Reunions are a funny thing. As exciting as it might be, it can also be kind of freaky, all that emotional energy mixed together from then and now in one room, for one night, after all these years.

Friday night was a good one. It was a head trip, but a good one.

Camp Komaroff as we knew it in Lake Arrowhead, CA closed in the mid 1980's. But before it did, it touched the lives of its campers and staff, including myself. Over a hundred of us came together at the Long Beach Jewish Community Center (now know as the Barbara and Ray Alpert JCC) on October 16 to feel that magic once again.

And we did.

When we started to connect about a year ago on Facebook, people posted old camp pictures and shared memories. I was so excited. I stayed up late perusing my past, remembering much that I had kind of forgotten, feeling very good.

I had a great time at the party on Friday and I have been thinking a lot about what I had hoped to get out of it and why it was so important not to miss this event.

Some of the people there remembered everybody. That was not the case for me. I was kind of embarrassed at how many people I did not recognize (and not because we have changed so much.) Some I would remember in a split second. Those were the girls who had been in my bunk year after year, the boys on whom I might have had a crush or two and some of the staff who had been high profile and made such an impact in my life at the time.

As glad as I was to see people, I realized that that was not for what I had come.

For me it was the memories, the songs and the prayers, the stories and the photos that attest to our childhoods. That's why I went, to feel those again. When I sang on Friday, I felt like a teenager again, my voice was young and filled with optimism. It's not that life is dull or gray now, but feeling my youth makes it a bit brighter.

And I had forgotten about the schtik. That was huge. Schtik is a yiddish word for what only can be described as funny little skits. We did those all the time in the dining hall at camp, dressing up crazy, developing characters over the course of the summer and teaching about being Jewish. And they did them this Friday, the same people.

That's something else that came alive for me this weekend in a way that never has before. Camp Komaroff has always been described as a "Camp for Living Judaism." I didn't even think twice about that when I was young, but now I see that that is exactly why it lives so strongly in our hearts, we came alive there. We blossomed there.

Tags: Camp Komaroff, Lake Arrowhead, Long Beach Jewish Community Center, schtik

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 2:47 pm and is filed under 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.