This one time at fat camp.

In 1969, on a dairy farm in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New York, 400,000 people experienced Woodstock, a cultural and iconic music festival which defined freedom and liberation for an entire generation.

A year later, in those same Catskills, I also had the opportunity to experience freedom and liberation. Mainly from Twinkies and Reese’s peanut butter cups.

“Honey, you’re going to a sleep away camp this summer,” said my mom. “It’s called Camp Tahoe. It’s a special kind of camp to help young boys like you lose weight.”

Because it was 1970 and I didn’t have the option yet to create a #oksoiwearhuskypants hashtag or start a gofundme campaign to file a lawsuit seeking emancipation from my parents, I swallowed my pride and my donut holes.

Fat camp, here I come.

I didn’t think I was fat. Then again, I was nine. I mostly thought about things like cartoons and comic books and Oreos and Ding Dong’s and the Keebler Elves and the Trix Rabbit and Count Chocula and that Sara Lee cheesecake my mom had in the freezer.

In hindsight, maybe I needed to go to fat camp.

“It’ll be fun,” said my mom. “You’ll meet some friends. You’ll get some new clothes for school. It’ll be nice. You’ll be thin.”

My mom liked thin. If there was food chain of important words to my mom and her friends in the early 70s, thin took the cake. Thin meant you could wear stripes and you didn’t look like a walking funhouse mirror.

“Look at him. I heard he cured cancer, discovered the polio vaccine, found a way to fuel vehicles with water, and brought peace to Middle East.”

That’s nice. And he looks so thin, doesn’t he?”

Yep. The summer of 1970 was right around the corner and my parents were sending me to weight loss camp in the heart of the borscht belt.

Borscht, by the way, is very low in fat.

**

So Camp Tahoe’s proprietor was a “leading nutritionist” named Gussie Mason. Gussie wrote a book, “Help Your Child Lose Weight and Keep it Off.

It’s no wonder parents sent their kids off to Gussie for the summer. Here’s a sample from her spectacular, awe-inspiring, incredibly motivating book:

A child may not notice his or her weight so a parent has to subtly impel their teen towards wanting to diet using the parents’ control over the household and over money:

Hang a few full-length mirrors around the house. There’s nothing like a good hard look at themselves to convince children that it’s time to take off the weight. The girl who tells herself she’s just “pleasingly plump” and the boy who think he’s just a little “huskier” than his friends can get a rude shock when they are confronted by their mirror image.

Go for a little shopping trip. The pleasingly plump girl who tries to buy a bathing suit will discover faster than words can convey that there’s nothing pleasant about being overweight. The young man who pictures himself in a pair of dungarees and then discover that the only pants that fit him would look better on his grandfather will be ready and eager to lose the weight.

Yes, Gussie sounded like a wonderful woman. I’m considering visiting her grave and pouring chocolate sauce all over it.

**

So I was a sheltered fat, Jewish kid from the suburbs of Buffalo. I got out of the car at Camp Tahoe and saw things I had never seen before. Horrible, frightening things. Things not meant for human eyes, let alone sheltered, fat, Jewish, suburban kid eyes.

I saw grass. And trees. And God knows what that flaming ball of heat was in the sky.

It was so hot. What was that wetness forming on my forehead? Was I sweating?

Mom!

“This looks nice,” said my mom, sitting in the car, air conditioning blasting in her face.

After we met my counselors and I hugged my parents’ goodbye, I stood with a group of other plump young lads and watched them drive off. My mom is a pretty emotional person and I was pretty sure she was crying as she waved goodbye.

ODDS ON WHY AUDREY STRAUSS WAS CRYING

3:1 — She was leaving her son to starve to death for 7 weeks.

7:2 — Her makeup was running from the heat.

2:1- Her white shoes touched grass.

As the powder blue LeSabre faded off into the distance, one of the kids looked at me and said, “Well, your parents are gone. You can swear now.”

“What?”

Yep,” he said. “It’s camp. Go for it. Nobody cares.”

I was two minutes in to fat camp and I’d already lost three pounds out of sheer fear.

“Damn?”

“Ah, shit kid. You’ve got a lot to learn.”

They laughed. I laughed nervously, looking over my shoulder to make sure Herb and Audrey didn’t hear anything. We walked away, heading back to our cabins as I made a mental note to expand my list of curse words.

I had never stayed in a cabin before. I had no idea there was so much wood. A splinter was inevitable. We had four kids in our cabin, plus a counselor and a junior counselor. There were three sets of bunk beds. The top seemed so high. Was Gussie aware there were large young men sleeping at elevated heights?

I don’t recall how it was determined who was paired with whom, all I remember is my chunky bunk buddy said, “I want the top.” Fine by me. I prefer my sleeping accommodations closer to solid ground. Closer to the bathroom. Which was outside. In the woods.

Sheltered, fat, Jewish, suburban kid. Hello?

Mom!

In the middle of the first night I was sound asleep when I heard a thud.

It turned out my second story bunkmate had rolled over and found himself where he should have been: on first floor next to me. Gosh, who would have ever anticipated that gravity would bring a fat kid tumbling back to earth?

“Are you OK?” I asked.

ODDS ON WHAT THE FAT KID WHO FELL OFF THE BED SAID

9:1 “I hate Gussie.”

6:1 “Jesus, that hurt.”

2:1 “Boy, I could really go for some cream of mushroom soup right about now.”

As he crawled back up and I watched his caving mattress sink towards me, as I listened to the heavy breathing of the others who were no doubt dreaming of whipped cream and cherries jubilee, all I could think was, “At some point my parents will be in wheelchairs wearing diapers and they’ll need my help. Patience Lane, patience.”

At least that’s what I hope I was thinking.

**

I had always considered myself a natural athlete. My strength and agility in tearing opening a cookie sleeve was legendary. My speed at inhaling cherry pie was something others only dreamt of.

It’s not bragging if you can back it up: I was born with the God-given ability to chew.

This however, was an entirely different form of athletics. I would classify it more in the category of “actually moving.”

From the time we woke up, we jogged.

We jogged to breakfast.

We jogged to sports.

We jogged to jogging.

And to use my newly found linguistic skills, we also did a lot of goddamn calisthenics, too. Jumping jacks. Push-ups. Sit-ups. Actually, I should rephrase that: we spent a lot of time working on those things. Push-up, sit-ups and jumping jacks were not an everyday occurrence for the chubby young men of Camp Tahoe. We were usually paired off in groups of two, and when it was time to do sit-ups, your partner held your feet in place and counted to a hundred. With any luck you were paired with someone who was really good at counting by twos. Even better, fours.

Between jogging and calisthenics we had craft classes, which involved drawing pictures of places we missed, like home and Dairy Queen. And while I don’t have any cherished art treasures from those times, the one thing I know we didn’t make were macaroni necklaces, for we would have surely eaten our way through those.

It comes as no surprise the food was nothing to write home about. Although in hindsight, perhaps that was a lost opportunity. The thought of the running my tongue across that tasty sweet rubbery envelope glue was probably something I should have taken advantage of.

Honestly, the only dining worth mentioning was Sunday morning’s delicacy when we were treated to waffles. But of course, this was Gussie’s sadistic world, and those waffles came with a price.

The price was your last shred of dignity.

Before those mouth-watering waffles passed our lips, we had to live through the most humbling moment of the week: the weigh-in.

They stripped us down to our shorts to await our fate on The Scale. It was one of those intimidating doctor’s scales, so there was always drama as the counselor slid the bar to get your exact weight to the 1/16 of a pound.

The scale was all-knowing. The scale knew how hard you worked, how little you ate. How much you deserved that waffle.

The counselor never really said anything after he weighed you either, like “good job,” or “Way to go” or “One at a time, kid”. The only thing he did was scribble a number on a chart and say, “Next.”

There was no indication of success or failure. I suppose this was good training for teenage dating.

I hated that scale. I still hate scales. Even today I don’t own one. When I go the doctor and they want to weigh me, my response is clear and direct: “Unless there’s a waffle at the end of this process, this is not happening.”

After 7 weeks, I lost 12 pounds. I was on the road to thin.

“My God, you look so thin,” said my mom when they picked me up. “We’ll have to go clothes shopping. No more husky section for you!” Which for my mom meant, “No more being seen in the husky section for me!”

I said goodbye to a few of the other campers. We hugged. We laughed. We swore one last time. Man things.

We got in the car and started on the four-hour journey home. I turned back for one final look at my summer home thinking “Well, I guess I learned some important life lessons here and maybe I can continue to do the right thing and make everyone proud.”

“I’m starving,” said my dad. “Let’s get something to eat. There’s a burger joint up the road.” He looked at my mom. “Is that OK?”

“Oh, why not?” she said. “He deserves a treat after working so hard, doesn’t he?”

Needless to say, there was no argument from me.

By the middle of October, I gained everything back and then some.

On the bright side, it’s 47 years later and I’ve nailed the art of swearing.

Screw you, Gussie.

**

So I told my mom I was writing this and of course her first response was, “I hope you’re not making me looking bad.”

I said, “I’m not making you look bad. I’m just making you look like who you were. I understand that grandma put a lot of pressure on you when you were younger to be thin and she was a little crazy and she basically brainwashed you into being overly obsessed with weight. You just didn’t know any better, and I want you to know that I don’t harbor any ill will. It’s OK. We all need to let go of things and I’ve chosen to let go of this. You’re my mother and I love you.”

She said, “I love you too and I was just trying to do the best I could at the time. I didn’t know any better and I’m sorry if I affected your life in any way.”

“It’s fine, mom. Really.”

“OK,” she said. “Because I’m different now. I’ve come to realize how unimportant all those things I used to care about are. The most important thing is just to be happy. I don’t judge anyone anymore.”

“That’s a great way to go through life,” I said. “I’m glad you’re able to prioritize what really matters. Anyhow, let’s move on. So what are you doing today?”

“Oh, we’re playing cards at Sheila’s house. I’m not very happy about it, though. The place is disgusting. She’s a terrible housekeeper. I don’t know how anyone could live like that. And the food she puts out for us. I mean, I put out a very nice display of fruits and crackers and cheeses and it’s like she just opens the fridge and throws whatever she can sees on a dirty plate. I wouldn’t touch it. It obviously doesn’t stop her from eating, though. When was the last time you saw her? She’s put on a tremendous amount of weight. I mean, she’s a big girl. Big. The last time the girls all went out to eat she ate an entire hamburger and all her fries and a piece of chocolate cake like she was a vacuum cleaner. Did I mention that when I went to the doctor last Thursday I lost two pounds?”