Jewish Couples Remember
SUMMER CAMP
MEET-CUTES SASHA ROGELBERG | STAFF WRITER
T The Rose Family
18 JUNE 16, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Photo by Hy Paul
he song of the summer in 1988 was Richard Marx’s “Hold Onto the Night,”
though Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” was also an earworm, at least
for Randi and Kenny Leese.

It was a memorable summer, the year the two of them met at Golden Slipper
Camp in the Poconos. Now looking back at their summer camp memories aft er 27
years of marriage, the signifi cance of the experience is clear: “I wasn’t looking for
a wife,” Kenny Leese said. “I was looking for fun, which turned into a girlfriend,
fi ance, then marriage. But it’s really those connections. It’s really just sitting there,
bonding, every day.”
Th e Leeses aren’t the only couple who met at Jewish summer camp. Th e sleep-
away camp experience is a cultural touchstone for so many Jews, and the genesis
of quite a few relationships. With another year of camp on the horizon, couples
reminisce about the good ol’ days.

Kenny and
Randi Leese at
Golden Slipper Camp
in the late 1980s
Courtesy of Randi Leese
Golden Slipper Camp
When Kenny Leese said he wasn’t looking for a wife during his 1988 summer as
a Golden Slipper camp counselor, he meant it.

He took interest in another girl at Golden Slipper, even aft er meeting young
counselor Randi Leese briefl y on move-in day.

“You hook up with people,” Kenny
Leese said. “It’s what you do.”
Randi Leese didn’t take this per-
sonally; she also was interested in
someone else. But when the two talked
again at a basketball game he was reff -
ing, their friendly relationship started
to change.

“I remember every morning the
whole camp would gather around the
fl agpole fi rst and do roll calls before
we would go into the dining hall,”
Randi Leese said. “And he would give
me lollipops, Tootsie Roll pops. And I
thought, ‘Oh, that was very nice.’”
One night, when Kenny Leese
planned on meeting up with another
girl and Randi Leese planned to go
home on an overnighter, the two
ended up talking.

“I never went off with the other girl,”
Kenny Leese said. “Th irty-four years
later, here we are.”
“Two kids and a dog later,” Randi
Leese added.

Th e couple was engaged in 1993 and
married two years later.

Likewise, Bonnie Chalfi n wasn’t
expecting to meet her now-husband
Rob Chalfi n at Golden Slipper in 1989.

He was dating another girl at the time
and was hard to get to know.

Th e then-friends kept in touch over
the summer, and Bonnie Chalfi n found