Back to the summer of 1993. That was the one summer my father did not complain about going to camp

This past Shabbos, my father told us the tale of his first business endeavor. Though he had no share of the profits, and could be considered more of a worker than a kingpin, he was part of

an enterprise at camp that brought in nearly $1,000 in profit, while still selling merchandise below cost price. Astounding, I know.

We sat enthralled, wide-eyed as we envisioned our father as a little boy raking in all that money. The stark contrast between the days of his youth and today is evident in this story. Many mothers will sit and cluck their tongues reading this, but all I see is an amazing adventure that children today will never be able to experience.

It was the year 1993. My father was a boy of 14, learning in the Satmar cheder on Throop Avenue. In those days, the kids were mustangs — wild and free. They spent their afternoons in the large courtyard of Clemente Plaza housing projects playing ball and riding their bikes.

Maybe that’s why the kids dreaded camp so much. My father recalls throwing tantrums with his older brothers about going to camp every summer from the age of eight until they turned ten or eleven. At that point, there was no option of staying home. In camp, they didn’t have the freedom Williamsburg projects kids had at home. There were no bikes or balls or activities of any kind in camp, not to mention the living conditions.

My father recalls with nostalgia the narrow passage one had to navigate to access the camp lunchroom. It was a very narrow path between two structures, with a terrible stench wafting through, and to top it off there was an exhaust fan on one of the structures that ensured you got the full experience of the foul odor, no matter what techniques you used to circumvent it.

The army-style, roll-up mattresses in the bunks were old and fetid, and when the boys slept on them, they could feel the generations before them digging into their backs. Of course, the bunks did not have air conditioners. And there were no classrooms, just some old wooden tables and benches in the relatively cool woods, where the boys were exposed to the elements and mosquitoes.