Mothers Building Character

The daughter spent her early years clinging to the back of my legs like a leech in a Pocono pond. And while I loved her dearly, shaking her loose at Mommy and Me classes and swim lessons and birthday parties at Chuck E. Cheese was getting increasingly difficult, not to mention tiresome. I would not, could not, and Lord knows, should not, raise a child who lived in my shadow.

So, I sent her away.

The summer of her seventh year, the daughter joined her cousins, Olivia and Harley, at Victory Valley, a sleep-away camp in the bowels of Pennsylvania. It was dirt cheap, an easy drive and most importantly, allowed her to be in the same cabin with Olivia, who was a year-and-a-half older. 

The fastest week in history later, families were ushered into Victory Hall for the campers’ grand finale. After hearing all about all the wheelbarrow races, scavenger hunts and nature hikes, my sister and I swelled with parental pride and dreamed about sending them for two, or three, or four weeks the following summer. 

“Would all campers who have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, please come forward to be saved.”

My sister and I nudged each other, holding our collective breaths. Our daughters remained stoically in their seats, but Harley surprised us all by barreling down the aisle for the final save of the day. 

Now, having spent every Sunday in the front pew, poking and prodding and singing Onward Christian Soldiers, my sister and I were both interested in raising faith-filled children. But our idea of religion was, and is, worlds away from a bible boot camp that dangles Jesus as a chocolate carrot. 

But, it was cheap. And, besides, camp builds character.

When my middle child was thirteen, I sent him off to a sleep-away camp in Casco, Maine. My sister’s (another sister) friend had recently renounced his job in corporate America to resurrect a camp that had lain dormant for two decades. Camp Netop was where all the cool guys had gone when we were growing up, and now Steve was bringing it back to life. Always eager to market my kids as cool, I enrolled Max for a two-week stint that inaugural season. Now, Max may be the most social of my children, but he is also the least likely to enjoy roughing it. But, I didn’t care. I was used to sacrificing my offspring to benefit others. So, we hopped in the Old Minivan and took the six-hour trek north. 

Camp Netop was pretty bare-bones that first year with an enrollment of just a few dozen boys spanning various ages. “This will be great!” I effused. “You’ll know every single person here!” But, after depositing him in a platform tent, bath house elsewhere, on a cot next to a nerdy boy strumming on a guitar, and backed away backed away slowly, I knew from the look in his eyes, this was the cruelest thing I had ever done to my jock of a son. 

As it ended up, Max adapted. He even won some sort of award for being some sort of camper of some sort of caliber that I have long since forgotten. Of his own volition, he returned the following year. And, the painted totem pole award is still sitting on his desk, twelve years later. 

Character. 

Leo, the youngest was sent away when he was six. This was another church-based camp, but way more mainstream and way less churchy. We dragged Leo’s best friend, Koree, along because neither one of them would ever have considered going alone. And, both of them flat-out refused to ever, ever go back to any camp, ever, after they were forced to partake in the polar bear swim at the crack of dawn.

My three sisters and I spent several of our childhood summers at Camp Hagan in Shawnee-on-Delaware in Pennsylvania. We wore little tan shorts and stiff white cotton tops, took swim lessons in the river, went on day trips to Bushkill Falls, sang “We’re Hagan born, we’re Hagan bred and when we die we’ll be Hagan dead,” around the campfire, heard scary stories about the Big Black Rock, purchased candy bars with pre-paid tickets from the canteen after supper, and on July 20, 1969, gathered in the dining hall around a black and white television to witness one giant leap for mankind. 

“I hated that camp,” sister Susan announced half a century later.

“Me, too,” another sister claimed.

“Me three,” I agreed.

“YOU chose to go back for one more year after the rest of stopped going!” sister Susan reminded me. “You didn’t hate it.”

“I think I did,” I said. 

But, love it or hate it, camp clearly builds character. Why else would I remember 50 years later, being blasted awake by a recorded rendition of Reveille every morning? Or being forced to complete daily chores that more often than not included cleaning latrines? Getting chewed alive by mosquitos at dusk, drinking distasteful “bug juice” to wash down unidentifiably distasteful food, being forced to partake in team-bonding (before it was a verb) activities like Christmas in July and Camp Olympics? Preparing for cabin inspections, stubbing toes, sleeping in perpetually damp sheets and being way too proud to submit to homesickness? 

I remember being jealous of Marty Conboy’s high cheekbones, Pint’s cute nickname and Jody and Jennifer's close friendship. And to this day, I wonder if eight-year-old Molly Levine was right – that I did have uncommonly tiny lips as well as uncommon and thus despised, frizzy red hair.

There is no doubt that I am a woman of character. Character strong enough to admit that sending my children to sleep-away camp had absolutely nothing to do with building character. 

This is 23

I don’t remember what I did for my 23^rd birthday, but I know for sure that I was surrounded by friends; at a party, at a bar or at someone’s parent’s beach house.Twenty-three was the year before we started the annual Poconos birthday bash with the Hearts gang, and two years after my infamous 21^st at West Virginia University, where, after kicking two kegs of Beck’s Beer, we staggered to the corner bar, snuck in the storage room, nabbed a barrel of Bud and rolled it down the street back to our house. The house that was filled to the gills with dozens and dozens of thirsty friends from many walks of life. Or as many walks of life that I had in my twenties.

I turned 23 in a different era. Michael Jordan was still just a gleam in Dean Smith's eye and his jersey number was not yet a meme. Nor was there a place for exclamatory social media posts: Happy Birthday, Dude!!! It’s your Jordan year!! And, while I truly admire the player, the person is not someone I would want my kids to aspire to be. Though, I certainly wouldn’t turn down the perks that would come along with birthing a basketball legend who wore the number 23 on his back. 

By the time Leo, my youngest, was born, I was old and tired. So old and tired, that at the tender age of 38, an arbitrary passerby remarked on how lucky I was to have such a sweetie-sweetie-pooh-pooh for a grandson. Old and tired. I had no idea. 

Leo, as the third child, has never expected as much as the others in terms of birthday presents or celebrations or attention. To be honest, by the time he was old enough to be aware, I was done with the make-your-own beaded collages and Chuck E. Cheese extravaganzas. He was lucky to get a slice of cake and and pizza in the park with the Preschels. Orchestrated not by his mother, but by my friend, Claire. 

But Leo never cared. He grew up with low hopes for high times on his birthday. He’s had to share his day with Mother’s Day three times, once with the death of his paternal grandmother, and at least twice with his own mother out of town for one good reason or another. 

Leo, whether by virtue of DNA or self-protection, wants and needs very little. One Christmas, after opening a movie camera, purchased because he didn’t want an iPad or an X-box or a ticket to Thailand, he simply said, “Mom, I really don’t need this.” Back it went to Best Buy, never to be replaced by anything but love. And maybe some soggy pasta with vodka sauce. 

Today, Leo turns 23 and I can’t help but wonder how he’ll be celebrating. Earlier this week, the family received a group text with a photo of him from somewhere in Spain. This is the first real proof that we had that he was actually on the 600-mile Camino de Santiago walk. Unless of course, one were to count the $159.00 overage charges on the phone bill. The same phone that he wasn’t going to take, but thank goodness did, because it helped navigate him through a stolen passport, credit card and money debacle. 

True, he had previously sent some photos of landscapes and wildlife and miles and miles of nothing, but he wasn't in any of them. So, for all we knew, Leo was parked on a bench in Madrid, waiting for the bulls to run by. After all, I spent much of my youth pretending to my parents to be one place when I was really in another. 

But, apparently Leo is still walking. 

He’s more than halfway through, and is still alive. And well. And turning 23. 

When I think back to all the many things I’ve done in my life that have made my mother proud (many, many things), nothing comes anywhere close to Leo’s journey. And though I wouldn’t walk a mile in his shoes, he is both an enigma and an inspiration to me.

I shake my head thinking how differently we spent our youth. I marvel at his choice of taking a pilgrimage through Spain rather than blowing his bucks on a beach in Bali. I grimace feeling that pack on his back, the blisters on his feet and the community cots on which he lays his head at night. And I smile knowing that as far as birthdays go, he’ll get what he usually gets, and for Leo, that’s more than enough. 

Still, I hope that he finds a fun friend (or six),with whom to share a bottle (or six), of wine as he kicks off his Jordan year. I hope that he knows we’re all thinking of him with love, amazed by his guts, impressed by his grit and in awe of his adventurous spirit. 

But mostly, I hope he knows that wherever he is, whatever he does, that he's got a mother (though possibly not a father) who would take 23 Leos over one Michael Jordan, any day.

Forever Young Ed

“You’re going to be surprised,” my friend, Nancy, warned me as she attempted to describe her new beau, Eddie. 

“Am I going to like him?” I asked.

“I think you will.”

Nancy, always an astute one, knew from the get-go that Eddie was the last person on earth any of us would expect her to date. Let alone stay with for over 35 years. 

When I was in my twenties, I worked at TV Guide in Radnor, Pennsylvania where I was responsible for the pseudo computer-generated layout of several editions of the magazine. Nancy was one of my best friends there. She was smart and quick and really good at her job. I admired her for her work-life balance, but mostly for the life side of it, which as you might imagine at that age, far surpassed the work side. 

We forged a group of lifelong friends, all of whom had one foot, one partner or one buddy tied to TV Guide. We spent winter weekends at Don’s house in Fishtown and summers in a rented bungalow in Brigantine. We ate dinners in cheap Italian restaurants in South Philadelphia and listened to music in dart board bars in Fairmount. We frequented Phillies’ games and Mummers' parades and celebrated birthdays at the Malley estate in the Poconos. Through it all, we played Hearts. We played a lot of Hearts. 

Like all of us, Nancy was merely biding her time at TV Guide, enjoying the friend-filled, four-day work week job where our sole aspiration was to get out before we got old. Nancy took her not-so-easy out, escaping with a broken heart in tow. She up and left us and moved to our nation’s capital. 

But, that was far from the end of our friendship. We simply added Washington, DC to our weekend adventures list.

Shortly after her move, because things move quickly when you're young, Nancy met a new guy. 

This guy was the polar opposite of the “other” one. And polar opposite of Nancy.

Nancy is an academic. She can, and often does, talk 18^th century literature like there’s no tomorrow. Not content with a simple undergraduate degree from Georgetown, she kept going and going and going until she finished her doctorate and became a highly-regarded professor of English. 

Eddie, on the other hand, was a numbers guy. 

“Are you an IDIOT?” he bellowed when I asked his advice about selling a certain blue-chip stock I had been bequeathed. "It will bounce back. It always does." 

Until, of course, it didn't.

"Are you STUPID? You should have sold it," he said.

Eddie was a New York Jew. Nancy, a Main Line Catholic. And while neither were overly zealous in their everyday lives, their opposing religious upbringings were parentally prohibitive. And so, both of their mothers died, peacefully content in their convictions that Nancy and Eddie were nothing more than just good friends. 

Eddie was casually fashionable, sporting crisp designer shirts and dry-cleaned jeans. Unlike Nancy, he would never in a million years be caught bargain-hunting in an Adams Morgan  thrift shop. Unless, maybe, and only maybe, he was in the market for a Halloween costume. 

Eddie was impulsive. We never knew when we might hear, somewhere around 2:20 am,  “Nan! We’re going. Now.”  He’d get it stuck in his craw that he was going to drive home. That night. After a Hearts tournament in Brigantine. A barbeque in Pennsylvania. Or a basketball game in Chapel Hill. He wasn’t a big drinker, and could drive for hours. In a Porsche. Or a Honda Civic. At 100 mph down Interstate 95. 

Eddie could be quite opinionated and argumentative. But Nancy, a woman of strong convictions herself, knew when to hold ‘em and knew when to fold ‘em. Many a night, she’d corner one of us in the kitchen with a conspiratorial whisper, “Sorry, we have to go. Ed’s just a little…” cranky, annoyed, tired, fill in the blank. 

But she didn’t need to apologize for Eddie. Everyone knew Eddie was a reflection of no one but himself. 

And that reflection could be stubborn. And snarky. And snappish.

Just as it was witty. And warm. And wonderful. 

Not to mention fun. Always lots and lots of fun. 

Eddie loved animals. He loved golf. He loved traveling. He loved his friends. He loved his family. And he really, really loved Nancy.

Nancy is a calming force. She has a soft and soothing voice of reason. Eddie, on the other hand, had an uncalculated crackle, most often infused with multiple exclamation points. 

“I hate you!” he’d roar when someone threw a card he didn’t like. “Not in real life. But in Hearts, I really, really hate you.”

You always knew exactly where you stood with Young Ed, as we called him with kindness.

I don’t remember the origin of the moniker, though I’m sure someone has a reasonable explanation of how the endearment came to be. I suspect it was born oxymoronically, as he was one of the elder members of our group. Or perhaps, it stuck after one of his petulant outbursts. But, I’m thinking it simply stemmed from his impish smile, his exuberant spirit and his devilish demeanor.

Keeping in character, Young Ed got himself caught up in a non-common condition that haunted the last years of his life. Far be it from him to go out with something simple. But, when he did go, he went quickly and unexpectedly. Surprising us all. 

With a lump in my throat, I remember Nancy's warning.  

“You’re going to be surprised."

“But, am I going to like him?” 

“I think you will.”

Surprised, I was, from start to finish. A more unlikely couple I couldn't imagine. And, I was always, always surprised by what came out of his mouth. And, out of his heart.  

But, did I like him?

I loved him. 

After all, he made it pretty impossible not to.