“There are places I'll remember All my life, though some have changed Some forever, not for better Some have gone, and some remain All these places had their moments With lovers and friends, I still can recall Some are dead, and some are living In my life, I've loved them all…”(In My Life/Lennon-McCartney)
I was a counselor at Emma Farm, a Jewish Community resident camp, back in the late sixties, early seventies. The camp itself was on acres of land in the middle of nowhere, at the time, surrounded by a stream, or as Pittsburghese might say a “KRIK,” There actually was a rickety wooden bridge necessary to enter the campgrounds, almost providing a Disney Movie set kind of entrance. There were plenty of wooded areas, and the kind of ram shackled Camp Cabins one might have noticed in the movie, “Dirty Dancing.” I was a freshman in college, surviving in the days of hippies, protests, a war in Viet Nam, a government, lying about truth, and manufacturing facts to suit their purpose, but here just two hours away from Pittsburgh, for the entire summer, I was embraced by my “summer place.” ‘When the light of each summer’s day reaches its end, I’ll sit by the fire with all my new friends, a million tomorrow may never erase, the fun and the joy the beauty of my summer place.”
There were always new “kids,” from other cities hired as staff, and sharing the same habitat for eight weeks of the summer, by September’s embrace, we all became a family, not a perfect unit perhaps, (because, believe it or not most families do carry the gene for some disfunction), but we existed, coexisted and sadly sad goodbye with honest tears as we exited for whatever might come next in the Autumn. Her name was Janet, and she was two years older than me, (back in the day, I thought I was hot shit, and was also quite insecure, about this age difference.) We became friends, good friends. One day we on our day off w took a walk into the woods, where Janet spotted a very silvery pine needle, long, and alone on the branch, but shiny and as I mentioned, as if it had a silver glow. Janet was at the time “earthy-crunchy,” a term used then for (REALLY A HARD-CORE HIPPY! She walked the walk and talked the talk). Janet asked me to walk over to the branch with the lone pine needle, which upon closer inspection looked like a needle, taking my index finger placing it next to hers, she said, with a tone so full of sincerity I actually thought I was listening to God read from the Torah, “…our past lives have found us together in this life, we might not find one another, again for eons, but here we are now…” She then placed both of my fingers on the silvery pine needle and we pricked the tip of our fingers. Immediately Janet pressed her finger onto mine, and closed her eyes, as I did mine, she then said, “…no soul is old, each soul is just renewed…”
If you have read any of my blogs, or rants or rage, whatever word is necessary to describe my current angst, you know, I cannot sit idly by, biting my tongue, remaining SILENT, as a mad man’s machinations and malaise, enabled by corrupt and criminal counterparts smothers this nation and this world. Today, on Saturday, November 9, 2019, more chaos reigns and constant consequences fall from the sky as if a blizzard has enabled a new Ice Age. But now and then I must remember, Janet’s wise young philosophy and find a faith that for those of us who have a soul, the evil will die, and good might ensue. A bit of hope, I HOPE, to find release from the hideous, heinous and horrible world, in which Trump/Putin/ and the Republican Oligarch Party has presented to America. Of course, there are places to remember, and somethings we must NEVER forget!
