My Days with Union Institute, (which became) Olin-Sang Union Institute, (which became) Olin-Sang –Ruby Union Institute, (which became) Rolysnubang Union Institute
By
Ron Klotz
I guess I should start at the end. From 1970 to 1972 I was Assistant Director of our camp in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. These were Jerry Kaye’s first years as Director. Well, one winter afternoon, sitting in our office on Monroe Street in downtown Chicago, bored, I laid out all of the letters in the name Olin-Sang-Ruby and rearranged them. Rolysnubang was the result. From then on, I answered the office phone with, “Rolysnubang Union Institute, can I help you?” I swear, no one ever came back with, “What did you say???” I don’t know what that means.
My family had been involved with Union Institute from the beginning. My aunt Lill Garber was on the Union of American Hebrew Congregations’ committee that approved buying the Carnation family farm in Oconomowoc, in 1953, to create the first UAHC summer camp. My cousin Judy Garber and her future husband Jerry Block were campers that first summer and participated in building the outdoor chapel next to the Bayit (then called the Big House). My other cousin, Ralph Garber, attended the camp early on as well. So, it was assumed, rightfully so, that I would also go to camp in Oconomowoc (I love spelling that name).
But UI (Union Inst.) only accepted campers that were at least 12 years old. My camping days began when I was 8, in 1954 at a YMCA camp. Then, three years at Camp Chi in the Wisconsin Dells. Chi is a Chicago Federation summer camp. Finally turning 12 in 1958, I walked through the gates of Union Institute with a duffel bag and a baseball mitt. 51 years later I was still spending my summers in a UAHC, then URJ, camp. From 1958 to 1963 I was a UI camper. In 1963, my senior year in high school, I was interviewed for a summer job by then Director (and my mentor) Irv Kaplan. He offered me my pick of two jobs, one to be on the maintenance crew and one to be a Counselor-in-training. I asked what the maintenance job entailed and he said, “Fixing things, hauling garbage, and things like that.” I said, “I think I’d like to be a Counselor–in-training.” That began my ten summers on staff at the camp.
In 1965 I was a senior counselor and campcraft specialist. Now, never having really planned or organized a camping trip; never having pitched a tent made a bed roll (although I had been on such outings), It was strange that I should teach those skills. But I did. I took many groups for overnights out in the wilds of the woods of Oconomowoc (there's that name again). In 1966 the camp sent me to a Red Cross school to learn to teach sailing and canoeing. I was a senior counselor and small craft specialist. In 1968. Once again, the camp sent me to a Red Cross school to become a Water Safety Instructor so I could be the Waterfront Director that summer.
1969 was really the beginning of my camp leadership days. Union Institute had so many campers they needed to create extra space in camp. The summer before, as an experiment, a small group of campers and staff, led by Bob Ourach, camped out down the hill from Chalutzim for two weeks (I think). The next summer, 1969, that experiment became Kibbutz Ha Tzofim. It was a three-session summer for 30 campers (x3) and 8 staff. I was the Unit head. Two interesting things about that summer. Rabbi Allen Smith was the interim director of the camp as Irv Kaplan had left to make Aliyah and Jerry Kaye was yet to be hired. Smitty, as he was called, told me to buy what I needed for the unit. We eventually found 9 inexpensive umbrella tents and one used 8x10 army tent (for my stuff and supplies). We were in business. The summer before when I was on the waterfront (not like Brando), I had built a platform thinking that we would create a pontoon boat. That never came to be, but we had the platform. I dragged it down to Tzofim and used it as the floor for what became our kitchen tent. That kitchen, built under a tree, consisted of the floor, a tarp spread over the branches, a sink that emptied into a ditch we dug, a water hose run from Chalutzim down to our site, and an old wood burning stove that someone had given to the camp. Oh, we also had four port-o-potties. Our big project (besides just making meals), in addition to all of the regular camp programs (Chugim, Shiur/Sicha, Ivrit, sports and swimming), was building a small chapel for the unit.
Another interesting development happened that Spring before camp. Smitty called me and told me that he was unsuccessful in hiring a waterfront director, would I agree to splitting my time between Tzofim and the waterfront. I would do anything the camp asked of me, so I said sure. But I told Smitty that the only way I could do both jobs was if he found assistant directors for each. He did. I spent nine weeks that summer in a small tent with an Israeli Shaliach (representative) named Moshe Pashtan. It was great. He was great. And it was a great summer. I worked my you-know-what off. I was 23 years old and it was all good.
Pashtan convinced me to go to Israel after that summer and Smitty managed to get me enrolled in the Chayim Greenberg Institute (Machon Greenberg). I met my wife, Juca, there, studied Hebrew for 10 months, and then returned to be Kallah Unit Head. At the end of the summer of 1970, I was hired to be Jerry’s assistant director. I was Kallah Unit Head in ‘71 and ‘72; Chalutzim Unit Head in ‘73 and ‘74. In 1975 we left Olin-Sang-Ruby Union Institute for Union Camp Institute (which became the Myron S. Goldman Union Camp Inst....which became known as GUCI) in Zionsville, Indiana. I was the GUCI Camp Director for the next 37 years.
That’s a lot of mac and cheese.
