But I was gone, the heck with the game. What was that compared with a new holiday sweater? For twenty minutes I chased that car. Somewhere in Flatbush I finally flagged it down and got my sweater back. Jesse Owens could not have made that run any faster, only a ten-year-old boy built like a wire hanger.
When I was about six and my brother Bernie was about ten, we boarded a bus together to go to Camp Sussex. It was a camp in New Jersey that was free for underprivileged children. It was funded by Eddie Cantor, a famous radio, stage, and movie star in those years. It was for kids from ages five to ten, that’s why it was just me and Bernie. It was the first time I had ever left home. It was both wonderful and terrible.
When the bus pulled in, I was amazed to see miles and miles of grass and trees and sky. I asked my counselor, “Where are the tenements? Where are the fire escapes? Where are the stores? Where are the cars?” He explained that this was called “the country,” and that, believe it or not, there was a lot more of it than the city. I didn’t like that a bit. It was pretty hard to swallow. Ever since I was born, all I saw were stoops and streets and stores and buildings. I didn’t know about this thing called “the country.” It was a little alarming.
But pretty soon I got used to it and discovered the free food—little green apples that grew on an apple tree that you could pick and eat and didn’t have to pay for! One afternoon I ate about thirty of them and got the worst bellyache of my life, not to mention the runs. That was about a hundred years ago and I’ve steadfastly stuck to my vow never to eat another little green apple.
The counselors told us to write to our parents, so it was really the beginning of my career as a writer. With my stubby pencil I used to write letters that went something like this:
Dear Mom,
I miss you. Send me gum. I love you.
Your son,
Mel
Rather primitive. It wasn’t much of a letter, and later in life my writing skills improved somewhat. I actually won an Academy Award for writing the original screenplay for The Producers. But it was a beginning, and a beginning is a beginning.
I remember always being funny, but the first time was at Camp Sussex. I was about six years old and whatever the counselors said, I would turn it around.
“Put your plates in the garbage and stack the scraps, boys!”
“Stay at the shallow end of the pool until you learn to drown!”
“Who said that? Kaminsky! Grab him! Hold him!” Slap!
But the other kids laughed and I was a success. I needed a success. I was short. I was scrawny. I was the last one they picked to be on the team. “Oh, all right, we’ll take him. Put him in the outfield.”
I would have liked to have been taller, but as I understood it there are only two ways to be taller. One way was to have very tall parents. That would assure that you wouldn’t be so short, you would certainly be taller. The other way was a difficult process: large men pulled up on your head and your chin while other large men grabbed your ankles and pulled down with all their might for four hours a day. I thought it through and decided no, I’ll stay short. Besides, if they don’t set your ankles back again right you walk like Harry Ritz for the rest of your life. （More about the Ritz Brothers later.）
I liked most of our activities at Camp Sussex: playing games like tag and hide-and-seek, and swimming in the roped-off section of the lake. Every once in a while bullies would pick on me, but my brother Bernie always came to my rescue. He got into many fights, but he never lost. When Bernie was in his late seventies he moved to Las Vegas, and I made sure to go see him at least twice a year. And every time I did we would always sing the song that they used to sing to us right when we got off the Camp Sussex bus.
“We welcome you to Sussex Camp
We’re mighty glad you’re here
We’ll send the air reverberating with a mighty cheer
Rah! Rah!
We’ll sing you in
We’ll sing you out
With all our praises we will shout
Hail! Hail!
The gang’s all here
And you’re welcome to Sussex Camp!”
Many years later I got the chance to thank Eddie Cantor for my time at Camp Sussex. I had begun writing for Sid Caesar in 1950 and had reason to attend a big charitable function at Madison Square Garden with him. I saw that one of the stars on the program was Eddie Cantor. I was still rather young and intimidated by all the big stars, but I gathered my courage and knocked on Eddie Cantor’s dressing room door. He said come in and I told him that I was one of the writers on Your Show of Shows and he exclaimed, “I love that show!”