BY THE SEA Once in a great while we would take a family excursion to Atlantic City, New Jersey, which was a popular recreation spot. I remem- ber splashing in the ocean waves, digging in the sand, and playing ball. My mother would bring a big aluminum pot of hamburgers. I was always embarrassed about that for some reason. But the hamburgers were a treat.
I AM A WOMAN I was thirteen years old and at a summer camp in Long Beach, New Jersey, when I wrote to my mother that I had gotten “it.” Unfortunately my mother had no idea what I was referring to. But I had become a woman. At least I knew what “it” was so “it” wasn’t a complete shock. Separate summer camps for boys and girls were run by Jewish charitable organizations to get us poor city kids out into the country for a little while during summer vacation. My broth- er Marvin, my sister Pearl and I all attended summer camps. There was a girl at one camp named Doris Long; she was a very pretty girl who sang “Oh, Promise Me.” I still hear her beautiful voice and that romantic song floating in the summer woods. “Oh, promise me that someday you and I will take our love together to some sky.” We learned all sorts of camp songs and had a good time. Still, I remember being very homesick once and crying for so long that the other girls called the counselors, who tried to calm me down.
ATLANTIC CITY BOARDWALK, Circa 1925
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