Papas Diary Project

Shapiro called me
up last night and today
we went together to Spring
Valley.

C. helped us to find
quarters, at night visited
the girls camp.

————-

Shapiro is a familiar character in Papa’s diary, a good friend and B’nai Zion brother who turns up a lot at parties and gatherings. I figure he and Papa met for Saturday morning services on the Lower East Side, stopped by their apartments to pick up some things for the weekend, and then took subway to Grand Central and caught the train to Spring Valley.

I have a photo of Coney Island from the 1920’s in which men walk the boardwalk at the height of summer in jackets, ties and hats, and I assume Papa dressed similarly. Did he and Shapiro also dress this way as they went north? Did they share the train with lots of other similarly-dressed Jews, all heading to join their friends at camps or bungalow colonies in the country? Did they fill the air inside the cars with smoke and hopeful chatter about their prospects for the long weekend? And, when they arrived in Spring Valley, did they finally loosen their ties and drape their jackets over their forearms as they dispersed? Did they walk miles to their camps, hop on buses, pile into cars if they were lucky enough to have friends who drove?

It’s been a little harder than I expected to get my questions about Spring Valley camps answered, but they keep piling up. What kind of “quarters” did Clara secure for Papa and Shapiro? A couple of cots in a bungalow shared with a dozen others? A motel room? A canvas tent? When they visited the “girls camp” in the evening, what exactly went on? Did they sit around a campfire and sing socialist songs? Did the trees and the crickets, the smell of smoke in the cool August air remind Papa of the European foothills he left behind, trigger long reminiscences of the old country? Did men and women inch closer, some of them slipping off in pairs, away from the firelight, to provide fuel for the next morning’s gossip?

And what of Papa and Clara II? He had vowed not to pursue her any further, knew she used him for flattery and favors but would likely leave his romantic desires unfulfilled. Yet still, he came to Spring Valley to see her. Perhaps his forgiving nature led him to hope she would not disappoint him, would not be true to form. Perhaps he knew it was foolish to entertain such hopes. Perhaps, to sit and watch her face by firelight, to see her flirt and laugh and tuck her hair behind her ear and know he could never have her gave shape to the feeling of “great longing” he lived with and had written of, a feeling he could not yet imagine a life without, a feeling that somehow fed his romantic soul’s hunger for unfulfilled desire, his poet’s love of pathos.

I do not know exactly what Spring Valley was like, but I do know Papa did not simply sit and sing and clap and laugh along with his friend Shapiro and think of nothing else. For all the synagogues and packed subway cars and noisy trains and cramped country quarters and parties in the woods he saw that day, I know he felt alone.

————-

Update:

Additional Note:

Fred, the CRRO (Chief Railroad Research Officer) for Papa’s Diary Project, tells us how Papa would have gotten to Spring Valley from the City: He would have walked across the Hudson Terminal at Chambers street to the Hudson Tubes, where he would have grabbed the old H&M to Jersey City. From there, he would have taken the Erie Railroad to Spring Valley. His return trip presumably traced the same path in reverse.

Again visited the camp
this evening. I am in
a way glad I have no
affection for C.

Her actions entitle
her to a new title wildest
for she was the most
daring and noisiest of
all girls; she has such
peculiar ways, so dissagre-
able to me, No such type
for me.

However she is my cousin
and as such I tried to
take care of her in a way
unknown to her.

Enjoyed the party at the
[girls] camp, as for a change
of environment it was
interesting.

————

I speculated a bit yesterday on what a party might have been like at the “girls camp” up in Spring Valley, New York, where Papa spent his Labor Day weekend. Once again, for all the scenery and crowds and festive action, he focused all his attention Clara II, the distant cousin for whom he insisted he had “no affection,” insisted with the persistence and vigor of a man who’s kidding himself.

While he continued to look for new ways to find Clara II distasteful in this entry, he wrote an odd thing, as well: “she is my cousin and as such I tried to take care of her in a way unknown to her.” I’m not sure what this means, though I can’t help but think she got drunk on prohibition liquor, and maybe Papa took her home and gently put her to bed.

Whatever happened, though, it occurs to me that this moment might reflect a deep change Papa was going through at this time. If I’m right about Clara II’s identity, she was distant cousin from the old country. I wonder if his longing for her was tied to his longing for his boyhood home, and I similarly wonder if his struggle to lose his affection for her was tied to his struggle to leave that boyhood behind. Papa’s father died back in May, and since then he had, painfully, sought ways to give up his dreams of reuniting with his family, sever his ties to the old country, and finally build a life for himself in America.

I’m writing this on the verge of Labor Day weekend, the official end of one season and the start of another, so maybe that’s making me look for signs of change everywhere, anticipate new chapters, perceive myself, my city, my Papa, my world as on the verge of something. But it was Labor Day weekend for Papa, too, the end of a terribly sad and introspective summer, and maybe the party at which he stopped pining for Clara II and started taking care of her was something of a valedictory for him. For a moment, at least, he saw her as what she was, not an object of longing, but an immature young woman, perhaps lonely and homesick herself, who needed help from someone older and wiser. Maybe, in a small way, he was starting to set aside his daydreams and take his world in hand.

Labor Day

After a motor trip
around the country with friend
Shapiro, we met C. at the
R.R., station, from where we
went home together.

Home from the brief
vacation I found myself
still tired, but glad to be
home.

Called up Miss S.S.
and dated her up for
Friday night.

——————–

As we’ve mentioned before, a motor trip around the country in 1924 probably looked something like this:

And if Papa had been behind the wheel of the car, he looked like he did in this studio photo (if, that is, he considered it appropriate to wear a white straw boater on Labor Day):

Since Papa’s recent discussions of “C.”, a.k.a. Clara II, have led me to think the worst of her, I can only assume she cajoled Papa into tending to her equipage at the train station as she did in the city a few days earlier when she first left for Spring Valley.

Papa says he was tired when he got home, and it’s no wonder in light of how unrelaxed he felt around Clara, and not just because she did not return his romantic affection; if my speculation from yesterday was correct, she served as a manifestation of his deepest and most difficult internal struggles. His efforts to quash his attraction to Clara II continued in full force on this day, too, as evidenced by the rather unusual, slangy way he concludes this passage. To mention “S.S.” and how he “dated her up” on the heels of spending the day with Clara II seems like a deliberate, purposeful way to assert Clara II’s unimportance and point out how many other women he had to choose from.

—————

Additional Note:

As noted on August 30, Papa probably got to Spring Valley by getting on the H&M from the Hudson Tubes at Chambers Street, taking that to Jersey City, and then jumping on the Erie Railroad to Spring Valley. His return trip presumably traced this path in reverse.