Part Two
Misery Had
No Company
Joe’s Camp
What can I say about “Joe’s Camp?” It was an ad hoc camp for
kids that gathered in my backyard. We fooled around and played
silly games. I suppose only very immature nine-year-olds would
get such a kick out of telling Joe, at snack time, to pour
the Hawaiian Punch into our paper cups, which
we pulled away before they were full.
We watched and laughed like drunken hyenas as the liquid
spilled all over the patio, much to the delight of the ants
who licked their chops over that daily sticky treat. And the dan-
gerously broken swing set in that 1956 backyard added just the
right touch of decadence.
Camp sure was “camp.” This is a true bittersweet memory
that, over time, has become my cult classic. It’s my madeleine.
The First Experience at
Sleep-Away Summer Camp
During the summer of 1957, I spent two weeks at a camp on
Long Island. It was almost the two most miserable weeks of my
life, of which there were many. And I was more than homesick.
I was so unhappy, I think I became catatonic.
What made it so terrible was that I was allowed to remain
so upset and fall into a condition that is clearly visible in photos
of the time I was there. The camp provided good meals. But I
had lost my appetite. The first dinner there was Swedish meat-
balls, and I can still recall biting into one of those meatballs and
pulling out a long piece of hair from my mouth.
Then, when we had a night picnic, some counselor loaded
up my paper plate with fried chicken and corn, and the weight
of it made it tilt, and the food tumbled to the ground. And after
all who saw it laughed, nobody gave me a refill.
It was a night of hunger.
Even camping out in a tent on the beach made me miserable.
I was cold, and they threw some rubber blanket on me,
perhaps in some obtuse way referencing me as a wet blanket. I
felt trapped in a nightmare. I recall waking up early one morning
and I was sharing my bed with a grasshopper. The girl next to
me sat on her cot and laughed. The girls had short-sheeted my
bed the night before, and I guess the grasshopper
was the prank’s dessert.
For some reason, all the other girls went to activities in the
afternoons. They even went swimming. I had not signed up for
anything, so I was left alone in the cabin to cry. I mean, sob. I
wrote my mother a letter and ordered her to pick me up and get
me the hell out of there. Then, a few hours after I put it in the
mailbox, I trekked down the hill to retrieve it. I didn’t want to
upset my mother. But, when my parents visited,
the sight of me upset them plenty.
My parents visited me after the first week,
and they were appalled at how I looked. I had lost a great deal of
weight, and for some reason, my hair was so short. And I stank.
Somebody had neglected to show me where the showers
were. I had not eaten, and my parents brought me chocolate milk
that was so good that when I close my eyes today, I can still taste
the gooey, rich sweetness. And they fed me the first meal I was
able to eat in almost five days. I was never skinny in my whole
life. The camp was able to bring on my skinny.
And it was not a weight loss camp.
I think as I walk around today, the unhappiness of those
two weeks still lives inside me within a small corner of my mind
and brings me to dark places for which I can never quite pinpoint
a reason. My parents had asked me if I wanted to go home with
them. And why, when my parents visited after the first week of
the two, did I not go home? I have no answer except to say I
was not a quitter, so I stayed. I should have been diagnosed as a
masochist and sent home in an ambulance.
Summer Memories with
Margaret Bourke-White
For three nights in August 1961, I slept next to the world-fa-
mous photographer Margaret Bourke-White. I was right there,
sleeping right next to her, in a small wooden cabin on Martha’s
Vineyard that actually could only fit two cots and a small dress-
er. She had the bed on the left side next to the trees, and I slept
in the bed closer to the water on the other side. The space was
sort of cluttered.
The cabin was in Vineyard Haven on the grounds of The
School of Creative Arts, a summer camp owned and managed
by Kathleen Hinni, who was the dance instructor at The Chapin
School in New York City. Miss Bourke-White had Parkinson’s
Disease, and she chose to spend quiet summers at the camp on
Martha’s Vineyard with her friend, Miss Hinni.
A few of her celebrated photos hung in the main house’s living room.
I slept there because I was sick. The procedure was for
campers who fell ill to pack up and go to stay with Miss Bourke-
White, in that cabin’s designated “sick bed.” So, for three nights,
I lay there sick as a dog and rather unaware of her presence or
the magnitude of the great accomplishments of the remarkable
woman who slept next to me.
What I do remember is that in the middle of one of those
nights, I was awakened by a head counselor who told me that
one of the girls in my cabin had taken an excessive amount of
pills. I knew this camper was very unhappy and had plans to
“run away” from camp and spend a day in town with her boy-
friend, who looked like Sal Mineo. SOCA was for girls only,
and we were all terribly homesick, boy crazy,
and hungry in so many ways.
All summer long, the campers danced, and on hot days, we
gazed at the water and jumped in and out of cabins for fun. Days
were simple and uncomplicated back then. I spent four summers
at that camp. Even though our days were filled with inspiring
and creative activity, I longed to be elsewhere.
I wanted to be at our beach club on Long Island, flirting
with the cabana boy, and at the end of the day, I preferred to
watch American Bandstand and read the comic strip Brenda
Starr. And having the time to read a good Nancy Drew sounded
marvelous. So if I was so unhappy, why did I keep going back?
Did I have a choice? Still to this day, when I hear a ferry fog-
horn, I am reminded of those lonely times when that sound filled
the air of Vineyard Haven and made so many of us yearn to be
any place... but there.
My European Vacation
This WAs my experience decades ago, during the summer of
1969. It is not a cautionary tale or foolish advice for others. I
know many friends and relatives who constantly travel all over
the world to the most remote and exotic places, and love it. But
this particular piece tells of my time in Europe. And to this day,
those two weeks are memorable.
The depression and loneliness were unbearable.
So what could go wrong with a TWA Travel Adventure?
My trip was ruined not because of the travel locations but be-
cause I had the misfortune of going with two “mean girls” who
left me stranded and alone in every city we visited.
Barbara and I planned the trip to Lisbon, Madrid, Paris,
and Rome. I did not realize that when Barbara invited Ilene (who
would already be in Europe) to meet up with us at our first city
location... my trip would immediately go south.
Destination agony.
I was timid back then and very shy and quiet. I suppose
that demeanor made me a bully magnet: a target for the
unresolved angers of others... in school, in camp, and in so many
other places in my life. So when that “mean girl” Ilene talked
dopey, weak-minded Barbara into flat-leaving me and going off
on daily explorations without me, Barbara agreed, and off they
went, abandoning me to be alone every day to decide whether,
after leaving the hotel, I should wander left or go roam right.
The only good day I had was going with my friend Tina to the
Louvre, a meet-up we had planned before we even left Manhat-
tan, since we knew we would be crossing paths during our two
separate vacations. I had one night with the two sadistic mental
torturers: I have a photo of the three of us in a Madrid cafe.
Trust me, the misery on my face
in the picture from that night is palpable.
Seriously, who does that? What kind of “friends” trot off
and leave another girl behind to spend days and nights alone in
foreign cities? I do not think it was a plan. I think Ilene instigat-
ed it, and the lemming Barbara followed along.
And if that was in Barbara’s ability, why didn’t she let me
back out when I had a change of mind about even going? That
fool called my mother to tell her she should convince me to still
go. And of course, my mother put some guilt inside me, saying I
would ruin Barbara’s summer if I did not go.
My mother: always siding with anybody
except her own daughter.
In Rome, those two horrible girls, Barbara and Ilene, talk-
ed me into going to an isolated beach house (at some deserted
location) with three guys they had just met that day. That night,
we arrived there after a 45-minute drive. It was very dark, and
nobody else was even around. In that cabin, most of the light
bulbs were broken, and there was no working toilet.
Some bed was turned on the side, and all the furniture was broken.
It was just a long, wide empty beach under a bright moon... and us:
three guys and three girls. It was straight out of a horror movie.
I think I passed out. I cannot remember how we got back to the
hotel. Years later, I wondered if they used the interior of that
place for the set of the film Hostel.
I remember being alone in the Lisbon hotel room one night
(once again, Barbara and Ilene flat-left me, going off for perhaps
another dangerous escapade) and wishing that when I opened
my eyes, the two weeks for that trip would be over. I just want-
ed to go home. I was so tired of having every dinner alone in a
foreign country, and I felt so deserted.
I even got paranoid that my food was poisoned.
I lost a great deal of weight during those two weeks away.
I should market my life experiences as a quick weight loss program.
Anyway, even though we were an organized TWA group,
we did not have structured days... we only gathered at the air-
ports, and every experience at customs was a personal night-
mare. Did I look suspicious? Did I look like a smuggler? My
unlocked luggage was always picked for inspections. Always.
Every. Single. Time. I had actual hallucinations that drugs would
be planted in my suitcases, and I would be framed. I began to
feel there was some nefarious plot to throw me into a prison,
and that was decades before reality TV shows created episodes
around that theme.
I believe the fear from that summer and that trip triggered
my OCD. I was very young, changing, and at that time, I just did
not have the skills or confidence to handle the matter or manage
my situation. Of course, I probably had a tendency to develop
an anxiety disorder because I was a nervous kid and a worrier,
but that trip in 1969 sealed the deal. I spent years after that going
into panics that never impacted others but
certainly thwarted my own life. And after that traumatic and hurtful
experience that summer, I got off easy. I could have developed agoraphobia.
And though I have since traveled many times to diverse
locations, I never went back to Europe. Perhaps as I developed
and grew older, I would have had a great time alone in those
wonderful cities. After that year, I spent many summer days at
Long Beach, Long Island. For decades, I never had to travel far
to find a place that gave me strange peace.
Reflections on Misery
and Magical Thinking
It falls AWAy as vivid and ongoing chapters of my childhood to
accept that I was the go-to kid to be teased and picked on. Cer-
tainly, in elementary school, I was always the last to be picked
for everything. I got it. I was a slow runner and lazy at every
game. Lori chided me during kickball with “Exert yourself,
Marjorie,” and I thought, “I am.” And whichever team got me,
there was always a girl in the group to taunt me with: “Ew, you
got Marjorie.” I was the “Ew Girl.”
I fell into that role of never being popular and always the
loser... and my experience at Camp Baumann was no exception.
Another experience of misery. I was literally sent off to a day
camp every single day, which was torture. Nothing new there. I
hated swimming, I hated sports, and I hated arts and crafts. The
girls ostracized me. The boys abused me during every bus ride
there and back by pulling on clumps of my hair. I am surprised
that at the end of the summer, I still had hair on my head.
A kid on my block, Robin, once gathered her snark and
said about sleep-away summer camp: “There’s a freak in every
bunk.” And I was always that freak. At The School of Creative
Arts, the girls gave me the name “Bird Dog.” I sort of got it. I
was fat and ugly, with acne to boot. I always owned that role.
And high school continued to define me within that part. I re-
member not wanting to even see my own reflection in a mir-
ror because I thought I looked like what today would be called
“cringe.” This kid, Chris, would ridicule me right to my face and
call me a “zero, beast.” Back then, “shaming” was de rigueur.
I was a real bully magnet and the poster child for unhappiness.
There are a few specific times that live in my memory.
I remember when I was about nineteen, I had a double-blind date, and
I was picked up first. When we arrived at the
other girl’s house, and I got out of the car to get the other girl,
those two guys drove away, making a fast getaway. I concluded
I was too ugly for even one night in the dark at a movie.
There was one specific time, probably the most hurtful,
that sticks with me. It happened on New Year’s Eve of 1963,
going into 1964, at The Concord Hotel. I had planned my outfit
well in advance. I wore a blue velvet and white satin dress with a
green silk sash, and had my shoes dyed green to match the dress.
My mother told me I would be sitting that night at a table with
other teens, all of whom were total strangers to me. My sister
sat at a pre-teen table and my parents sat at a table with other
adults. So there I was, at a round table with three other girls and
four boys. The girls were pretty and giving off a real Sandra Dee
vibe. The boys looked like Frankie Avalon or maybe Fabian.
And I looked sort of like a fat,
very ugly version of pretty Annette Funicello.
For some reason, all of those teens at my
table decided to abandon our table number 10 and join table 11,
which had some empty seats. So all seven of them filled those
empty seats and left me sitting all alone. I thought I should at
least try to sit with them, so I got up and boldly asked if they
could fit me and my chair in. One of those boys brazenly said,
“There is no room,” and the girls laughed.
I sat back alone at my table, and I cried. I was so over-
whelmed with sadness. I was so hurt. I was not going to sit there
and eat alone. My face must have been soaking wet because
when I left that table, and I went to the other side of that dining
room to tell my mother I was going back up to the room, she did
ask what happened. But I quickly fled out of that ballroom and
went upstairs. When I was back in the room, I put on the TV and
watched the old film Not As A Stranger.
Every time I see that movie on TCM, I remember that night.
Oh, I saw one of my high school bullies, Chris, at a 30-
year high school reunion and asked him why he tormented me
so much back then, and without missing a beat, he called himself
an “asshole.” I liked that answer.
And oh, those teens from that night at The Concord Hotel
so long ago? Who knows where they are now?
They are probably all dead.
And even when I was in college, I went to get a haircut
at a local salon, and one of the stylists who was not working at
the time left to get a sandwich. When she returned, she was not
alone. She actually went in to the hardware store in that little
strip mall and returned with some guy who entered and declared
sarcastically, “I hear you have a real winner in here.”
And they all laughed.
Was I, during childhood and throughout college, a bully
magnet? Obviously, yes. Even my own mother made fun of me
in multiple ways all the time. For instance, being called a “bump
on a log” and being told I had “no personality” certainly were
a few of the insults that did not come from the mouths of my
peers. I tell my viewers in my internet broadcast that I am im-
mune to harassment because my own mother trolled me during
my entire childhood. She exacerbated every hurtful situation in
layered ways, and in retrospect, she was my Bully Number Zero.
My mother never helped with my appearance, and she certainly never
raised my level of confidence. The only time she
inserted herself into my clothing choices (and the selection was
very limited) was when I told her I was going into Manhattan,
and she told me I had to wear silk stockings because
I was going into “the city.”
She respected “the city” more than she ever did me.
She had a huge negative impact on my development,
and when I was a teenager, her damage was severe. She never
missed a day of hurling insults at me, and she knew I had a few
teen crushes, and her response was always put-downs, making
comments such as “Why would he be interested in you?” Or
“Shut up about him already.” I could list so many more ways she
validated her mental illness, but why allow her to hijack these vignettes?
But here is one doozy: My friend Sharon told me that Bet-
ty’s mother took out her eyeballs every night and washed them.
That story should have been categorized as a Valley Stream “Ur-
ban Legend.” But when I told my mother about that, without
missing a beat, she replied: “Betty’s mother has the right idea.”
The woman needed heavy doses of Haldol.
There was not one time “that woman” showed any concern
for my happiness or well-being. Maybe those early experiences
drove my nature to make anxiety my default setting within a
weird comfort zone. As somebody close to me once said, “It is
a miracle you did not turn to drugs or alcohol to handle all of
that.” And I didn’t.
A few short years after I moved away, I was determined
to create a new visual version of myself. There was no way I
was going to age and grow old into that defined nightmare. I
firmly believed that I could change my appearance and change
my life. I believed in strong ways. I was committed to shedding
that image like a reptile. So I manifested my own version of The
Enchanted Cottage.
And lo and behold, one day I awakened and looked in the
mirror and I resembled Elizabeth Taylor! Fact. Not long after, I
was stopped on East 57th Street and asked if I was Sophia Loren!
When I was in Bonwit Teller, a woman said she was a painter
and told me I was gorgeous! Was I dead and dreaming? And I
remember the day when a custodian visited a school in which I
was teaching, and he told me, “I have never seen a teacher so
beautiful.” Somehow, in an almost surreal way, I woke up at the
age of twenty-three and had a different face! I also had a high
level of confidence and excellent self-esteem.
It had to be magical thinking!
You can’t make this stuff up!
I am reminded of the time when I was in first grade, and
the class was in the schoolyard at recess. I was wearing a fine
yellow dress with fancy red flowers, and I climbed the steps of
the slide. I sat at the top and prepared to go down. As I took that
first push, both sides of my dress caught on hooks on the top step
of the slide. I shot down, and my dress pulled back over my body
and arms and over my head and then tore off me, and I went
down almost butt naked. When I reached the bottom, all I had
on were my panties, and all the kids were pointing and laughing.
I ran at breakneck speed through the playground into the
school as my dress flapped high above me in the wind. I landed
straight in the nurse’s office, and she gave me another dress to
wear for the day. When I got home, my mother saw I was wear-
ing a different dress and asked, “What happened?” I replied: “I
fell backwards off my chair, hit my head, and threw up on my
dress.” Why exacerbate the embarrassment further?
