I don’t remember all of this 100%....but all or most of my summers in the late‘70s...from 1976 to 1980, I would go to day camp in July, and sleep away camp in August…with the exception of 1980, my parents got rid of me for BOTH months…haha…for the summer of 1976, my parents sent me to the YMCA day camp in July and then the YMCA’s Camp McAllister in upstate New York for August…from 1977-1980 they sent me to the hell-hole Goddard-Riverside day camp in July and the sleep away camp in Rifton, NY in August…the day camp in July of 1976 was fun for the most part…there was a fair amount of white kids in the camp, a majority, actually…unlike Goddard-Riverside where there were like three of us…I think one year I was the only white kid…the activities almost always centered around WATER…not all the time…we would go to parks and play ball, or go to the zoo, or the ice skating rink as well, but mostly we would go to some pool or to the beach…
I was used to the beach by this time, I had been going there for years…but I was used to going to Manasquan, not the places we went…so July 1976 was the first time I went to a beach where it was not with my family and so it seemed odd…this one beach I swear it must have been on a lake…in Manasquan, you would look out and see the ocean…this one beach we went to, you could look out and see the water but then off to the side was someone’s house, their lawn, etc…seemed odd…I remember being in the water and staring at the house, trying to see what the people on the lawn were doing…while listening the Beach Boys’ covers of “Rock and Roll Music” coming out of someone’s transistor radio…the most interesting times that month were just riding on the bus…we’d all get on a yellow school bus and a lot of the time it was an hour or more drive to where we were going…so the kids would just hang out with nothing to do…one time on the bus I had some mustard packs I got from someplace and just for fun I opened it up and squeezed it out the window…then this kid from the back of the bus came forward and yelled at me because he got hit in the face with mustard lol….
There was this one white kid who used to bully me all the time, tell me what to do and threaten to beat me up…so all day I tried to avoid him and I usually was able to…we’d go on day trips in smaller groups and he was never in my group…but for those days where we just hung out inside the park, I had to live in fear of him the entire time…so each day, I was glad when camp was over…I was able to breathe a sigh of relief…no more bullying or possible bullying until the next day…other kids got bullied…this black kid named Paul used to make fun of this Chinese kid…used to make fun of his facial features and used to call him “The Great Wall of China”….there was a quiet kid by the name of Rustam…blond hair, brown-eyed kid…I thought it was a funny name I knew a kid in my building named Rusty and my older brother had dated a chick named Rusty but Rustam??...
I started at a very early age to feel…idk…a combination of sad and pissed off….DENIED…if I wanted something and couldn’t have it…especially if someone else had it…we planned lots of day trips in this camp but a lot of the time we just spent hanging out in Central Park, a couple of blocks away from the YMCA building. It was located on the northeast corner of Central Park West and 63rd Street…big, old building…it truly was a residence, there were people living there and then there was a small playroom…they had pool tables, ping pong tables, and foozball…I used to want to play those shithead games instead of ice hockey,roller hockey and basketball like the tough kids…so when there wasn’t much going on we’d play in this one section of Central Park, right inside the wall where there were a couple of baseball fields…
The onetime, I was standing near the hot dog cart that was there every day…again,feeling that combination of anger and sadness….LONGING…for some of the treats from the cart that I couldn’t have because I didn’t have the money….watching everyone else get hot dogs, sodas, and pretzels…I hated the food that the camp served us…a piece of fruit, some fruit juice, and some sort of meat sandwich (no, not the kind from Kumar visits Guantanamo Bay)…I wasn’t even a gourmet-type person yet I just hated eating the same shit every day…institutional food…prison food…I wanted a hot dog and soda! So a lot of the time I’d just sit near the cart, angry….
I must have been obvious because one time, this old man bought me a soda (they were 25 cents a piece at this time!)…it was the new Sunkist orange soda…I had heard of Sunkist orange juice before but Sunkist soda was new…and so I didn’t know what to say I took the soda and wow! I got what I wanted…I started drinking it and then halfway through I felt gross….even at this time I was aware that soda was not healthy…I don’t remember if I finished the other half of the soda out of obligation or a desire not to waste something I got for free…or if I dumped out the other half…but even at that young age I started to realize that wanting the soda and the other treats was not actually 100% because I wanted to drink the soda, or eat the candy, or consume whatever the treat was…I wanted to have these things in order to feel included…in order not to feel left out…everyone else was enjoying their hot dogs, soda, Italian ices, etc…and for me not to have them created a feeling of being denied, excluded, unworthy….and it’s funny how right away…after I got halfway through the soda and didn’t want to finish it, I knew that THAT’S what it was about…
I had two friends at that day camp I used to hang out with at this time…who knows what race they were probably a mix…black and white mix…two high-yellow type guys…one I think his name was Kevin Whitehead…the other guy was strange looking…he looked like a cartoon character…and they were always ducking into Gristede’s (supermarket) on 62nd Street and Central Park West and getting soda…they got sodas so big I KNEW I didn’t want…they would get 2-liter sodas…and I wouldn’t get jealous I thought it was kind of funny…and they didn’t get Coca-Cola or any brand names, they got Gristede’s house brand which I thought was odd…but yes, in general I got mad, or had this feeling of being left out in the cold when other people had money and things and I did not…
This was also a time where I started becoming something of a punk-ass…my “mouth writing checks that my ass can’t cash”, as they say today…I would push it, I would get in people’s face, I would provoke people to fight and then when they stood up to me I would almost always punk out…there were these two kids who were best friends, they were always hanging out together…like they were brothers…two white kids…and they were the two tallest kids in the camp…one of them, I think his name was Elliot…one of them had these geeky-type glasses…like the dudes in Weezer sometimes wear…nerd/geek glasses and I was making fun of him…and he came up to me like he was going to fight…got right up to my face…he was about 4 inches taller than me…and he took his glasses off…started looking me in the eye…and at that point I noticed he was cross-eyed…so I started making fun of him even more!!...pointing at his face “ahahah your glasses look funny and you’re cross-eyed”…
I think that I had that much confidence provoking these two (the guy’s friend was there, also) because I had my friend Billy with me…Billy was my homeboy, one of my best friends, he lived in my building as well…he was also a good fighter…and he was fearless…always willing to mix it up if you piss him off…a nice guy, and not quick to anger but if you’re a rude asshole he won’t hesitate to put you in your place…he was one of my best friends…
So I remember provoking this tall dude even more, and getting ready for a fight…but I was depending on Billy to kick both their asses or something…I don’t know what I was thinking…finally I called over to Billy to jump in, “hey let’s kick these guys’ asses”…and Billy didn’t…and I could tell right away it wasn’t because he was scared…it was because he knew I was wrong…I only half comprehended it at the time…he didn’t come to my aid and I was kind of like“wtf”…I had never kicked anyone’s ass before and I looked forward to it but now it looked like I wasn’t kicking anyone’s ass so I was confused and disappointed…at that point I sort of backed off the dude, shut up, and walked away…I could tell he didn’t want to fight either…maybe he was worried that if he hit me while I was backing off that maybe that would cause Billy to jump in…so the whole standoff ended and for a short while I was perplexed by Billy’s actions…I was pissed off at him for a little while like hey, Billy is not my friend I can’t count on him…but as dumb as I was at this time it was only a short while before I figured it out…
Don’t be a punk…don’t pick a fight with someone you know you can’t beat and then expect someone else to fight your battles for you unless that someone else is just a psycho dying to fight anyone for any reason but that was something that Billy was not…Billy used to make of this counselor guy who used to kick-scratch his leg with the other foot while walking…the kids in the camp were always misbehaving, the counselors used to have to always yell at us, lecture us, harangue us about the proper way to act…and he would say to the kids if they do this or that bad thing, then "I’m not gonna have a good time, you’re not gonna have a good time, we’re not gonna have a good time”, etc…Billy used to make fun of the dude cos he would say it all the time…about how people “are not gonna have a good time”….
For the second half of July 1976…I got sent to a smaller group of kids…I liked that very much…just like ten of us…I can’t say how much I soooooo prefer that to a large group of people…these were a bunch of kids I felt comfortable with…almost like a family…and we liked the counselor in charge of us…and I liked being on a smaller bus…it was more a feeling of a small circle of friends instead of a big mob…and at the end of each trip…for the bus ride back, we got candy…candy for the kids was part of the package at this day camp…..and so the ride from wherever we went on our day trip back to the building on 63rd street was usually the most fun part of the day, because we didn’t have to do anything…just sit there and eat our candy and look out the window….
This one counselor would tell us stories while he was driving…all these crazy stories…and he would use our names…names of us campers…for the characters in his story…I don’t know why but me and all the other kids were just thrilled to death when our name would get used…like he would be talking about some person doing all these cool things and the person’s name was Terry and it was just the greatest thrill…and the other kids loved it when their name was used…he was like the greatest guy ever to us kids…but we were a bunch of little unappreciative little bastards, lol…because we were always wanting MORE…
He would tell his story and right after he got done, we would all beg him “tell us another story!! Tell us another story”…and I remember him getting a pissed off, annoyed look…and say something like “not now, I don’t have any more, I need to concentrate on my driving”…and so it was confusing to me at first…”doesn’t he like telling us stories?”...but now I can understand how he felt…he probably put a lot of thought and effort into these stories and the little ingrates don’t appreciate it and are not happy with it they want MORE all the time…
Okay…one last story from July of 1976…by this time, I had already known a little bit about how to navigate around the upper west side of Manhattan…the streets areall numbered from north to south and there were only six avenues that ran north to south from the Hudson River to Central Park…so I knew how to get around there…so there was the upper west side from Columbus Circle up to where my apartment was on 98th Street, all of which my stomping ground, then there was the huge, vast, amazing ocean of trees, paths, roads, and ball fields that is Central Park, and then on the other side was the mystery known to me as the upper east side…it looked like Manhattan but that’s about it…I had no clue where I was when I was there…of course the streets were and are numbered but the avenues made no sense to me…
One time when my troupe was doing something onthe upper east side, me and another guy got lost from the pack…I was in full panic mode…even then, I knew…cops are our friends and after a few seconds I realized things should be fine…just find a police officer and we’ll be safe…but how will we get back to our group?....i knew that cops are not a free taxi service…were we in trouble??...I was stressed…
but the dude I was with was totally calm…I was freaked out, “how are we going to get back with them??”….and he said, “we’ll just walk back to the building and meet them there”…I was like, “huh??...walk back? How can we walk there??...we’re on the east side and the building is on the west side…you need a bus or a car to get from one side to the other”….and he said, “we’ll walk back through the park”…and we did…I just followed him…
In central to north Manhattan, there are a few large cross-streets…59th,72nd, 79th, 86th, 96th…there are IRT subway stops at each one of these streets on Broadway and Central Park West…and there are also roads that cars, buses and trucks can take that connect east side to west…I just didn’t know it at the time…and there are also sidewalks on either side of each of these roads…of course, these sidewalks next to these roads aren’t the only way to traverse Central Park…there are lots of them…but I didn’t realize there were any at this time, Central Park always seemed like a planet unto itself…or I guess I thought it would take days to try to walk it…the thought of walking it blew my mind it never occurred to me that it was possible…I suppose the entire thing was part of me developing my fascination with accomplishing things that are allegedly impossible...
So we started walking…at first I was scared…with all the cars whizzing by at 60 miles per hour….are they going to hit us??...after I realized they weren’t, it was the most amazing thing…walking across Central Park…and I made sure to remember how to do it…”I got to remember how to do this, for future use”…where to go …the walk seemed like hours…and sure enough…we finally emerged from the sidewalk and we were back on the west side…on Central Park West, and I knew where I was…totally amazing…knew how to walk through Central Park from the east side to the west side back to the YMCA and it was amazing to me….
From then on, that was my fun thing to do…and I figured out one of the many ways to do it so it was a peaceful walk through the park, and not the small sidewalk space with the traffic whizzing by…years later when I was going to the free counselor on the east side…I would spend the transportation money on a soda and a bag of Doritos and eat and drink those while walking to the counselor…and then the transportation money the counselor gave me, I would save it up a little at a time and use it to buy weed….that one mishap of the two of us getting lost resulted in a whole new world of Central Park opening up to me…it was one of my favorite places to go for the next 13 years before I moved out of New York…
