Camp Kiwanis

There Are Places I Remember 

by Lauraine Alberetti Lombara

I hear the Beatles singing, “There are places I remember”  and my memories return to when I was in my early preteen years. These places were a touchstone to recall very happy times discovering new parts of Massachusetts and new experiences.  

We lived in South Boston and had cousins in Cambridge. Our  parents were offered a beach house in Onset to rent for a week at a discount, as it belonged to a co-worker of my father. Off we went...parents, my three cousins, my two brothers and I. Of course we had to take lots of food, so both families, unaware of what the other had specifically brought, arrived with two large hams. Suffice it to say, aside from wonderful romps into Onset Bay, games and walks to get ice cream cones, we subsisted on ham in every iteration, at every meal.  No use asking what’s for dinner, lunch or breakfast, the answer was always HAM. Ham and eggs, ham sandwiches, ham with sides for dinner..our parents were good cooks so each meal was good but boy were we tired of ham after that week. We get a laughing fit each time my cousins or my family would recall Onset...the ham week.

Another outing as a youngster was to a family camp our close friends were building in Marlboro. Driving there seemed to take hours and I was a car sick prone child so it was a difficult ride but I made it without incident. The rustic, unfinished, but livable house was on a little pond where we could swim, which I loved to do.  I also relished taking care of two younger boys at the camp, grandsons of the owners. I played games, took short walks around the perimeter of the house and thoroughly enjoyed my supervisory role as the babysitter.

A few years later, now a ten year old, I was a Camp Fire Girl and the leader convinced my mother that I would enjoy going to summer camp outside the city in bucolic, at the time anyway, Hanson. Off I went to Camp Kiwanis for a week, the only girl from our troop to go, never having been away from home that long.  A family friend, a bachelor who always had a new, expensive car drove us and I did manage to have him stop so I could use the shoulder on the road before I soiled his car. My stomach was not quite normal even afterwards as I was quite nervous about the whole ordeal ahead. I acclimated easily and remember passing swimming tests, learning to canoe and archery lessons, craft sessions. There was singing around campfires; “Come to Camp Kiwanis where the green grass grows”, Kumbaya, and other ditties, discovering “smores” and Spam at the dining hall…a ”what kind of meat is this?” moment. I can’t remember the girls I met there, only that I had a very happy time but I was happier to be back home.

My parents belonged to the Italian Cisalpina Society in Boston which fostered community among the Italian immigrants from the North of Italy..Cis Alpine. I remember fondly dances in a hall in South. Boston, not far from our home, where families gathered a few times a year to eat, drink, dance and socialize with relatives and friends from the greater Boston area who may not have been in contact often with each other. An orchestra played and dance we did. I learned waltzes, foxtrots, tangos and polkas, watching and dancing with my father, mother and brothers. I still remember the music, the singing, even the Italian lyrics.

The Society also sponsored picnics every summer at a grove in Billerica. I don’t recall the name  but I do remember well the pine trees, wooden picnic tables and benches, a good sized gazebo with a wooden floor for the dancing throughout the afternoon, a small pond which was not appealing for swimming(to me anyway), but fishing was attempted by some. A major focus of the gatherings was the food! Every family made and brought multiple dishes, salads, breads, desserts, wine and beer. Lasagne and cannelloni, among the pasta specialties, rice timbales, risotto, roasted beef, veal, pork and chicken in every Italian manner possible, antipasti and cooked vegetables served warm or cold, tortas of vegetables, crostatas of peaches, apples, berries, dried stewed fruits, cookies. There was never a dearth of mouth watering, delicious and  home-made food. Not a ham in sight!  Everyone shared so we tasted and ate and danced away the calories. Singing continued after the small, live combo departed and as the day began to wane we all packed up, cleaned the area and set out, sated, tired, but oh so happy.  Another treasured memory. Another place I remember quite distinctly. So when I hear the song, my heart is warmed.

Bob, Lauraine, Joe, Marlboro July 1949

Thanksgiving Dinner

by Beth Alexander Walsh

Over twenty-five years ago, after our mother sold our childhood home, I hosted my first Thanksgiving dinner.   My mother had entrusted me the family china and her stuffing recipe along with explicit instructions on how to properly cook the turkey. My two daughters, both toddlers at the time, helped me make napkin holders out of toilet paper rolls and popcorn kernels, along with turkey centerpieces of Styrofoam and colored feathers. The house was dusted, vacuumed and toys banished to their chest. A new table cloth was purchased for the table adjacent to the kitchen and an old one was borrowed for the folding table and chairs set up in the living room. Both tables were set and ready for candles to be lit and water and wine to be poured. All I needed were the guests.

Cocktails and appetizers went swimmingly! There are six Alexander children and when we get together with our extended families, we are a boisterous lot. The turkey was cooked to perfection and my husband carved enough for two platters to go on each table along with all the fixings. I then uttered the words that would forever dictate every Thanksgiving forward.

“Everyone can sit wherever they want.”

The men (or should I say boys) all made a beeline for the table in the living room that had a great view of the thirty-inch console TV. They proceeded to remove the centerpieces and candles, to have an unobstructed view, and turned on the TV to whatever football game happened to be playing. Every Thanksgiving onward became a battle of the sexes.

The following year, the same thing happened. The boys ran to the living room, but I had the foresight to hide the remote.  The food I slaved over for days was not going to compete with football.

The year after that we just set the table to accommodate the boys in the other room. We girls were starting to realize the benefits of a “women only” table. It was also the year my son was born, and given that he was a baby, I sat him in his usual spot in his high chair next to me. My husband immediately picked him up, highchair and all and moved him to sit with the men. Our son was destined to male only Thanksgiving dinner for the foreseeable future.

And so, it continued. The girls enjoyed the fine china, fancy silverware and crystal glasses set on a festive table cloth. Grace would be recited before the meal and we would each state what we were thankful for that year. Classical music or Christmas carols would be lightly playing in the background. We were the evolved table. The boys saw no benefit in saying grace or doting on thankfulness. The task at hand was to tackle the food piled high on their mismatched plates. The banter yelled back and forth was to say the least, entertaining.

This year our tradition will be different as our guest list has dwindled. My brother and his extended family will be spending Thanksgiving at Children’s Hospital where his 5 year- old granddaughter is receiving in-patient care for Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia. She has requested her “Paw’s” ham and knowing the many aunts, uncles and grandparents that support this family there will be an amazing feast to be shared with all at the hospital. Those celebrating in my home will unite at one table and take a moment to send love and healing thoughts to those gathering in Boston and give thanks for all we have and each other.

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

by Charlotte Savage

The doorbell rang, it was September of 1988, just before Rosh Hashonah., the beginning of our new year. I had been painting pictures for a little over two years when Rose, a member of my synagogue dropped off the gift I had won at a sisterhood meeting. Perhaps she hadn't heard me when I said I was re-donating it for the next meeting. From the doorway she saw my easel and the picture I was painting. She said she hadn't known I was an artist-- could she see what I was painting. As she admired my work I learned that she and her husband had been searching for over a year for a painting to put in the living room of their new condo. She asked if I would be willing to paint a picture for them. I told her that the picture on the easel was to be a wedding gift requested by my nephew and his fiance; I hadn't thought about painting for profit. My excuse being I didn't have professional grade paints and perhaps not qualified since my only training had been in an art class with twenty other people at a senior center. Rose said that she loved the painting on my easel and would be happy with whatever grade paint I was using. She had no idea what kind of painting she wanted other than she liked flowers.

I asked Rose if I could visit her condo and see what she had in her living room; which turned out to be floral drapes that went the width of sliding doors plus she had vases of artificial flowers on the tables near her couch. The couch and arm chairs were white, as were her walls. She definitely liked flowers. However, I suggested she already had enough flowers in the room.

The following week I showed her and her husband a picture I found in a calendar of Monet paintings. The painting had grass and trees in the foreground, a river, with houses on the far shore, and mountains in back of the houses. The size canvas needed above her long couch was 36 inches by 24 inches. With the deposit she gave me I went directly to the art store and purchased professional grade paints, new brushes and a canvas.

At first I struggled with the painting, I hadn't worked on a canvas of that size before. An artist friend visiting my home saw my confusion and suggested I paint it exactly like Monet did and then go back and make it my own painting, which turned out to be an excellent idea. The second suggestion he made was to enter the wedding gift painting in an art show and to my surprise it won a first prize ribbon. This helped a lot to build up confidence to copy a Monet painting.

I called Rose when the picture was almost finished and asked for a swatch of her floral drapes. Into the leaves of the trees in the foreground and the mountains in background I painted the colors seen on her drapes. My study of interior decorating and design, when in real estate, actually helped me in my painting.

On the completion of Rose's painting a couple of months later I delivered it to her house. She was going to have it framed according to her own taste. As she handed me a check I told her that if at any time she felt the painting not to her liking I would buy it back for the $500.00 she had paid me. She was a member of my synagogue and I wanted to make sure I had a satisfied client.

A few months later I received a call from Rose. Had I seen the show Sixty Minutes the previous evening, it featured Monet paintings? It seems Japanese people were buying copies of Monet paintings and paying as much as $10,000.00 for a copy. She hadn't realized what a bargain she had got and she and her husband and all her family really loved the painting. Something I was very pleased to hear.

Several years passed and Rose and her husband moved down to Florida permanently. She was bringing the painting with her in their car to make sure it did not get damaged. I reminded her that if it did not fit into her décor I would buy it back; she shook her head no. Over the years she returned to Massachusetts and the synagogue for Rosh Hashonah services and each year she would greet me with the words “you can't have it” then laughed and wished me a happy and healthy new year.

It was the very first painting that I had sold and it has been a constant source of pride to know that my painting had brought Rose and her husband so much joy over these many years. Her confidence in me, the joy she showed for the painting was the kind of gift that never stops.

This past September Rose was not part of the congregation, we could not wish each other joy in the new year. However, her memory lives on in my heart and mind because I will never lose my appreciation for a lady who had so much trust in me as to buy that very first painting. It is a gift that keeps on giving.

© 2018charlotte savage all rights reserved