ELAYNE RIGGS: The Girls of Summer
The summer of 2007 is well and truly behind us now. The regular baseball season has wrapped, culminating in the promise of the playoffs and World Series, new network TV shows have debuted and returned, and October ushers in a new era for many of us. For ComicMix it means Phase II, the actual raison d’etre for this site (and I’m psyched to be sharing Wednesdays with EZ Street). For me it signals an imminent lifestyle change as the day job I’ve held for the last ten years is about to disappear, a part of my life destined to become an unpleasant memory in the very near future.
This job has taken much out of me emotionally this last decade, snipping away at little pieces of my soul and memory that I feared I’d never recover. But now that things are taking their course and I feel like I’m about to be paroled, I find many of those pieces are starting to return. Robin’s remarked that I remind him once again of the person I was when we met, the last time I was between jobs — healthier, happier, more energetic and optimistic, closer to my true self. And I’m having strange dreams that mix the past and present, where I can almost recall things that I’d thought gone forever.
The other night I dreamt I was back in college, only I was the person I am today. And for some reason, my roommate looked exactly like Sarah Silverman. (I often dream about celebs for whom I have no particular affinity in real life; the pheme of fame, as Stephen Fry calls it, seeps into my subconscious remarkably easily.) And I remarked to Sarah, in between trying to divvy up the laundry and other mundane chores, that I was impressed by all the youthful enthusiasm around me. "I remember when I used to have that kind of energy," I mused. "Heck, back when I was a day camp counselor I’d run around all the time…"
Then I woke up, thinking about day camp.
Which I haven’t done in, like, forever. But it was a big part of my summers. I went through the Ashbrook Swim Club’s day camp first as a camper, from the time my parents joined and my mom decided to be the camp nurse (made sense, as she was a school nurse the rest of the year) until 12 years old, the maximum age for campers. I learned how to play pinball in the swim club’s pavilion, including how to toggle the machine from the back to get free games; to this day I’m convinced that the effects of pinball on my wrists led to my later susceptibility to carpal tunnel syndrome. The other thing I was really good at was tetherball. I was like a four-time tetherball champion in my teens. I whacked that sucker like nobody’s business. Barehand or with a still played through. Damn, I loved tetherball.
At age 14 I got my first job, as a camp counselor in Ashbrook, caring for up to a dozen girls aged 5 or so. Through the years I took that same group of girls, more or less, every summer until they were 12. I can no longer remember any of their names. Except Elaine, for obvious reasons. She had an apple face that lit up the area, and she was lactose intolerant. But regardless of my inability to place names and faces back in my memory, I do recall that my girls were the best. The absolute best. They were joyful, energetic, strong, intelligent, musical, athletic, artistic… everything every girl could and should be. That last episode of Buffy, where all the girls suddenly found they had Slayer power? That’s what it felt like every day with my girls.
Sometimes in the evenings we’d have programs, and Mr. Singer would sing. Mr. and Mrs. Singer ran the camp. He loved his ukulele. We learned Kumbaya, all the regular camp-type songs. I always found it amusing that Mr. Singer liked to sing so much.
I’m sure I’ll start remembering more of my past as my present life changes. I want to recall camp. Ashbrook no longer exists, you see. The swim club, the pool, the cabanas, the scary woods with the path that just coincidentally led to a rival swim club — all gone now. I think they turned it into a golf course, or apartment buildings, or something equally useless to middle class suburban kids looking for comradery and cooling off, for lanyards and laughter, for sports and sunshine. Oh, there are still places like that, but they’re not like the place I almost remember. And they’ll never have my girls of summer.
Elayne Riggs is ComicMix‘s news editor, and would love to hear from anyone who remembers Ashbrook Swim Club, especially one of her girls. She knows you’re out there somewhere.
I too have very fond memories of Ashbrook Swim Club and Ashbrook Day Camp. My story is similar to yours. I started as a camper and ended up a counselor. My mother, a teacher during the year, worked in the arts and craft department of the camp. My groups each summer were 7 year old boys. My counselor summers were amongst the best of my life. Some thoughts to test your memory:"Cabana Boy to B16"The nature portion of the camp (just past the softball field) run most summers by the Singer's son David. It had a great stone pit with turtles and frogs.Mr Jiggs show once a year in the pavillion (the monkey show)shuffleboardice pops and oreos at snack timethe high dive at the pool (it seemed about a hundred feet high and the pool must have been 300 feet long)The office (dark and damp, downstairs beneath the snack bar)BTW…The Singers were Ruth and BernieWhat a great place!
Omigosh, this is the only mention I've found on the Internet of Ashbrook. I, too was a day camper at Ashbrook, and the geography of that place is indelible in my mind: the fenced-in duck pond in the center of the fenced-in camp, the creek that flowed in the deep back left-field of the softball field, the smell of paint and clay in the arts-and-crafts hut, the sharp stones covering the parking lot on the way to the swimming pool. Summer to me *was* Ashbrook.More memories:* Woodbridge Dairies grape drink* The neighboring horse stable at the entrance drive to Ashbrook – – I believe their biggest horse was named "Alabam"* The archery field on the right-field side of the camp* The younger kids' fenced-in section at the very back of the fenced-in camp. Those kids would have to make it out of two complete sets of fencing to bust out of that place!* Mrs. Varley, who ran the club office – I was the same age as her son John, and was often confused with John – – we looked a lot alike.* The kiddie pool with the spitting-fishes fountain at the center, east of the main olympic pool.* The merry-go-round type ride in the non-camp part of the club. That thing would be an insurance hazard nowadays.* Watching "Dark Shadows" on the TV in the office – – blessed air conditioning and Barnabas Collins at the same time!* The absolutely-impossible amount of french fries available from one order at the snack bar.* The metallic clang of people ascending the stairs from the snack bar to the pool. * Pondering whether or not it was safe to open the door of your cabana, as you could never be sure if yellow jackets built a nest in the slats overnight!* Stepping barefoot onto one of the ten-thousands of American Sweetgum pods. OUCH!* The incredible noise in the pavillion as summer thunderstorms rained down on the roof. Yes, usually during one of the Zippy shows. * The most-impossible task: trying to get a free time to play paddleball on one of those giant teal-green walls at the club.* The sign that never changed: "Next Saturday: the Glenn Miller Orchestra" in the pavilion. * Showing up on a weekend and hearing nothing but "Smoke on the Water" being playing loudly and badly by some local rock wannabe band.
Oh wow, yeah, the archery field. I didn't even remember that!And yeah, the rain on the pavillion. Played havoc with my pinball skills. :)Do you remember the camp nurse? That was my mom.Thanks for adding to all my great memories of the place!
I don't remember your mom, but I do remember the nurse's office was right next to Mr. Singer's office in that building-that-wasn't-the-arts-and-crafts shed. She probably treated me with Caladryl or mercurichrome at one time or another. :)It's amazing how much of that place is stored in my head. The electrical high-tension lines strung on those huge towers between Ashbrook and the rival Oakcrest swim clubs, the yearly trips to the Cranford River for canoeing, the rabbit cages next to the duck pond, filled with rabbits that liked the wild asparagus that grew near the cages; being taught Beatles song lyrics by camp counselors to sing at camp skit days… What a chunk of brain reserve is devoted to all this stuff!What years were you there? I was a regular camper from '66 to '70 (ages 6-10). I seem to recall that Ashbrook reverted to some kind of educational center in the off-season, and I heard that the place was being sold off in the mid-70's. Mr. Visco was one of the owners of Ashbrook, and there's a street now with his name on it – – it's just about where the pavillion used to be.Here's a <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=2+sandalwood+drive+edison,+nj&sll=40.603494,-74.350319&sspn=0.010198,0.019763&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=40.603494,-74.350297&spn=0.010198,0.019763&t=h&z=16&cbll=40.599977,-74.35007&panoid=uvnA2xgxrsKVDw9m7R3w-A" rel="nofollow">link to what I think is where home plate used to be on the softball field. You can still see the electric towers in the "Street View" looking west.Thanks for kicking the dust off some very old memories!