Last Night of Passover Camp

It's 11:20 PM and I'm sitting in an office stuffed with seven active people. I will miss this. Passover Camp for senior citizens just ended. I've been here for eleven days and it feels kind of like one hundred days. I've worked hard, been appreciated, gotten sick.

An older couple, the man half of the couple who is pretty acerbic, hugged and kissed me goodbye and told me effusively how they feel about me. My friend of five years, Sol, who lost his wife Shirley about a year and a half ago (Shirley used to say I was adorable, so for that alone she'll always have a special place in my heart) stood on stage with his trumpet and said one of the things he looks forward to in coming here is "the rabbi" (that's me) and that he knows I got run down this week and that he's happy that I get to go home to the vacation of teaching high school (ha ha ha.)

Doreen and Sarah are writing up the evaluation sheets that will ask people in the morning to rate each trip and activity including the Seders, services, rabbi (that's me.) Sarah's boyfriend, Julian, is visiting and leaning over Sarah as she types. Julian just showed me his blog, filled with personal information. Sarah doesn't know, she was driving people back to their cabins. A woman sang at the talent show, two songs, very nicely. Particularly impressive is that she's 96. Go Marion Matracht!

Also in the talent show was Arthur Weiner who had a hit song about forty years ago and used to play with Tiny Tim. He played his song on a tape recorder off the recently released CD Teen Age Dreams. Then he played Autumn Leaves on the piano and then some horas. Someone who's son's girlfriend plays one of the daughters in Fiddler donated two Orchestra seats to the show, including a pass backstage and a tour around, etc. Each ticket is worth a hundred dollars and bidding started at fifty, ended at eighty. I had fun doing the auctioning, it just flowed.

And I also enjoyed emceeing the talent show and doing my routines in between. It went really nicely. Every now and then a joke pops in my head that I didn't do for a long time, or never did before. I did the one about the new product, similar to "It's Not Bacon" and "It's Not Shrimp.”
Also, I did the one about my new frum phone that has call waiting, call answering, and kol nidre.

I like the work here, even though it's hard: running seders, standing on a chair, running around the room (not at the same time) giving several hour and a half lectures a day, running trivia, teaching improv, talking to people constantly, preparing for the next lecture on the fly, etc. Still, I love it, love it. I'd better post this before I change my mind.