From a 1969 photo of Hemlock village, here is a close-up showing some of the Hemlock staff that summer. At bottom right is Mark Kramer. Just above Mark is Stu Sherman (I'm guessing Stu was an LIT or JC that summer). Just to the left of Stu is Pat Ricciardi. You can't tell from this photo that Pat was literally the strongest person in camp. He could move anything, lift anything - built like an ox, as we used to say. To Pat's left is Sven Grotian, mentioned earlier in this blog--one of my favorite camp people ever. I cannot recognize the person standing above Sven. Is he Rick Schermer? The camper at the bottom left, with the long dark hair in a middle part, is Peter Pappas.Mark Kramer is now a businessman in southeast Florida. His wife and kids visited FV at one reunion in the 90s or another. Other than that he hadn't been to camp in some 30 years when he spent two wonderful days visiting during the summer of 2006. He loved seeing at all again and spoke eloquently of the values he learned during his time. During his visit I told a late-night story (to a village) into which I somehow weaved Mark Kramer--and then revealed, at the end of the telling, that the very same Mark Kramer was sitting right here, whereupon Mark scarily stood up and introduced himself, nearing sending the kids out of their skins. Here was this guy, from way in the past, right there once again. Mark has since been very supportive of our campaign to raise funds for the new Wellness Center, and I'm personally grateful to him for his continued interest.
