On My Mind
Executive editor — issues and opinionsA Wonderful BBYO Night
When I was in ninth grade at Pimlico Junior High School, a friend started wearing a green tie to school, complete with a small Star of David pin.
He couldn’t hang out with me, because he had to study about some guy named Martin Buber. But the most important aspect of all this was a daily diary he had to keep, including the names of the teen-age girls he was planning to ask out on dates.
He invited me to a meeting once he went from pledge to “aleph.” All I know is that I too was soon wearing the green tie, and getting used to meetings run under Roberts Rules of Order.
There were blind dates, mixers, dances, heart fund marathon dances, basketball games, regional conventions at the Atlantic City Breakers Hotel, and “good and welfare,” where some of the funniest stories I’ve ever heard were revealed, most about blind dates.
And of course there was the Chesapeake AZA song. I can’t remember math and science from college and high school; I can’t remember names of relatives. I can remember every word of that song.
On Saturday night at Temple Emanuel, about 165 of us got together for a reunion including BBYOers from 1968-78. I saw peoples’ faces I had fixed in my mind from high school. And like everyone else, I tried not to look at name tags, hoping instead that recognition would be easy.
My wife, Lisa, was the president of Aliyah, BBG. We met because of BBYO, and stood with a significant part of the room when married couples who met in BBYO were asked to stand.
AZA and BBG were amazing organizations for all of us. We were 14 and 15, and we could run a business meeting, complete with “old business” and “new business” and “points of information.”
We had young teens fully running charitable events, and arranging functions involving car pools, bus transportation and housing. And this was before words like “Google, Internet, cellphone, Blackberry, IM and texting” became part of ever teen’s jargon. Some of these youth went on to become leaders in many different walks of life. I’m sure on Saturday night if asked, they’d tell you that a solid foundation of leadership was formed while they participated in BBYO.
What I loved about Saturday night, however, was simply a shared feeling. We had all been there together decades ago. We went with friends for ice cream at Father’s in Catonsville; ate at Sid Mandel’s or Mandel- Ballow; we had chapter names like Chesapeake, Aliyah, Balmap, JFK, Liberty, Martin Luther King, Marcus, Klein, Tijuana, BFG, Colonial, CHAI, Hamburger, Kaviva, Shalom and Speert. We loved to hang out on the front lawns of parents who would allow it, and we just seemed to click with another.
There wasn’t a worry about getting injured or addicted. There was just a feeling of safety, that this was the right place to be at this time in life.
And this current life as well. Many at that reunion remained friends through the years. Many of stayed in Baltimore, some others found their lives in other parts of the country.
Shelbie Hafter Wassel and her organizing committee did an incredible job. We made each other smile by just being together. I almost wish there was a Chesapeake meeting to go to next Sunday afternoon.
The good and welfare would be amazing.
