Play for Camp

I guess I was the author of this one act play.  I would bet I wrote it for camp at which I was working . . . Camp Trinity on the Bar 717 Ranch in Hayfork, California, near Hyampom.
An Old Man narrates and then uses several songs for kids to sing, "What I First Came to this Land." and "This Land is Your Land."  It's about 5 pages long and not in good shape.
Not very good I'm afraid, but it got done.

Mother's Music Composition Book

 This is a music composition book that Mother used.  She wrote in it sort of at the height of her illness.  Mother wrote a lot during that time and I am sorry to say that much of it is lost.  However, I treasure what we do have.  I am going to give you the words to a couple of songs in the notebook here.  

"Can You Look Me In The Eye"

Can you look me in the eye as I send my boy to die for you?
He said "Mama I'll be back."
And he bore a heavy pack for all , for you.
You have freedom to rebel because someone went thru hell.
Gave his live to guard it well for you
Can you look me in the eye as I send my boy to die for you
He said "Mama I'll be back"
And he bore a heravy pack all you.

I saw a man the other day
His face smiled like a wreath
It didn't seem to matter much
That he had no teeth.

I just wanted to tell you how excited I am that I have discovered a way to dictate what I want to say.   It is going to speed up the process terrifically.  I am very excited. I'm not going to put a picture here. I'm just going to leave the words. This afternoon I'll get back to putting more items in the blog. I'm going to post this now and see how it works.

Alice Rovinsky

This is a beautifully preserved Holiday Magazine from December, 1967.  Nothing else to say about it.
Actually, I am coming back to this magazine.  There is a lot more here than meets the eye.  In fact, I could not scan the entire front cover of the magazine.  If you will look just below the O, you will see an L and remnants of an E.  That Says "Israel, A Special Issue."  I remember now where we got this magazine and why we have it.  The Badanes had a relative named Alice Rovinsky.  She lived in Palm Springs.  I'm not sure how she was related, maybe Jeanne knows.  Anyway, we learned about her when Joshua was about 1 year old and we went to visit her.  We did that a couple of times and had lunch.  She loved Joshua.  We had the feeling that she did not have many human contacts so we tried to stay in touch.  We learned that she was an artist of some renown.  She was best know in Palm Springs with her art-work spoofing the rich in Palm Springs.  Well, we went to see her one day unannounced and there was a coroner's tape across her door.  She had died.  And, it seemed she had no relatives and nobody to care about her passing.  Well, we did what we could to find someone.  I'm a little fuzzy about what we did.  Jeanne, please help out.  But, we did decide that since she had no relatives who were going to come to her house, that we would go in and see what we could see.  What we saw was a woman living obviously very sparsely.  Amost no worldly things except her art.  Well, we took it.  We still have it.  I have packaged it up, not as carefully as I should have, but more carefully than anybody else was going to.
Well, Jeanne pointed out the Israel words on this magazine.  I'm sure Alice was of the Jewish persuasion.  But, here's the interesting thing, when I opened the magazine just now, out flopped a bunch of her art work.  And, some other art work she had obviously collected from somewhere.  I'm going to post all of those here now.  I hope you will enjoy them as much as we do.  (By the way, I contacted the Palm Springs Life Magazine recently to tell her I had this art work.  I also contacted a Palm Springs Museum and none of them were at all interested in what I had.)
Now that I have uploaded all of these, it is obvious that Alice tore out her pictures from the magazine Palm Springs Life.  It is also evident that she had a permanent place in each edition of the magazine.  I can't even tell you what a treasure I think we have here.
The first picture is from a collection from the Desert Southwest.  I think if you click on the pictures they will become large enough for you to read the captions below the cartoons.
I actually have two more pages that I am not going to post.  You get the idea.  I also have decided that since these pictures were so well preserved in the pages of this Holiday Magazine that is where I will keep them from now on.  I consider them treasures.

This is taken from the palm springs life dated 1969.

This is an actual original that Alice did not finish.  What a treasure.  The caption that you can partly read says, "She's second from the end in the thrid row.  Hasn't she a beautiful voice?"

This was taken from the Magazine in 1969.

 This magazine is dated September 1970.

 This is simply a picture of some desert wildflowers.

 Dated December, 1970.

 From the magazine dated September, 1969.

 October, 1969.

 November, 1969.

 Dated May, 1969.

April, 1969.

 Summer, 1968.

 Summer, 1968.

 September, 1970.

 February, 1969.

 This is very sweet.  This is a letter to the editors of the Magazine published in a Comment: section.  Here's what it says:
"Anybody Seen Alice?
    Teitelbaum's cartoons in your June magazine are very amusing, but I missed Rovinsky's Palm Springs.  Has Mr. Rovinsky flown the coop?'
                                            Jack Lederman
                                            Washington, D.C."
The Ed. Note:  "He's a she.  Her name is Alice.  We'd clip her wings if she attempted flight.  See pages 148-149."
Is that lovely or what!

Another art piece I guess Alice liked.

4th Grade in Porterville

While I was living on the Bar 717 Ranch and teaching in Hyampom, I felt that Grover and Irma Gates had not followed through on promises made to me about becoming a part owner of the camp so we had just a little falling out.  I went to live in Hyampom the next year and taught for a year.  Then, I'd had enough of that.  (I was drinking quite heavily and sometimes I think I barely escaped with my life, although everyone wanted me to stay thinking I was a pretty good teacher.)  Anyway, I took a job in Porterville, teaching 4th grade.  This is a picture of this class.  I was single and miserable while living in Porterville.  It was while I was here that my Dad came to see me and said he wanted me to meet one of the young women in the class he was teaching at Cal State LA.  Well, this led to my second marriage . . . to Linda.  I stayed in Porterville one year.  Recently, 2012 or so, I have heard from a couple of my students from this class.  They want to have a reunion of all the members of that class.  Who ever heard of such a thing.  I guess I couldn't have done too bad a job.  My teaching methods were to say the least unorthodox.  But, my test scores were always pretty high.  I guess that saved my ass.

Picture of Jeff

Not sure where or when or why, but here is a picture of Jeff, I assume at what was the beginning of the long hair adventure.  Jeff was about 15 years younger than I was.  We really did not spend much family time together.  When he was born I think I was feeling very low after the separation from my first wife, Peggy.  I was home and basically I think I spent several months babysitting for Jeff so Mother could keep working.  That last part might not be true, but I think it was.  I do know this for sure, they would not let me in the hospital in Dinuba, California, when Jeff was born.  So, I creeped around on the outside of the one-floor hospital and peeked in and listened under the windows.  I so wanted to be there.

Olga's Invitation

Another letter from Olga.  It is basically an invitation for me to stay at their house during Larry's wedding.

Jeff's Graduation

For some reason I always thought this was Jeff's graduation from Jr. High School.  But, looking again, I believe it must have been high school.  Where?  From where did you graduate Jeff?

Soap Recipe

This is a sweet little note.  It is a recipe for soap.  I'm sure it is my Grandmother's handwriting.  Got to try it someday.

Olga Letter to Me

The envelope is dated Feb. 6, 1964, so it was once again while I was in Hyampom.  While I was teaching in Hyampom, somehow I met a young woman from Willits I think.  Her dad was wealthy and owned acres of almonds.  Well, working as fast as I did in those days, we were to be married.  Apparently Olga know about it because she said so there was to be no wedding.  What happened was this as I recall.  I drove an old pickup truck that would not hold water in the radiator.  In order for me to go anyplace, I had to stop periodically and put water in it.  Well, I got all drunked up and somehow I got down to Willits to see my best girl.  I called her to tell her I was in town since I had not let her know that I was coming.  Funny how I remember this, I said to her on the phone, "This is your drunken sailor come to visit."  Well, that was the final straw of what I can only presume was a series of drunken straws and she called the whole thing off calling me an alcoholic.  How dare she!  Olga said, "I hear her mother talked her out of it."  Yes, I'll bet she did!  Anyway, there are other interesting things in the letter.  You'll just have to dig it out and read them for yourself.

Picture of Dad

Great picture of Dad.  He was really a good looking man.  Probably about 30 here.

Letter from Grandma

This is a letter from Grandma to me dated 9/10/1963.  I think this is when I was in Hyampom.  You know, during this time I was such an arrogant son-of-a-bitch.  Here I had all these people writing to me, loving me, wanting me home and I wanted very little to do with them.  I loved them, but I had places to go and things to do.  You know Grandma believed in Heaven.  I mean in Heaven with streets of gold and mansions.  This was the reward for those who accepted Jesus as their savior.  Well, if anybody deserved a Mansion it was Grandma. But, she used to say that if the good people got the mansions, she would be pleased to live in a tent.

German Letter

This is a single page of a letter in German.  Nothing more to say.  I suppose it might be interesting to have it translated, but probably not in my lifetime.

Olga Letter

This is a letter to me from Olga, Dad's sister.  Here are some of the highlights; she wishes everyone were as serene as the fall weather, for example the Cuban Blockade, Larry and Karen have chosen rings for their wedding.  Roland, my Dad, is not very happy.  My mother is not much help with that.  Grandma is not strong anymore. She is so lonely. Jeez . . .

Letter from Mother

A newsy letter from Mother to me.  It is addressed from 1275 N. San Gabriel, Apt. 26, Azusa.  Not sure during what time this was.  The date was December 11, but no year.  She was still teaching, so it must not have been the darkest time.  I assume I was in Hyampom.

Connie as Model

You know, I think this might have been during the war.  We were worried I guess that if we talked too much it might aid the enemy.  I'm not sure of that.  Maybe a Badanes could help out here.

Handsome Larry

This is one of my favorite pictures of Larry.  Looked just like my Dad and handsome as hell.

This is a very sweet item.  An old, yellow cut-out recipe.  I am sure it was my Grandmothers.

I find a goodly number of books and papers like this.  I think my Grandfather was some sort of a leader in the church.  This is from "The Board of Foreign Missions."  It is dated May, 1943.

This is a letter written in German.  It is signed J. J. Weibe.  This is an old Mennonite name and my Grandmother's maiden name.  Not sure who J. J. was and I sure don't know what he said.  It is dated 1938 and is written to Olga Dick who was my Father's sister and my Aunt.  It is addresses to K St. in Reedley which is the address of one of my Grandfather's houses in Reedley.

This is just a pretty little card.  On the envelope it says "Mom."  And, as I recall, that's what my Mother called her Mother.  The card is signed Roland and Ola, May 13, 1951.