In last week's issue, I gave an account of the camp in upstate New York where I was interred with other Jewish youth over the long, hot summers. The camp had been in continuous operation since the early 1900s, and a lot of the stuff they called "tradition" had settled on the remains, much as vultures settle on a bloated, rotting carcass. These "traditions" included the inane songs and cheers, the death marches they called "hikes," the Friday night shabbos services, the Saturday night mockery of Broadway shows (Broadway is another great Jewish tradition), and, of course, as we saw in the previous episode, the weeding out of the weak.

One of the oldest traditions was the camp's directrix, who was upwards of 80 years old at the time I was there. As I still haven't received reports of her death, she must by pulling for the Guinness Book of World Records by now. She had been in one of the original groups of campers who had been brought to the upstate farm back during World War I, when New York City was no longer safe because the Germans were dropping diseased livestock from zeppelins or some shit like that. She reigned iron-fisted over every aspect of camp life, or at least she did whenever she wasn't taking a nap. She was also one of the only adults at the camp: Our counselors were all 18 or younger, and the head counselors were college students. Youth culture reigned supreme, which is to say that the kids ran the camp with the typical callous cruelty of children everywhere, of which I was personally the main target.

And boy, does cruelty take up a lot of energy. However, because a grand total of perhaps $3.82 had been spent in securing provisions for the summer (Jews being notoriously cheap), camp food was like dining at the old-age home. Nowhere else have I seen cottage cheese and Jell-O passed off as a meal. Even suffering through this haute cuisine, however, was far better than what happened when corn was served, for then we were given a lengthy speech on importance of chewing your corn THIRTY-TWO TIMES. This speech was given by our beloved Directrix, who had a podium and microphone set up at the front of the hall for this express purpose, and it never varied. Our digestion was of paramount importance. Dire consequences attended any camper who chewed any mouthful of corn less than thirty-times, including, but not limited to, tummy-ache, constipation, bloating, scurvy, and testicular cancer. Yes sir, if there was anything I learned in camp, besides that other children did not believe my fat, socially unskilled self fit to walk the same earth as them, it was that you had to chew your corn THIRTY-TWO TIMES.

The food at camp was prepared by three black migrant workers, headed by a salty old soul named Ritchie. (And by "salty," I mean that every word out of his head was "goddamn motherfucker.") The only Caucasian graduate of that school of culinary mad science, whom we nicknamed "Cowboy," didn't last long on account of his habit of talking to the food. Other staff included Leroy, who was a good ol' boy from down south who was paid to sweep and mop up after us and Walter the Gardener. We would steal Walter's tools and run away when he wasn't looking. If we got caught, though, we would have to paint rocks white with him. Pearl had an obsession with white rocks. The damn camp was lousy with 'em.

Ritchie himself had only worked his entire life, barely been to school, and made no bones about it that he had little use for soft white kids who didn't know how to work and were going to grow up and do nothing harder than sit at desks and get fat all day. It was rumored that he was actually homeless when camp wasn't in session. Since Ritchie only had three teeth left in his head, he couldn't actually eat the food he cooked (and I use the term "cooked" loosely). This made him somewhat bitter. Whenever someone asked him "What's for dinner," he'd respond, "Bacon and eggs, you goddamn motherfucker." This was highly unlikely, considering the camp was kosher, but it does give you an idea of Ritchie's mindset.

Ritchie and the other help lived in a little bungalow right out of "The Cider House Rules." Evenings, they would sit there and drink beer and smoke (occasionally cigarettes, but mostly pot). Ritchie would read the newspaper, or at least look at the pictures (since we weren't sure he could read), while the rest of the staff, most of who had been to prison at least once, worked out with weights improvised out of cinder blocks.

The cooks were forbidden to speak to the campers (GOD FORBID SOME 16-YEAR-OLD JEWISH GIRL WOULD LOSE HER VIRGINITY TO ONE OF THESE GUYS!!!) but sometimes, when I managed to escape my tormentors, I managed to join them. Ritchie made no bones about it that I was a useless little butterball—he had probably been picking cotton, slaughtering hogs, and fathering children at my age—but he tolerated my presence, possibly because he sensed I was also an outsider of sorts in that closed little society, or possibly because my cousin was the head counselor.

"Hey, kid," he asked me one day. "Whaddya wanna be when you grow up?"

"I wanna be famous," I said instantly. "I wanna be on MTV. I want people to remember me after I'm gone."

Actually, what meant was "I want everyone to love me," and I think Ritchie understood that as he dismissed my rock-star dreams with a snort. "What good'll it do you? You'll still be dead. Stupid little goddamned motherfucker."

Screw Lao Tzu. Ritchie was a philosopher if there ever was one.

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