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QC06302016

64 THE QUEENS COURIER • BUZZ • JUNE 30, 2016 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com Sweet Farewells Sending Blake off to camp! Victoria’s Secrets Precious Friendships Dynamic $1500 off Lumineers $500 off Invisalign DENTAL WORK CALL FOR FREE CONSULTATION THE INVISIBLE WAY TO SOME EXCLUSIONS APPLY STRAIGHTEN TEETH Third Generation Dentist 175-15 Jamaica avenue, Jamaica 718-297-4100 • 718-297-4106 “Parting is such sweet sorrow,” wrote Shakespeare in “Romeo and Juliet,” and so it was as I saw three of my grandchildren leave home for several months: One graduating college and taking a tour of faraway places and two doing what I did as a kid, going to sleepaway camp. I know it’s the passages of life that we all walk through, but I forget the pull on my heart. I had gone to sleepaway camp from age 8 till I got engaged at the age of 19. My husband used to joke he didn’t know if he should take me on a honeymoon or to camp! Camp was a unique experience. Living with eight girls my age in a bunkhouse made me learn responsibility. I had to make my bed and keep my cubby fi lled with neatly stacked clothes perfect for inspections after breakfast. I had gone to camps with my brother and had gone from a camper to a counselor in training to a counselor to group leader. I’ll never forget my interview for group leader. The camp owner asked me, “How can someone so short be boss over all the counselors? How will you lead them?” Without a pause I said, “Napoleon was short too and that didn’t hold him back!” He hired me. As a teen camper, I was a brat. I just didn’t want to follow the rules. My girlfriend and I used to take our beds and put them together to look like a double bed. Every morning we failed inspection, and the head counselor would tear off our sheets and make us do it like everyone else. It just didn’t suit us! We were also in love with boys at the camp and broke the rules sneaking onto the boys’ campus. Finally, the head counselor called my parents and suggested they take me home. My mother encouraged them to fi nd something unique for me to do. They came up with having me create a newspaper for the camp. And so began my career in the news business! They also found me a role in the camp play as Anna in “The King and I.” And I was in love. It turned out to be one of the sweetest years of my life. Thanks, Camp Sycamore! So I know my 10-year-old camper Blake and Ben, now in his fi rst year as counselor after years as a camper, will experience precious, unique moments that they will carry through their lives. May they be good ones! And then goodbyes were made with celebratory dinners as Tufts graduate Sam began his journey to Europe with classmates and plans to cross over continents and make his way to Cambodia and Vietnam. What an opportunity to see these unique places before he begins his fi rst job away from home in Seattle at Microsoft. Yes, it’s good to see the boys make their way through life and hopefully fi nd memories to treasure forever. Sustaining us are the wonderful support of friends through the years. I call them the wind beneath my wings because during good times and bad they are there. Claire Shulman and Judy Sheindlin are two such friends I got to spend special time with these last two weeks. When my husband died, my childhood friend Judy, known to the world as Judge Judy, invited me to her getaway in Naples, Florida, to spend a few days together. It got me out of my funk and the nurturing is just what the doctor ordered! Although her life is split between New York, Naples, Beverly Hills, Jackson Hole, Greenwich, Connecticut, and the World Yacht, we had a chance to have a wonderful dinner together last week to catch up on our lives. Then I spent a wonderful weekend on the Jersey Shore with Claire and her remarkable daughter Ellen Baker, known to the world as the astronaut who went into space three times, and Ellen’s friend Francine, who is a world-recognized radiology oncologist. What a matchup of great minds and, I can tell you, great cooks too. Francine cooked the perfect swordfi sh on the grill. No easy task. It was nurturing to escape to Long Beach Island for 48 hours. How blessed I feel to have these friends in my life. Zac working for Assemblywoman Rebecca Seawright and Ben Broner (right) fi nally becoming a counselor after eight years as a camper! Sam Broner at his graduation off to explore the world Victoria SCHNEPS-YUNIS vschneps@gmail.com tweet me @vschneps Judy and me having dinner in Manhattan Ellen, Claire and Francine enjoying a weekend at the Jersey Shore


QC06302016
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