by joshua brandt
correspondent
The sturm und drang of Lawrence Hyman’s youth have formed the grist of many adolescent misadventures: Ruffians. Extreme heat. Mosquitoes.
But if the aforementioned plagues seem straight out of William Golding’s “Lord of the Flies,” Hyman experienced them in a much more civilized venue — Jewish overnight camps.
But Hyman had a secret weapon that none of the protagonists in Golding’s tome of adolescent turpitude possessed. Namely pen and paper. And Hyman intended to use them.
So, in Hyman’s 11-year-old hands, the archetypal “Hello, muddah; Hello, faddah,” letter became a well-reasoned essay listing the pros and cons of why he should come home from camp immediately. Argument No. 1, Hyman recalled, weighed the financial cost of the camp versus the increased amount of chores he would perform should he be allowed to return home sooner.
“After reading those letters, my mother decided I should become a lawyer,” Hyman said with a laugh. In fact, the letters were so well thought out that Hyman’s mother saved almost every one of them, more than 30 years after they were written.
Ironically, Hyman is now the project manager for the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Series, which recently inaugurated a nationwide tour called “More than Words” at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Massachusetts.
The exhibit features handwritten letters from prominent artists to friends, families and lovers. Two of the artists featured are Frieda Kahlo, who sealed one of her letters with bright pink lipstick, and the Jewish painter Moses Soyer, who wrote to his son while he was at a Jewish camp (presumably in the Catskills).
Soyer included doodlings (most of the other letters also feature artwork) of pitcher Dizzy Dean, his son’s cat and dog, and a picture of a new baseball glove, which he was sending to his son “with wings.”
“When you actually see the letters from all the artists, they have smudges and coffee stains and things like that,” said Hyman. “They’re a very personal extension of the artist, and lack the self-consciousness that characterizes some professional art.
“The speed of life these days makes it difficult to write letters, which is a shame because letter writing is such an art form, Hyman acknowledged. “I know the letters I wrote my family were the first real expressions of individuality that I produced — and thanks to my mother, they’ve been preserved forever. “
Robin Gilman-Masnicoff, the camp registrar for Camp JCA Sholom in Malibu, also honed the art of letter writing during her camping days.
Gilman-Masnicoff attended JCA Sholom every year from 1975 through 1990, and still has the letters to prove it. “I also have letters to all my friends that wrote during some of those periods,” she said. “Most of my friends — and certainly my children’s friends are amazed — that there’s such an archive of my personal history. “
Recently Gilman-Masnicoff revisited the letters, prompting a flood of memories. “I sat down in the middle of my garage and read every letter, and the emotions were just incredible,” she said. “The actual history you experienced is different from what you might have remembered. Some letters took me back to emotions, people and places I had forgotten about a long time ago.
“It’s as if I relived my entire adolescence in three or four hours.”
Gilman-Masnicoff feels that her children’s generation is missing something by having most communications be in the form of emails or text messages.
“We allow campers to receive email, but we don’t let them send email out,” she said, adding that the camp’s location also prohibits good cell phone reception.
“One of the problems is that kids — or anyone for that matter — can send an email full of emotions, then hit send. Well, the emotions may pass, but the damage is done.
“That’s certainly one advantage to writing letters. They require much more thought, time and care.”
Of course, the majority of campers pen the typical “Having a great time … See you soon” cards. Epic novellas like the one Hyman penned all those years ago are a rarity. And, in keeping with tradition, Hyman’s parents told him to “stick it out” and that he would look back and “regret leaving camp early” — right?
Wrong.
“Oh no, they picked me up early,” said Hyman, whose voice still carried the faint trace of victory.
“Eventually, I attended drama camp,” he added. “There were many more sensitive souls there.
“Plus there were no mosquitoes, and it had air conditioning.”
CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California