by Brad Herzog
I can’t think of camp without thinking of keepsakes. I’ve often said that the vast majority of my childhood memories seem to revolve around the nine weeks a year (family camp counts!) that I spent in the Northwoods. But keepsakes are valuable to assist in maintaining those memories, sort of the way a grainy home movie might remind you of the trip you took to Disney World at age seven.
So one of my prized possessions is a Ziploc bag brimming with letters from camp. Naturally, my mom saved them all. I know I’m not the only guy my age who still has them. Andy Cohen, who experienced the same six camper summers as I, even printed some of his saved letters in his memoir, Most Talkative, and read a few of them on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And for his 40th birthday about a dozen years ago, his friends produced a video for him showing a few of his famous pals — the likes of Jerry Seinfeld and Liam Neeson — hilariously reading some of those letters aloud.
And my six-year cabinmate, Jonathan Ringel, saved some letters, too. One of them has proven to confirm a vital memory to me. You see, on a cabin trip as a Swamper in 1978, I caught what wound up being the biggest fish snagged all summer — an impressive northern pike. Remarkably, a photograph exists of me holding a fishing pole bent dramatically. Just as remarkably, the photo doesn’t show the darn fish! The proof of the biggest fish I’ve ever caught is missing. In fact, I even reference it at the beginning of a TED talk I gave several years ago about “Catching Creative Ideas” — as an example of how we’re sometimes forced to use our imagination.
So the idea for a talk about ideas began with the above frustrating photo. But thanks to Jonathan Ringel, I finally have firsthand confirmation. Jonathan sent me a letter he came across… and there it is! In writing! “Brad Herzog caught a 20 inch fish.” Sure, for years I’ve been recalling it as a 24-incher. But still… proof.
So what a find it is when we come across something unexpected from our past, something to spark a memory, something to take you back in time to a moment that is suddenly vivid in your recollection. Frankly, this happens every time I return to visit my parents in the house in which I grew up in Deerfield, Illinois. I spent much of my time there sifting through about 50 years of collected stuff — in old files, in basement boxes, etc. I consider it “decluttering.” My parents, given my frequent “did you even know you had this?” admonitions, consider it rather annoying. But really, I’m exploring. I’m seeking out hidden treasures.
It’s a tall task, a bit like trying to make sense of the the stuff brimming in the Big House… and the Wanegan… and the Herb Hollinger Museum. A sort of organized chaos. But, actually, it’s an apt comparison. Why? Because amid the generations of materials (much of which could be easily discarded), I came across an unexpected treasure. It came in the form of a large envelope of Nebaga-memorabilia that had been saved by my dad, Buddy Herzog. So what do you find when you dive into the stuff that Bud Herzog saved during his nearly six-decade association with Camp Nebagamon? What kind of memories were saved? Let’s take a look:
There were old photos — cabin pics, staff photos, my father and his good pal (the late Al Goldman) livening up a Follies, my father and grandfather standing next to the Council Ring in its 1952 iteration — but there were also some really cool keepsakes. I found, for instance, a couple of staff contracts — to be a C.I.T. in 1957 and a first-year junior counselor in 1958 — signed by Max J. Lorber and Bud Herzog. The C.I.T. stint was unpaid, the J.C. job nearly so — $75 was his salary. “You’re signature on this contract,” it read, “implies that you are satisfied with it.” I’m sure it was gleefully signed.
Equally fascinating to me was another find — the actual scripts from both a Sunday Service and a Council Fire at the beginning of the 1960s. Bud and Al did the Sunday Service together, a sort of farewell after several years on staff. They called it “This We Have Gained,” and it was about “gains which are noticed only after a relatively long period of time” — the Nebagamon experience “of a more hidden, intangible nature” in which “values are concerned with relationship between people…” That was in 1961. Many of my father’s camp relationships still thrive 59 years later.
Also in the treasure box, a photograph of Andy Rinde, autographed by the man himself. Rinde was a legend at camp, a staff member from 1937 to 1963. That’s Rinde, as in Rinde Ball. So it’s kind of like having an autographed picture of Rudolf Diesel or Louis Braille or Charles Boycott. Kind of.
Another photograph find dates back to 1967, a rather blurry pic of my dad standing beneath the “Camp Nebagamon” sign during one of his first forays into family camp. It was the start of a tradition that is one of the most meaningful in his life — he’s a been a family camper for something like 45 of the past 50 years. But what’s particularly intriguing about the photo is this: You’ll notice no Paul Bunyan in the background. It was that fleeting moment between Pauls.
Also saved with care over the years were a couple of letters from Muggs Lorber himself, including one in which he expresses his pleasure at meeting Bud’s five-year-old twin sons Brian and Brad and another quick note from several years later, in 1981, less than a year before he passed away. That solemn occasion was marked by two final artifacts. One was a copy of Nardie Stein’s marvelous eulogy (on March 21, 1982), which included these sentences: “It is said that we mortals live in hope and die in despair; that men are only dreamers who reach for the stars. We remember today a person who early in life looked up, saw what he wanted to do, and then did it.”
And finally, I found a typewritten letter written from Bud Herzog to Janet Lorber in Miami Beach soon after: “I remember when I was at the University of Michigan one of my assignments was to write a paper about the man that I most admired. I chose to write this paper on Muggs Lorber… Muggs had the uncanny ability when talking to an individual, whether this individual be eight years old or 68 years old, to instill.. the feeling that Muggs was totally interested in the person… He made you feel special. He made you feel that you were the most important person at that moment in Muggs’s life.”
So that’s what camp keepsakes offer. A recollection of an impactful scene, a proud moment, an unforgettable mentor, a valued emotion. I placed the above treasures, along with a whole bunch of other old camp photos, into a “this is your life” scrapbook that I put together for my dad’s 80th birthday last July. Many of us have those camp memories stored somewhere. But perhaps some of us have forgotten where. It’s never too late to rediscover them.