By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — Shimon Camiel’s newest book, The Canyon Kids, will make any reader laugh out loud. It’s a World War II-era cross between The Catcher in the Rye and “Spanky and Our Gang,” with as polyglot a group of children as that presented in the old television series. Jews, Mexicans, Italians, and until they were taken away, Japanese kids, among others, romp together in a true San Diego setting.

 The book is more truth than fiction, but with names sometimes changed or omitted because Camiel alternatively didn’t want to embarrass anyone or didn’t want to be a defendant in a libel suit.

The Canyon Kids tells the stories of elementary school-aged boys and girls in central San Diego learning about life, and more or less peacefully learning about each other — even as adults were getting themselves killed and the world was being torn apart.

Filled with local color, the book takes you into such venues as the canyons near Camiel’s North Park-area home, to local movie theatres, to the beach, and down the block as youngsters are confronted by life and put their own humorous interpretations on what they see.

A lot of the real people whose lives were the bases of many of the stories gathered on Oct. 21, in the Morley Field area of Balboa Park — near the scene of many of their youthful high-jinxes — to celebrate the publication of the book, Camiel’s third. At a picnic, many of the 70 in attendance laughingly “denied” almost everything that Camiel wrote.

Normally, such a reunion would be a time for unmitigated joy, but in fact this occasion — coinciding with Camiel’s 70^th birthday — had its poignancy. As he has made public on other occasions — and most recently in a story in which he was pictured in the San Diego Union-Tribune — Camiel has been afflicted with Alzheimer’s Disease.

He still has good long-term memory, and how he grinned and bantered with speakers at the celebration, when they told the stories of their mutual pasts. But Alzheimer’s has robbed Camiel of his short-term memory, and things that once were easy for him — recalling names of someone he has just met, writing with a pen — now are major chores.

Thus, in advance of the picnic, Camiel laboriously signed his first name only to the title page of the book, with more personalized inscriptions not really possible. Neither did Camiel, a born raconteur, get up to address the crowd about his book; instead he smiled listening as friends and family members read passages aloud, or added their stories to what already was in the text.

Although Camiel had changed his first name to “Shimon” during a period of his life when he lived in Israel, for many who attended Jefferson Elementary School with him, it was hard not to use the name “Stanton” by which he had been known.

Camiel’s wife, Joyce Glassman Camiel, who orchestrated the celebration, noted that she and Shimon had decided to go public with the story of his condition in the hope that it might encourage friends, relatives, and the general public to contribute to the San Diego chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, which shares a building at 4950 Murphy Canyon Road, San Diego, CA 92123 with the United Jewish Federation.

Everyone seemed to have a favorite story from the book, and that was true of me as well. Mine was “Stalingrad: 1942” that I excerpt here with permission:

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Stanton, Billy, Buddy, Don, Sophie, Lorenzo, Bob Cohen and Hannibal (recently renamed Hank) decided to wage the battle of Stalingrad in a place called Switzer Canyon. Their route passed through the small Dale Street canyon and then into the pitch-darkness of a drainage system. From there, with a few twists and turns, they arrived in bright daylight into Switzer Canyon.

At first, the kids looked around for bad tough guys in the Canyon. But the coast was clear….

They drew straws to determine who would be the allies and the enemy for the day. Everyone agreed that the good-guys should be the Soviet Army and the bad guys should be the Nazis.

“Jesus,” said Bob, “How can I be a Nazi? I’m Jewish!”

 “Never mind,” said Stanton. “You can be a Soviet guy posing as a Nazi.”

Sophie played the role of the Greek nurse in charge of casualties, for both sides of the conflict.

It was a perfect day for a war. The battle zone chock full of tall weeds, eucalyptus trees, pepper trees, mounds of dirt, anis plants swarming with fat caterpillars, battered construction material, mysterious empty bottles, mounds of river stones, wild horseradish bushes, wild mustard, dried dung, ice plant, empty beer cans, garter snakes, a few coyotes, shy foxes, skunks slumbering in their dark holes and trash. What more could a kid want?

The main sources of ammunition for this war were comprised of dirt clods, river stones and trash.

Sophie prepared her battle nursing gear on the Russian side. This would seem realistic, she thought, since the Wehrmacht had brutally overrun the Greek army and its British allies. But Sophie was also committed to following any potential German prisoners.

She took her gawky figure over to a nearby pile of rocks under a eucalyptus tree. This would be the aid station. She also carried a stolen roll of toilet paper — filched from her parents’ bathroom to simulate bandages.

Hank led his troops in the direction of the nearby municipal golf course — stopping a few times to line his troops up for a “Heil Hitler.” Then the German contingent disappeared into the brush. “Hit the dirt, comraden!” Hank commanded. “Unt ve fire off our first salvo.”

A river stone fell from the direction of the Soviet army but bounced harmlessly out of range.

The good guys — the Russian army — spent the next few minutes stacking up more ammunition.

Hank and his Nazis found a damp, fat chunk of cardboard in the bushes and pronounced it a tank. Their plan was for Bob and Lorenzo to push the tank forward toward the Russians with Hank raining dirt and stones on the enemy.

Bob thought it would be a good idea to capture Sophie and use her as a hostage in case the initial plan didn’t work. If it didn’t work the boys could at least torture her to get some information.

But just then, Buddy noticed a black widow spider on the back of the cardboard.

“Let’s get out of here,” hollered Hank as the terrified boys fled to a shadowy clump of wild horseradish, where they discussed alternative strategies.

 “Look at that, comarades,” said Stanton, peering over at the Germans.

 “What iz?” asked Hank, adding a touch of Russian jargon.

“Look at that bush over there, comrade.”

A bare butt poked brazenly out from the German lines.

“Sophie!” Stanton yelled, “Don’t look over there. It’s too horrible!”

The fearless Sophie was not to be intimidated. After a long look at the obscene posterior, she picked up a river stone, raised her mighty arm, and fired the missile into the enemy bushes.

“Bulls eye,” proclaimed Hank looking through his imaginary glasses.

 “Ouch,” hollered Buddy, “no fair.”

 “Why not?” she yelled back.

 “You’re supposed to be neutral”

  “We have an injured soldier here,” hollered Buddy.

  “Who is it?” Sophie shouted.

  “It’s me, Buddy, from behind the German lines.”

  “Where are you hit?” asked Sophie, suspiciously.

  “You know where. I need first aid.”

  Sophie cackled.

  “Not in a million years,” said Sophie as she fired another dirt clod into the German lines …

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The $18.95 book will be sold during the San Diego Jewish Book Fair at the Lawrence Family JCC or may be purchased via Amazon.com. Camiel’s previous two books also are quite humorous: The Outhouse War and Other Kibbutz Stories and Zelig’s Odyssey, about his colorful father, Zelig Camiel.