We were going to a-go-go and the devil be damned.
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One might think that drive-ins would be a big thing in the Motor City, since Detroit was the birthplace of the car culture, but I have only one memory of going to a drive-in movie. As a youngster, the whole family piled into my dad’s Imperial. He owned a Chrysler dealership and always had the newest and best cars. One even had a record player in it…in the early 60s!

We went to see the Doris Day, David Niven vehicle “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies”, a family romp about a large family (and shaggy dog) who move to the suburbs of New York to a spacious, but ramshackle house and hilarity ensues. Niven becomes a theatre critic and goes into the city often, leaving Day to manage the house and rambunctious kids.

The song became a big hit for Doris. Very catchy…I can sing it right now, a real ear worm. It was a treat for my brother and me to wear pajamas in the car and squirm in the backseat while trying to see the movie, pestering our parents, like the kids in the movie, and generally having a grand old time!

1967. The Summer of Love was the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I was going to turn sixteen at the end of August — which meant that I had been claiming to be sixteen for months. I thought I was very sophisticated and wise. Retrospect readers may have already seen the poem about my summer program at Syracuse University entitled With a Little Help From My Friends, written in response to the prompt Altered States.

I would have loved to go to San Francisco that summer, it was talked about in all the media and so many popular songs. If only I could have thought of an academic reason to go, my parents probably would have let me. It was pretty far away from New Jersey though. I had never been farther west than Michigan.

Instead I went to Syracuse to learn physics, because I didn’t have room for it in my high school schedule since I was taking both Latin and Spanish. I ended up learning a lot more about drugs than I did about physics — maybe I should have taken chemistry instead, it might have been more useful!

The first time I ever smoked marijuana was at a party in one of the Syracuse dorms. I knew how to inhale, since I already smoked cigarettes (all of the cool kids at my high school did, and I was desperately trying to be cool). So I took a toke when the joint came around without any embarrassing coughing, and learned from watching the others that I needed to hold the smoke in instead of just exhaling immediately like you would with a cigarette.

Sitting around in a circle on the floor at that party, I didn’t feel stoned, although I wasn’t sure what that would feel like anyway. I had been drunk once, in 10th grade, when I drank an entire six-pack of beer at a party. I didn’t like the way that had felt — room spinning, nausea — so I was glad I wasn’t feeling that way. I just felt incredibly happy and in love with the world. I was singing along with all the songs that were being played on the stereo. Then the song “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” started. It was so low, and s-o-o-o-o
s-l-o-w that I couldn’t believe it. Wow, I thought, I must be really wasted after all! Then I found out it was NOT the Supremes singing, but rather a group called Vanilla Fudge, four white guys from Long Island. So maybe I wasn’t that wasted, but the song was amazing! I will never forget the feeling I had listening to that song.

There were lots more parties and lots of amazing music that summer. I heard Sergeant Pepper for the first time at Syracuse. “Carrie Anne,” by the Hollies, is another song I strongly associate with that period. One of the college guys was making a short film, and he asked my roommate Amy and me to be in it. I think he had the hots for Amy. As I recall, we were both wearing little minidresses, and he filmed us walking away from the camera. Several times. The soundtrack was “Hang On Sloopy” by the McCoys. I don’t know if there was a plot to it or not.

I ended up taking a WP – withdrawal with a passing grade – in the physics course. There was no way I could have handled the final exam, I did NOT understand that class at all. It wasn’t because of the drugs, or at least not entirely. The professor seemed to assume a knowledge of calculus, and I had not had calculus yet.

The only good thing about the class was a guy named Murray, who was entering his senior year at Syracuse and drove a gold Camaro. ’67 was the first model year for the Camaro, designed to compete with the Mustang. (When the Camaro came out, the press asked Chevrolet what the name meant. They answered that it was a small, vicious animal that eats mustangs.) I thought Murray and the Camaro were both pretty exciting. He was nice to me, but nothing happened between us, possibly because he knew how young I was. I recently found him on facebook, but haven’t sent him a friend request. I don’t even know if he would recognize my name.

Back in high school for my senior year, some aspects of the summer seemed like a dream. I did keep in touch with Amy, who lived in a gorgeous brownstone on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. I would frequently take the bus in to the City, get together with her and get stoned. Many of my high school classmates were starting to discover drugs as well, but I was in the forefront. This was acknowledged by what one of the yearbook editors included as the final phrase in my yearbook write-up: “. . . spent the summer as a flower child.”

Part of my page in the yearbook

I finally got to San Francisco three years later, in the summer of 1970. I flew out there in late August, after finishing my summer job with a publishing company in Boston. I had a list of places I wanted to see. The Fillmore, City Lights Bookstore, and of course the corner of Haight and Ashbury. While it wasn’t the same as it would have been to be there in 1967, it was still great to see where the epicenter of hippie culture had been.

• * * *

Who knew that wind chimes, sunlight through stained glass, and sandalwood could open up another world, one of peace and love?
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Smokey Bear had nothing on us as we learned not only the way to build a proper setting for a campfire but also how to extinguish our campfire. No trees or animals would suffer as a result of a Girl Scout’s carelessness!
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My older brother and I were both artsy kids. We both still sing and I was a Theatre major in college. As children in Detroit, we loved to listen to classical music and I followed him around like his shadow. We both loved the same movies and shows on TV.

We looked forward to the annual live performance of “Peter Pan”, starring Mary Martin on our black and white TV. We marveled as she soared above the children and sang and “crowed” with gusto. Rick got the recording and we learned all the songs.

We had a wonderful swing set in our back yard and soon we recruited the neighbor kids (and there many, all living in a two block radius) to act out the show on the swing set. My brother was always Peter and I was Wendy. We flew from the trapeze; higher and higher, leaping off to a safe landing below, (“I’m flying, flying, flying…look at me, way up high, suddenly here am I, I’m flying”). The recruits were never as into it as Rick and I were. There was no script. Rick was the auteur. He directed as well as acted. Maybe he was a bit bossy, but it was his vision.

There were no real costumes and no record of these early summer activities. No adults came to see our performance. I am not sure we ever got our act together to get through a whole show, as the others would lose interest and stop showing up for rehearsal. But we sure had a lot of fun.

When NBC put on their live production starring Alison Williams, of “Girls” fame, a few years ago, it had been decades since I had heard any of the music, or thought about the show. During an opening scene, Mrs. Darling sings the lullaby “Tender Shepherd” to her children. From the depths of my memory, I knew every word and began to cry as I sang along. The power of that memory was so pungent and sweet for me, it overwhelmed me. For a brief moment, I was that little girl, living in Detroit, watching a wondrous production with her family, when everything was safe and less complicated. And we tried to reproduce that feeling in our own backyard.

14 years old, out of braces, in contact lenses…I had arrived! The ugly duckling had blossomed. 1967, my first summer in High School Division at the National Music Camp (now the Interlochen Arts Camp) and I thought I was BIG STUFF! I got to wear powder blue knee socks, designating HSG, no longer red socks for Intermediate Girls and with that came all sorts of freedom, including hanging out at Main Camp (with everyone) whenever I had free time.  My best friends were still in Intermediate Girls, one by choice (big fish, small pond – she got leads in Operetta that summer), the other was a grade behind, so she had no choice. One new girl came to camp, I heard a lot about her and she would become one of my closest friends. We are all still friends.

     Betsy, Valerie, Emily, Christie
               1995 reunion

That first day, after getting my uniform, I headed down to the Intermediate Division to say hi. I ran into Dude, our beloved Operetta director (for High School and Intermediate). He had known me since I was 9 years old when my older brother played Nanki-Poo in an Intermediate production of “The Mikado” in 1962. We all wanted Dude’s aprobation and admiration. He looked me over and nodded approvingly. I was on Cloud 9. I knew it would be a good summer.

We had classes on Saturdays, concerts on Sundays. Mondays were our days off (some rehearsing on Monday mornings, but cabin activities in the afternoons and fun co-ed stuff in the evenings). At the end of the first week of camp would always be “Maddy-Gras”, camp’s version of a carnival, named for the founder, Joe Maddy. The big pop song at the beginning of the summer was Scott McKenzie’s “If You’re Going to San Francisco” and the lyrics continued…”be sure to wear some flowers in your hair…summertime will be a love-in there”. I had been growing my hair for about a year, so it could honestly be called long by this point and for the carnival, I pinned crepe paper flowers in the side of my hair. We also could wear “civies”, civilian clothing, instead of our camp uniforms.

I wandered around, checking out all the sights. A handsome cello player admired my flowers. He got the allusion to the popular song and for that one night, we were a couple. His name was Bruce. I had never attracted anyone before. I was so excited that he paid attention to me. We went from booth to booth, looking at the amusing things the counselors had dreamed up for us. He took me to the Melody Freeze and bought me an ice cream cone. This was almost a real date.

There were two paths back into High School Girls Division: Shake Gate and Date Gate. Shake Gate was wide open and you passed through it if you were alone or you just wanted to say good night at the end of your date. Date Gate was more secluded. There were bushes around. You could make-out with a little privacy. I barely knew Bruce, so Date Gate wasn’t an option, but the Summer of Love got off to a lovely start for me.

Though not a Drama major, I was a fixture at the theater, doing costumes and props, hanging backstage. I became known to the teachers, so was accepted as a Drama major the following summer. I also had a great time leading the chorus in “The Mikado”. It was an out-of-body experience when, during the last class, Dude Stephenson and “Uncle” Ken Jewell, the music conductor, announced the winners of the Operetta Awards for the best leads and chorus people. I heard the name “Elizabeth Sarason” called out, but that surely wasn’t me. I was “Betsy”. Yet everyone looked at me. It seemed like minutes passed before I realized that my name had been called and I arose to claim my honor and congratulations from my respected teachers and applause from my peers in front of the audience (we had just performed “Trial by Jury”, not in costume). I felt the love.

Why my friends had to drag me to the rifle range, and why I kept coming back.
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A summer camp counselor realizes the impact he has on his charges.
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The summer before my senior year in college I worked as a counselor at a Jewish overnight camp near Ann Arbor, MI called Camp Tamarack. I was assigned to a cabin in the Pioneer Girls, the oldest girls at the camp. The group was situated a little away from the main camp. There was no electricity in the cabin, a covered area with a large trough for a sink on one side, a shower area on the other served for our clean-up. Toilets were private, but this was roughing it. This was also a time when Clairol Herbal Essence shampoo smelled floral and the bees kept trying to pollinate my hair.

My girls were 12 years old. Having been to overnight camp myself for years, I helped them adjust so they wouldn’t be homesick, tried to get them to be a cohesive group…no mean girl antics in any of my groups. Our cabins had our own dining hall and fridge. Though this was a kosher camp, none of our counselors were religious and we sneaked milk with meat (oh heavens!) I sang songs to my girls. “Jeremiah was a Bull Frog” was a favorite, but I also did “Hey Big Spender” from “Sweet Charity”. That got rave reviews.

I was a Theatre major in college, would be student teaching the next semester, so I was assigned to help the Drama counselor. She had the kids acting out stupid things, which drove me crazy. I wanted to challenge them. I had them acting out e. e. cummings poems. The Drama counselor and I did not get along. We did not put on a play during any of the three 20 day sessions. By the third session, I transferred to Arts & Crafts. I was much happier doing clay figures. I like to be appreciated.

Lenny was the head of the camp. He had been there for years and he appreciated me; a bit too much. He and Linda, the head of my division, had been an item the summer before but no longer were. She still wanted to be. I was already very seriously involved with Dan, the man I would marry a year later, but he was back in Boston. We wrote a lot, and called occasionally. I had ZERO interest in Lenny and assured Linda of that. Nevertheless, he persisted and paid me a lot of attention. I was polite, but did not return the interest and reminded everyone of my boyfriend back east.

At the beginning of the summer, I remained back in the division after lights out, writing to Dan. After a while, that grew dull. There wasn’t that much to write about night after night. I developed a friendship with Kitchen Mitch, the head of the kitchen. He, also, had been there forever. The cooks had seen him grow up and he was their special boy. He was now a wild-haired pot-head, utterly charming and lots of fun. He had a girlfriend back at Miami of Ohio and a Carmen Ghia. Because we became friends, the cooks gave me access to the large walk-in refrigerators (though I was trying to diet off 10 extra pounds, which I did).

Kitchen Mitch

I attained a magical status through my association with Mitch. After the kids were in bed and the kitchen was spotless, Mitch and his kitchen team would go driving in his sports car and get stoned. They called it “cruisin’ for burgers and broads”. I soon joined the pack; the only female allowed along. I toked up more that summer than I did the rest of my life, I am quite certain. I promised to duck down if they found any “broads”. That never became an issue. Cruising in Michigan is an art form, not unlike Southern California, and we just enjoyed driving along the open roads, listening to tunes.

I came back to my division one night, stoned out of my mind. I stood at the trough, washing my face. As I turned to look at the mirror on the wall behind me, a rustle caught my attention. I looked down and saw a huge, well-fed raccoon. “What the f**k do you want?” I’m sure the feeling was mutual. He lumbered off. I was too stoned to be rattled by the encounter.

We had a few Israeli boys as counselors too. During the third session, we held a camp carnival. That evening, various counselors performed acts. With one of the Israelis, I performed a dance number which we had choreographed earlier in the day. It was a mixture of Israeli folk dancing and modern dancing, ending with me hugging him tightly around the waist with my legs, while he twirled around, my body swinging loosely, my long hair flailing behind me. I had a tambourine with a scarf attached and wore one of my mother’s old dance costumes. We made quite a duo.

Some nights our pack, plus other counselors wound up in Mitch’s room, which held one of the few TVs at camp, and we whiled away the evening watching old movies. The summer wound down that way, Lenny getting nowhere, me enjoying the company of the kitchen crew, trying to keep my girls happy and counting the days until I could get back to Brandeis and my guy.