Twelve Steps to Marriage (Step 2)

Step 2          FAYGO

At 18  I wasn't ready for college......in fact I wasn't ready for anything. As a Jewish Male there was an expectation that I would go to college and beyond....I didn't want to......It was my father's ultimatum that I go right after High School.....or else he threatened he wouldn't pay for me. After two semesters at SUNY Geneseo I summarily flunked out and found myself back at home the following summer. My sister had gone to work in a National Park in Idaho, my folks were in England and I was left alone to my own devices. In college I had met a Rabbi from the United American Hebrew Congregations, the largest  reform Jewish organization in America (albeit the world). A part timer, he would drive up from  New York City to run the college's Hillel program. In order to assure himself an audience he used to bribe the students with free chicken dinners. Those chicken dinners were enough to draw me to his Friday and Saturday night service.

On a lark I gave him a call and got an interview with his boss  in New York City. The UAHC runs 13 summer camps in the NorthEast and I was offerred a maintenance position at the Camp Eisner Institute in Great Barrington Massachusetts, a 600 acre estate, once the jewel of the Berkshires built by a man named Walker, who developed the roll camera for Kodak. His daughter was an invalid and stuck in a wheel chair. He had built her  her very own Victorian Estate, with a Grand Tudor Style Manor House, forty acres of lawn and an Italian Renaissance Garden with Marble statues, fountains and all the trimmings. This way she would never have to leave the grounds. At one time it was considerred the most impressive estate in the Berkshires, which is saying a lot. There were forty gardeners!

An active farm, during WWII the government confiscated the property and raised chickens and pigs. There were dozens of chicken coops, barns and a slaughterhouse up on the hill. The UAHC bought the Estate in the 60's and converted it into a Jewish Summer camp. During the winter several Jewish youth organizations. would send kids up from New York City and held weekend retreats. In the summer the camp hosted 600 campers and staff. My job would be to mow the forty acres of lawn with a 36 inch Toro riding mower. I would start on a Monday and finish the following Monday. Then I would start again. I had been a busboy in High School but this was my  first real job! $1000 for the summer!

Part of the "Super Staff" I arrived several weeks early and began the arduous task of openning for the summer. The chicken coops had been converted into unheated cabins and had to be cleaned and readied for camp. The lawns had to be mowed, downed trees sawn, kitchen openned etc....There were ten of us but only I was responsible for the landscaping. After the summer when the camp closed I was offerred a part time job year round maintaining the estate. I ended up spending three entire years there. They housed me in the old slaughterhouse on the hill! They gave me room, board, salary and a car. I kind of stole my gas from them.........In retrospect they were the best years of my life!

 Alone in the Berkshires, basically by myself, and on this magnificent estate, this is where I first developed my appreciation for quiet, solitude and SILENCE!!! In the winter I went to Berkshire Community College waiting for the roar and company of the summer.

It was during my first summer that I met FAYGO! One of the first twenty ordained reform Female Rabbi's, she was tied to a bunk of teenagers 24 hours/day, six days a week. She picked me out immediately showing up at the maintenance bunk house room I was sharing with two other maintenance workers. It was the only way for her to get away from the kids. I only had a single bed, but she spent every day off she had with me. Now 21 years old, it was my first real satisfying experience sleeping with a woman. It was so easy, so simple, so wonderful, and it was mostly  her own idea.

Faygo was a strong, independent, and incredibly intelligent human being. With a sense of self, integrity and strength of conviction that clearly eclipsed mine, I was way out of my league with her. In those short summer months we developed a relationship that was fun, intimate and convenient. At the end of the summer she went back to New York City and I stayed on at the camp. We met a couple of times in the fall, but it was never the same. She was serious and committed to finishing her Rabbinical Studies and I was no longer in her plan.

We parted seamlessly and there was no pain. I recognized that she was gone, but the joy of having been loved and having loved remained. It would take several years, and a different summer camp before I would sleep with a woman again