At Hirdstock '84 I sang "Old Wawayanda" for the first time - along with Adam Diamond (then a camper).When I was a young boy at Old Wawayanda
Just 2 hours from the city, so peaceful, sublime.
In Mr. Carey’s old rec hall, The K Court in session,
Got a pie in the face, and had me a time.
Chorus (sing after each verse)
Well, daddy, won’t you take me back to Old Wawayanda
Down by Biscuit River where paradise lay
Well I’m sorry my son but you’re too late in asking
Mr. Carey’s old rec hall is all laid away.
Got a little bit older, and so did that rec hall
All them pies in the face, they made me a man.
The Chuck White came with the world’s largest shovel
And knocked it all down, for the “progress of camp.”
Sang songs and made friends, in a hall they called “Dining”
‘Till fire burned through her, though the sign said “Build Strong”
Then Chuck White came with the world’s biggest slide rule
And figured it all out, and sang me this song.
When I die let my ashes flow down Biscuit River
Let ‘em roll on in water the color of sky
I’ll be halfway to heaven at a New Wawayanda
Saying “Wawayanda spirit, it never did die.”
[after the final chorus:]
Saying “Wawayanda spirit, it never does die”
Saying “Wawayanda spirit, it never does die”
Saying “Wawayanda spirit, it never does die”
"K Court" in the first stanza refers of course to the old gone (and perhaps lamented) all-camp evening program, Kangaroo Court.
The song was written as a semi-serious protest against the renovation of the old "Rec Hall" (recreation hall)--a rebuilding that was Chuck White's first major construction project...a project that produced Margetts Lodge, which we cynics dubbed "The Halbe Hilton." We couldn't imagine it--at camp? a lodge that had rooms like a Howard Johnson's motel? How could this be? Give us back our old dumpy cowbarn-turned-rec-hall. The old rec hall had been the main barn of the Forstmann-era farm, and when campers first came to Wawayanda at FV in 1958, before the dining hall was built, they used the Rec Hall as a dining hall. John Ketcham once told me that as you ate your meals that summer you could still faintly smell the scent of manure.
The phrase "Mr. Carey's old Rec Hall" refers to Dick Carey, an early director.
I'll have something to say someday about the fire that took our beloved dining hall, especially as I have some photos of the fire and immediate aftermath, pictures that Chuck White gave me a few years ago.
[Sometime after I wrote this entry, I recorded a performance of this song at closing campfire. Go here for more.]
