Tales from Omega

During our beloved tenure at Omega, we all had some amazing experiences that stay with us through the years. I have so many of my own, and would like to share one, in the hopes that you will, too.

It was 1969, the Summer of Love, and our cadre of counselors were spending the day off in the same manner as most: walking to Woodridge. Hiking past Grados, past the Vegetarian and the nudists doing their exercises on the front lawn, we turned the corner and began the descent down that steep hill that put us on the main road to Woodridge. Along the way we passed Hans and Laura's yellow ranch house, and stopped to say hello.

Upon crossing it's borders, the familiar tableaux fanned out in front of us: standing in the center of town we could see Rashkin's to our right, the hardware store up the hill, and Sol's on the corner to our left, as well as the rest of the small streets and shops.

These were the days before the popular programs such as "urban improvement", or "redevelopment" or as some called it "opportunity zones", that decimated such bucolic communities. We didn't dare enter the New York Bar, where the transient workers or "bimmys" spent their days, waiting for someone from a hotel or camp to pick them up for kitchen or grounds duty. I regret that I never researched the etymology of the word, if there was one. It sounded like some alien race and, I'm ashamed to admit, a bit derogatory, although it was ubiquitous among Omegans. I remember them smuggling a bottle or two of contraband to the white shack at the edge of the campus, surely for nefarious purposes

But I digress. That particular day off coincided with the historic event of our generation: Woodstock! (actually, Swan Lake, if I remember correctly). I was torn between my sense of responsibility to the camp, which was compounded by my just happening to be the owner's son, and my compulsion to hitch a ride to see all the musical greats of the day. While we pondered the possibilities and repercussions of this mutiny over roast pork sandwiches and lime rickies at Sol's, a white Cadillac pulled up to the front door. A middle-aged man smoking a cigar waved us over. I wondered why. Mayhaps my enormous hairdo hailed him?

I left the table and approached the big Cadoo with the tall tail-fins. The driver beckoned me to lean in, and asked if I and my buddies would be interested in working the concession stands at Woodstock. This guy was either a perv or on the level. My instincts told me that he was the real deal, causing my mind and heart to start racing. I knew that this could be one of those opportunities which, if left unexploited, might haunt me the rest of my days. I asked him if he would wait while I made a call to the main house at camp. He was in a hurry, but gave me a few minutes.

Bern answered the phone. At first, the call made her nervous, anticipating that some disaster had befallen us. Assuring her that all was well, I asked, no, begged if I could accept the offer from this stranger. Her motherly instincts immediately kicked into high gear. There was no way she would let her baby, even though he was was nineteen, ride off to who-knows-where with who-knows-who in who-knows-what. She cleverly used a different ruse to compel my return. "You committed to be a counselor" she said in a familiar and fear-invoking tone, "and you are going to honor that responsibility to me and your campers!" I knew there would be hell to pay if I defied her, and, truth be told, I myself found the offer a tad suspicious, although I would have risked her wrath and the the potential passes of a pervert on the possibility that I could participate in that youthful nation of a generation, in relative comfort, surrounded by sustenance, while my compatriots hunkered in the mud and slime, hoping for even a few notes from notables such as Hendrix, the Who, CSN, (you know the rest of the roster). Even with the chemical enhancers, I'm sure it was nonetheless a messy milleux.

I was shocked and surprised as my own feelings of compassion for my campers overtook my selfish desires. I assured Bern that I would not leave her in the lurch and would head back after lunch. Besides, I knew that at summer's end I would have to come home to an unhappy pair of parental units.

As you can tell from my tome, the tantalizing temptation of a trip to Woodstock, that milestone of music, the last gasp of the waning sixties, is etched in my memory. But I'm comforted by the knowledge that I made the right choice, because I did not want to miss one day at Omega, knowing somehow they were precious and few.

Omega Redux

Gary and Mike are going to the campsite today. I'm both excited and nervous about what they'll find. I'm not joining them, too afraid of the reality, in particular, the empty space where the main house once stood. Omega without the main house is like Gone With The Wind without Tara.

Beyond the material differences, there are the ghosts. Of people we met, loved and lost. Of special times shared that are long gone. And of our former selves, when we were young and life was so much simpler.

That raises a fundamental question: Can Omega exist without Omegans.? To support this hypothesis, I offer our recent gathering. Even though we'd been spatially and temporally displaced for decades, it was as if we'd never left. Whether at Pine Grove or the Marriott, the locale was irrelevant. It was the rush of new beginnings, the countless hugs and kisses, just looking in the eyes of a long absent soul-mate and shedding tears of joy.

Omega is not a place, or a structure. It lives again wherever and whenever we are together.

This is not to say that the pictures and video that Gary and Mike will bring back from their Woodridge safari won't be interesting. Reminiscing about the camp is a way of revisiting the myriad experiences and the impact they made on us all. These feelings are with us no matter where we go. And the Omega campsite is certainly a catalyst for releasing this flood of emotions.

Yes, there are many places through which one travels on life's journey, and we carry souvenirs of them in our memories. Thomas Wolfe wrote: "You can't go home again". But I prefer Pliny the Elder's centuries-old observation: "Home is where the heart is". And Omega has a permanent home in our hearts.

Daydreaming

The aftershocks from the reunion are not subsiding. The impact was so overpowering that we've lost our sense of reality. We retreat to daydreams. Analyzing the inexplicable. What happened?

Was it:

The innumerable hugs and kisses?

So much unsaid to so many?

The roller coaster of emotions?

The mental and physical displacement so disorienting?

Hearts hungering to fill forty years of yearning in a few short hours?

There are no answers. And so we daydream. Of that Camelot in the Catskills, the amazing events of the present, and the new memories we will create in the future. 'Til we wake again in each other's arms

Bloggus Interruptus

What the heck is going on? Why can't we read the blogs, as per usual? This is the resounding response that I'm receiving from all corners of the Omegasphere.

Well, fret no more. The blogsite is public again. Now everyone can read it, including the casual net surfers, whoever you might be.

Please stay tuned for more Omega ruminations.

Come Together

Now that the reunion is over, it feels as if we've become a bunch of nomads, trying to find our way back to the Omega oasis. But all we see are mirages - lots of chain-emails, a few phone calls, even lunch with old friends who've lived, unbeknownst, at the same longitude and latitude for many years.

These disparate attempts suggest a need to communicate in a non-linear, real-time mode in this diaspora of geographic displacement.

As can be imagined, this is no mean feat. Technology is an unfeeling, unseeing barrier to interpersonal relationships. Emails are often muddled and confused in their message, and other modes are equally challenging. Stranded on our Omega atolls, we send out messages in electronic bottles, hoping to reach the other castaways.

The explosion of joy at reuniting after forty years of separation can never be duplicated. Now, many are surfing the ripples of that tidal wave. But others are being pro-active, forming smaller tribes. Florida is a hotbed of Omega activity. The tri-state area is home to many Omegans. New Jersey can be parsed-down to a few towns in the north, central and southern regions.

This has spawned a promising offspring from that common point of origin : the microreunion. One by one, two by two we've left the arc and reconnected in small ways. But they are by no means insignificant: best friends have jumped back onto the continuum. Musicians who became unstrung at camp's end are tuning up for a new opus.

And so it must go, until our mutual DNA recombines and we "come together" again.

Reunionsomnia

I'd like to tell you all about a new medical condition that, ever since the reunion, has been ruining my sleep. Every morning about 1am I wake up and lay in a daze, with the events of that amazing day playing in my head like a movie in an endless loop. A kind of Camp Omega Groundhog Day.

I've been wracking my brain to find the root cause of this strange malady and have come to the following conclusion: the reunion altered my brain chemistry and re-wired the synapses in my cerebral cortex such that the ganglion's which link to the Omega memory banks are over-stimulating the neurotransmitters associated with the reunion, virtually putting my brain into a mental short-circuit.

And I'm not the only one experiencing this phenomenon. Rita and I were at holiday dinner with my Mom and Dad and, inevitably, the conversation turned to the subject of the reunion. My Mom said that she has been so excited, enervated and energized ever since that she's been waking up at 1am in the same trance-like state, taking her back to the moment the car pulled up in front of the Marriott and she, Linda and my Dad stepped out, not really knowing what to expect.

From the second they passed through the hotel's portal, she, Sam and Linda were overwhelmed by former campers and counselors from all the years, rushing towards them with hugs, kisses and loving expressions of appreciation for all that they had done for them. It took her almost an hour to get from the lobby to the reception area. I had to physically move her from the spot in front of the elevators where she had been frozen in awe and wonder. Linda and Sam were receiving similar accolades.

I had attempted to prepare her, but it was futile. The multimedia whirlwind of music from my beautiful and talented cousin Melanie and her band, the Omega movie, more and more Omegans practically pulling her from her chair with their enthusiastic and joyful hugs and kisses and Gary's heartfelt tribute to her and Linda and their respective husbands transported her to another time and place, a place inhabited by some of the most wonderful and tragic years of her life, filled with sweet/sad memories of her father David Rosen and of course her son Wes, their lives inseparable from the Omega times. Holding hands at the end of the reunion and hearing her sons' voices blended in timeless harmonies was almost too much to bear. But, true to form, she took in the emotional hurricane and made safe harbor in the real world. And how wonderful to be there with Sam, Linda, and, of course, Wally in loving absentia. I was so honored to be a part of this milestone in their lives, caught up in the same vortex of joy.

Somehow, we all survived that hyper-adrenaline rush with only one lasting physiological and psychological condition that I believe has infected us all: reunionsomia.

May we never be cured.

Family

This was not a camp reunion. Or a high school reunion.

It was a family reunion of the best kind.

Oh, I know, family reunions are often contentious, pugnacious, and generally unpleasant. Why? Because, in many, but certainly not all cases, the common denominator is blood. DNA. Period. You trudge out for the annual picnic or holiday or whatever, with nothing to say to people who are, for all intents and purposes, strangers.

What happened at our reunion was a complete anomaly, a cosmic event - over one hundred people gathered, from all corners of the country. People who could barely contain themselves and the smiles practically frozen on their faces. They weren't forced, coerced, or in any way pushed to get to their family reunion as quickly as possible.

Why?

Because the people who attended this reunion are a different species. Because we are Omegans. Sounds like visitors from another planet. And in a way, that's kind of true. Our planet was formed very recently in cosmic terms. Born in 1965 in the orbit of the stars of Omega, the first family, Bern, Sam, Linda and Wally. They are the proto-Omegans, the genetic blueprints from which our own love and passion for Omega was born. We are, and always were, their family. And they gave birth to the people we've become. Our membership isn't perceivable in outer trappings - cars, houses, SUVs, McMansions, whatever. We can't be measured by any quantifiable standards. What we have is really inexplicable. You had to be part of the family of Omegans who shared the same space, breathed the same air, ate the same food, and laughed and wept together.

And we had an uncommon, common-denominator, a denominator that united us in love and friendship. And the Steinman-Schartz team was our numerator. But they did not divide us. They defied the laws of mathematics and science. The larger we grew, the more we became unified. And no matter how many of us inhabited those few acres on that quiet road by a sleepy town in the mountains, we each felt like WE mattered. WE belonged. WE cared. Each of us felt as if they had a personal relationship with those few who united us. And those few, in turn, felt the same.

That's why our reunion was so full of joy and tears and hugs and kisses and friendships born anew.

After the reunion, in a conversation with Bern, the subject turned to awe at how this reunion exceeded our expectations. "Why?" I wondered aloud. That's when she turned and told me the secret. She said it's because she always thought of everyone as her children. And that somehow we wouldn't have become the people we are today if we hadn't been born of this unique type of love. That's why we are a family.

And this family will never be divided.

Wishing love, peace and good health to all my brothers and sisters. I already miss you.

Artie

The Day After - 24 Hours of Joy

Here I sit in the Marriott hotel the morning after the day we were working for and yearning for. It exceeded all expectations. There are no words. Just emotions that are indescribable. Where should I begin? So many amazing moments, over in a flash. The campsite, where we were all kids again playing and running and laughing. What a perfect way to start the day. Scott and Alan, what you did you did out of love. And it set us on the way for our 24 hours joy.

From the moment I arrived, I felt a ticking clock inside: One hour - gone, two hours, wait it's going too fast. I wanted to us all to stay in that moment. And I believe we did and are still there in our hearts.

And then the party, the celebration of a feeling that none but Omegans could understand. The time machine was in motion.

Wait - Bern and Sam just came to my door.

To be continued.....

The Day Before!

As I sit at my computer, ready to type the last blog before the reunion, I realize that I don't have anything more to say right now. Which is a good thing, because no one should be reading blogs at this point.

See you at the Marriott!

Turn, Turn, Turn

Pete Seeger said it all when he borrowed a quote from the book of Ecclesiastes for his famous song. This is our season. This is the time, the planets are aligned. Emotions are running high: fear, ecstasy, uncertainty, the entire gamut. The word for the weekend is - trust! Trust that the people we love will not judge us. Trust that we are at the end of a forty year journey, and beginning the next. Trust each other, that we are safe to be ourselves. We don't know what to expect. That's part of the thrill.

Be fearless. As Mr. Lennon said: "Come Together". It's a gathering of hearts. A celebration of that inexplicable rush that we get when we think of those ten years between two decades.

We were free, we didn't have the hang-ups and burdens of adult life. Put those burdens down for the weekend. You can lift them again when you get home.

This is the season of Omega. Rejoice. Love. And turn the page. We'll write it as we go along.

For your consideration - Club Omega!

Ladies and Gentleman,

While you are enjoying the Camp Omega reunion at the fabulous Newark Liberty Airport Marriott, you will be asked to attend a short presentation on Club Omega. Located on the privately owned Caribbean island of Bimi, just a short, thirteen-hour seaplane ride from the coast of Cuba, Club Omega is an exclusive resort for only those privileged few who attended camp from 1965 to 1975. Your baggage will be personally delivered to your rooms by your concierge, Gary Mednick.

We are offering this audience the opportunity to buy in at ground floor prices. Spend your golden years reminiscing about the pink bellies, atomic wedgies, purple flirps, nippie nyopies, nuggies and other warm and wonderful memories of your camping years.

And what makes Club Omega really unique is that there are two separate communities - the Boys Campus Retreat and Girls Campus Spa. Ladies, escape the snoring, belching and other offensive noises of your every day life back home by leaving your hairy hubbies and entering your own sanctuary, featuring private tetherball and punchball, and bunks with all the amenities: fine, hand-crafted cubbies, bunkbeds just like the ones you had at camp, only better, with 600 thread count sheets and 100% down pillows. You will start your day by attending a fascinating lecture at what we call the Flaming Flamingo Flagpole where your host, Mike the Magnificent Fiedler will entrance you with his charming good looks and entertaining stories from his days as headmaster of Omega. We are sure you will fall in love with Michael all over again as he firmly disciplines you for your "bad" behavior! Sorry girls, he's taken, but don't let that stop you.

And men, we haven't forgotten about you! Think of it - a "men-only" private world, with no chores like throwing out the garbage, picking up your socks, and shaving your backs. A place where you can relive your boyhood fantasies - stealing the girls underwear and hanging it from the Flamingo flagpole, putting frogs in their sneakers, and, oh yes, there will be unlimited supplies of creme de la razore and papier de toilette. Well, you get the picture. And you can play nude tetherball to your heart's content - Michael won't discourage you; in fact, he will encourage you and keep his sharp eyes focused on your every move - for your safety, of course.

All meals at Club Omega are complimentary, with gourmet offerings such as our famous "white bread pizza" and tuna tartare avec mayonnaise. Don't forget to leave room for dessert - all you can eat sheet cakes personally prepared for you by Bernice, with your choice of chocolate, vanilla or strawberry icing. And last but not least - our exclusive Jello baths, where you can float on pillows of delicious artificial cherry or lime jello. Leave your inhibitions behind and let your imagination run wild!

How much will you have to pay to be a part of this twice-in-a lifetime offer, you ask? Our beautiful sales representatives, Hillary, Jackie and Shelly will be in the main lobby with brochures and enrollment forms. Be sure to get there early to avoid the long lines. You can beat the lines by leaving a comment using the handy feature at the end of this advertisement.

Don't miss out, the chance won't come again, at least not until the next time we meet in the ballroom of the fabulous Newark Liberty Airport Marriott.

The Steinman and Schwartz families look forward to welcoming you to Club Omega with warm smiles and ice cold glasses of the bug-juice of your choice!

Your host,

Artie

P.S. Act now and you'll receive a complimentary set of salt and pepper shakers from the Rosemond hotel!

It's Almost Here! Is it really happening?

I'm sure we're all sharing the same feelings right about now; nervous anticipation, curiosity, wild emotions, incredible excitement and a sweet/sad nostalgia. I've been in an altered state ever since Gary contacted me and said he was organizing a reunion. I didn't think we could make it happen this year, and was very skeptical, which as most of you know is not my normal nature. But somehow, with everyone pulling together and working so hard for this labor of love, it's only a few days away. We have 106 attendees, far, far more than we ever thought possible. Most of them will be at the evening event so we'll be hugging, kissing, re-connecting like mad. I don't know who to kiss and hug first, so I'll take them as they come.

A big question in my mind is - what next? What happens after the reunion? Do we go back to our separate, and in many cases, anonymous lives? Or do we keep the network going, and plan other ways to bring us together (think- Omega cruise anyone?- My Mom can make that happen!).

We've all been given a great gift here - finding people that have in some ways meant as much to us as anyone else we've encountered in our lives. Some of us are gone but live on in our collective memories - that's the object of all this - we have a collective consciousness and memory where Omega still lives and breathes and we're all kids or teenagers again. Are we going to let this fade away after September? There are many reasons to believe otherwise - the website will be there and continue to improve and expand, we have each other's email addresses and contact info, and best of all, we have each other again. I never attend high school reunions - high school was not a time I look back on fondly. I went to one and everyone was there to see if they were doing better than their peers. It was horrible. That's why reunions are usually all surface and no substance. Ours will be the opposite; all substance and no surface. When we look into each other's eyes we will see ourselves for who we really are - the people we bonded with so strongly over those ten years in Woodridge, NY.

Oh, sure, there'll be signs of the forty some-odd years that we've lived, and there will be those awkward moments of saying "Oh, of course I remember you" while the name escapes us during a senior moment. But that's not what it's really about and we all know it. The weekend will be over in a microsecond, and we will be in shock when we're dropped back into our normal lives. I hope it reminds us of those precious moments we were so lucky to have had for so long.

If I had the power, I would turn back the clock to July 1965, when the first buses rolled down that long driveway from Silver Lake Road to the front of the main house. I would stand on the porch, hand in hand with my family and extended family and greet the campers all over again. Only this time, Omega would live on, to welcome our children, grand children and great grandchildren, who would look at the ancient plaques on the wall and wonder what camp was like way back then.

With love,
Artie