YMCA Camp, no surprise there

Ben and I are in a tentative way. We're sitting in the kitchen with the camp director from Avoda and it's pretty damn awkward. Here's a guy who has driven an hour from some camp conference near New Brunswick, NJ, and has unsuspectingly stepped onto our minefield of Ben's jewish camp aversion. But Ben is being polite, flipping through the camp yearbook, while Jeff tells me in rather joyous prose how he met his wife. We're going through the usual Jewish geography and come up with not one person we both know in NJ. As he's about to leave he tells me he's from Needham, Mass., and happens to know my old friend Wendy. Mostly he knows her husband, Jeff who apparently attended the camp. Wendy and I spent our thirties living in Brookline, Mass., frequenting the Jewish dances, only different from the pre-USY dances of my youth, now the guys were mostly nerdy and short, often harboring a lisp impediment. It was always that scene from "When Harry Met Sally," where I'd turn to Wendy in the middle of a dance with a beseeching, "let's leave." But she was much more patient, determined to marry a Jewish guy, whereas I decided it wasn't worth the headache. And she kept at it till she married Jeff. Shortly thereafter we stopped being friends. Rob and I visited once, and Jeff kept forgetting where his wallet was, as Rob paid for bagels and lox, dinner, driving us everywhere in his car. This guy was a creep. Not a good sign for Avoda. Ben looks relieved.

A few days later I reach out to Tracy, a mom from Ben's hebrew school class who just happens to be a Jewish camp consultant. Not that I knew such a job existed, but it did seem kind of serendipitous. She tells me of Surprise Lake Camp, which will be hosting a "meet the families" at our local Strawberry Fields Yogurt in the nearby town of Maplewood. That evening I coerce Ben to go, who in turn bribes his two friends who are in the basement stumming Guitar Hero. It will be free yogurt and add-ins he tells them, "fro yo for all!" Spencer finds a yarmulka that's floating around in my car and walks in as a jew. Immediately Ben and his big, ravenous friends attack the yogurt bar, and I'm feeling guilty. I see out of the corner of my eye that the cashier is weighing the yogurt and charging the camp. But then I think of the cost of camp for a month and buck up.

On the way home, Ben tells me he's thinking of Fairview Lakes, a YMCA camp in Newton, NJ. He knows a few kids from school going there and actually sounds excited to try it. I tell myself at least I won't need to look at camp photos of him sulking through Shabbat dinners. Or reading angry letters bemoaning how snobby the kids are and how they've known each other since age seven. But I'm also aware that this may be one of the last opportunities for him to connect socially to other jewish kids in such an intimate way. But it's out of my hands and maybe, at this point, that's not such a terrible thing. There's always Jewish Birthright when Ben hits college. That one is non-negotiable.

That night I e-mail Tracy and the guy from Avoda, thanking them for their time and saying that Ben has decided on a YMCA camp. I can just picture their eyes rolling and a bit of a shudder.