year before. He is the camp director, and not Rabbi Shusterman, spiritual leader of the Temple and the camp!
In row two, the man ion the end is Ed, our councilor, who seems to be about 25 years old, a bit odd for a councilor today, but these were different times. He may just look older given the styles. The next two guys are not named, but next is Allan Rehert, my best friend in those times, Arnold Posner and Steven Posner, the focus of this story, and sitting alone in a group is Steven Goldbloom, on the right.
We all went to camp in the camp bus, a commandeered yellow school bus and sang camp songs for hours as we chugged through Jewish neighborhoods all over Baltimore picking up fragile, over privileged little boys for their summer “camping” adventure. We had arts and crafts, sports and nature, a trip to a pool somewhere (not remembered), camp lunches with “bug juice” (Kool-Aid) and spiritual guidance on Fridays with Challah (Jewish ritual bread) involved.
The focus is, as I said, Steven Posner. He didn’t come to camp in the bus, he came to camp in a chauffer driven limousine.
This was 1953, and the morning focus for the councilors, was Steven’s arrival, not because of him, but they all had a shot at sitting in an air conditioned new Cadillac limousine! This was not his fault, nor was he a bad guy, he was pretty much, at that time, like the rest of us, he just had something we all only heard about.
His father, Victor Posner, was and continued to be legendary, and remained, until his death, one of the richest people in the US, always on those lists. Their family problems in later life are legendary, as I researched, and are all available using Google. I have nothing to say about this, it’s only one summer experience, and my learning, at 11 years old, how money can screw up a perfectly normal summer experience.
The primary effect of one kid being driven to camp in a limo somehow changed my life. I had a problem processing all this through the years. It just didn’t make sense to me.
In the summer of 1968 my wife and I went to dinner at a friend’s house in Catonsville, MD, and I was driving a recent model Cadillac sedan, which belonged to my in-laws. I had it at my house while they were on a trip, and we used it from time to time so it wouldn’t sit. I experienced a similar thing, which reminded me of this story, when my friend as asked me if he could have a ride in the car. “Of course”, I said, but couldn’t quite figure it out. He told me the story of his life and how poor he had been as a child, and up to that point he’d never ridden in a Cadillac.
Times change, and Cadillac’s have been replaced by big German cars, but the effect is the same.
I may never quite understand the social implications of the whole thing. I have owned a Cadillac (just once) and a big German car (just once) and it had no major affect on my life. I do understand the impact of car air conditioning (probably the main point), the chauffer (with uniform in the day) and the big new limo, but it never got to me the way it got to them those hot summer days in Baltimore in 1953.
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