Whether you are before or after Mike Gold's Frost Valley era - or indeed one of his camp pals - you should make plans to see Mike in action. If you can't read the event detail, just click on the image and you'll get a larger, more readable version.
After dinner one wonderful night (in 1977?) at Chuck and Joy White's house. Bottom from left: Rafik Melek, Al Filreis, Gustavo Giraldo Restrepo (international from Colombia); kneeling near Joy: Ouffoue Nguysen (from Ivory Coast); standing from left: [?], Carol Sarabun, Laurie Cobb, [?], Linda Kelley, Carolyn Shelburne, Brian Rambo[?], "Gram" White (Joy's mother), and Joy White.
On the last morning of one of this summer's camping sessions, the Tacoma staff woke up the girls very very early (4 am?) and took them on a sunrise hike up Giant Ledge. Anna Armstrong, one of Tacoma's counselors, took this shot at the sunrise moment.
Danny Shelburne (left) and Doug Tompkins "working" at the toboggan run during a December winter weekend in the mid-1970s.
The photo was taken mid-morning on the middle Sunday of session 1 this past summer: Wawayanda has its Sunday Morning Reflection at - where else? - Reflection Pond. The Susquehanna staff leads a song.
Alyssa Zuliani was a camper and counselor in the late 70's and 80's (she calls herself "a silent lifer"). When she was in Pokey (her VC was "Patty Pokey" - and also Alyssa's counselor), she writes, "I remember you joining us for a bit on our overnight by the creek and telling us a ghost story - great memory! This is only one of the many great times I remember about FV."
A long-time FV'er - Nancy Starmer - has been the headmaster of the prestigious George School for many years. In today's Philadelphia Inquirer we learn that Nancy secured a donation of $128 million dollars for her school. You can read the whole story here. The photo above shows Nancy Starmer, at right, and the donor.
The camper here in the pink tie-dye shirt is Gary Gold, the older brother of Fran Grayson. The year, we think, is '69. The blonde in the white T-shirt is counselor Doug Cresson.
Anyone who came after 1970 will be disoriented by this photo, which was taken in 1965 or '66. You are looking at (on the left) what is now Hayden Lodge--what was then "the Crafts Shop," or "Forstmann's garage." Even as the home for Arts & Crafts, it looked and felt absolutely like a garage. Two large garage doors and two bays inside. I have a vague recollection that for at least one summer in the mid-60s, it was actually used as part of check-in. I believe the nurses (wearing whites - and caps!) were stationed in their to give us a check-in-day check-up--among the big bins of loose tiles and wooden parts for birdhouses and spools of colorful lanyard.
The newest new cabins are nearly finished. Dale Price is putting some finishing touches on.
Those who've been around the past decade or so have seen Dot Conklin around the dining hall, before meals and between meals, cleaning the bathrooms, walking in and out of the kitchen, eating her meals in the staff dining room. Before that you'd remember Dot at the laundry and driving around to various lodges in one camp vehicle or another, delivering linens, hauling out laundry.
This past Saturday morning, 6:45 am. I could barely hold the camera still, it was so surprisingly cold. Twenty minutes later, at the dining hall, I went to the weather station and saw that by then it had risen to 43 degrees. I suspect it had dipped into the 30s. Mid-September? Yikes.
In the previous post, we came upon something called "Seneca Village." Perhaps some reading this will want a clarification. Most will not need it, but what is a blog for if not to give a few people what they need while the others can skip any entry that seems irrelevant?
Women triumph in race no matter her age or speed
Thursday, September 13, 2007
People are sometimes surprised when they meet Philla Barkhorn. The Chatham mother of three is founder of The Tri Women, an informal group of mostly Morris County ladies who -- in their spare time -- train for triathlons. In two years, she's recruited 275 women to her group, which provides free training for the swimming-biking-running/walking events.
So when people first make contact they figure they're going to meet some elite athlete, some hard-bodied fitness nut. And that, Barkhorn says frankly, is something she is not.
"I'm in shape enough, but I'm not buff," she says. "I'm not at my perfect weight. I'm very healthy -- that's the secret. You don't have to look like Serena Williams to do this."
It's about how it makes you feel, she said. Confident. Energetic. Triumphant. She remembers having that feeling for the first time in 2005, when a friend recruited her to the Danskin Triathlon. The event -- being held this weekend at Sandy Hook -- consists of a half-mile swim, an 11-mile bike ride and a 3.1 mile run or walk and benefits the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. After that first year, Barkhorn wanted to get more women involved. So she called a meeting at the local Y and some 60 women showed up. "We had this tiny little conference room," she remembered. "They were out in the hallway!"
Through connections like Bob Koppenol, the owner of Starting Line Sports in Madison, she found people willing to give them free training.Ironically enough, as Barkhorn was putting all this together, she was diagnosed with breast cancer herself. She had a mastectomy with reconstruction, she said. "We very quickly knew that I was going to be fine."
This year, when Barkhorn participates in the Danskin Triathlon, she is going to be running with other "survivors" of breast cancer. There are a handful of them in The Tri Women, she said, though they've never focused on that so she doesn't know how many exactly.
Irene Fisher of Harding is one of them, though she says she's not so much a "survivor" as "surviving."
Fisher is a psychologist who had a bilateral mastectomy about four years ago. "I'm surviving, I'm fine, I'm robust, I'm healthy, I'm happy," she said. She joined The Tri Women after seeing a sign on a bulletin board at the Madison Y. She entered the Danskin event, and started training.
She's 62, she said, "well past the average age of who is doing this." But, she added, "There was something appealing about it. I want to be with a group of women." She's slow, she says, and she's OK with that. "I'm not competitive, I'm not fast, I will never be fast, I don't care to be fast," she said.
And no one has given her a hard time about that. Quite the opposite. "People have been kind and generous," she said. "It's been the best summer of my life."
Anyone interested in joining Tri Women can e-mail Barkhorn at pbarkhorn [at] patmedia [dot] net.
Good, good, good buddies: Helen Cornman and David Sunshine. I've mentioned the Sunshine family before, but will have to come back to them at greater length. Helen Cornman loves loves loves loves Frost Valley and is among those missing it every day, but she gets a little extra boost from knowing that her nephew, Dan Weir, is currently the full-time year-round Wawayanda Director. Last summer, as I prepared to tell my 2007 scary story - this one was called "The Cornman Supremacy" - I emailed Helen to get a few details about her years at camp, looking for a paragraph or so. She was at work and yet must have taken 2 hours to reply: I got this many-screen response. Wonderful. She had so much to say! What she should have done with that two hours is added three more to it, gotten in the car, and come up to Frost Valley right then and there. No sense writing about it when you can be there.
One way of thinking of the 90s is as the Hoopla Era. At the 2001 reunion some of the 90s' staff had been gone just a few years, while others of course were returning after nearly a decade. (The recent FV decades are especially long in this sense.)
For years I thought of camp as a place where I met my deep-soul friends, my athletic friends, my "pals 'til the end" friends, my we-could-talk-all-night friends, my emotionally bonded friends, but--and this was a huge blindspot--not my intellectual friends. Maybe because camp always was such a conducive setting for being one's back-to-basic self. There were ideas discussed (and enacted) all the time, and principles aplenty, but sheer intellectuality--discussions of literature, world political problems, etc. Not so much...it seemed. But as I came of age I began to find people here and there who wanted to live the intellectual life and wanted somehow to make camp a place that integrated academic knowledge rather than set it aside for sheer-fun summertime.
June 24, 2005, opening day, and volunteer alumni, in their distinctive yellow shirts, are there to help greet parents and new campers, escort families to the cabins, unload luggage from buses, etc. (Have you helped on one of these check-in days? If not, consider doing so next summer.)
Dave Mager and Brian Butler.
There has been a surprising amount of email coming in from you folks about the old pattern of cabins just to the east of the dining hall - what used to be Forest, cabins 6-10.
Martin Kunert (a recent photo is at left) was a camper in Totem (in '73), Forest ('74), Outpost ('75), Lenape ('76), Hemlock ('77), Sequoia ('78) - and then was a CIT ('79) and then FCC ('80), and loved hearing scary stories around the campfire. His specialty emerged during Challenge Night. He would always do his dog-bark impersonation...and it won every time. And here Martin--who found this blog late last night, surfing the web--picks up the story:
Dawn Helfand and her brother Russ and sister Robin were all campers. I believe Russ became an FCC (the year after CIT--"Future Camp Counselor") and Robin, I think, worked in Arts & Crafts one summer and also led an Adventure Trip. 
Now how ever did Dawn move from JC one summer to CIT Director the next? I remember what a phenomenon she was--how early on we saw her excellence--but I hadn't remembered such a jump. Surely that's never happened otherwise. (Well, as always, there's more to the story than the staff list tells. Here's Dawn's memory of it: "The JC --> CIT story, as far as I can remember, is that I was hired as a counselor, but recruited to assist Leslie Black as CIT Co-Director upon arrival at FV. I was SCARED (given that I was a scant 3 years older than the average CIT) but did it and, as they say, the rest is history.") (The photo here shows Dawn--upper left--in the 1977 staff picture.)
Dawn now has a psychology practice and has written a series of What-to-do guides for kids (and their parents). What do Do When You Worry Too Much is a kid's guide to overcoming anxiety, and What do Do When Your Brain Gets Stuck is a guide to overcoming OCD. And there are more. She's currently writing What to Do When You Dread Your Bed: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Problems With Sleep. Pay a visit to Dawn's web site.
Mark Showers (perennially an Outpost counselor in the 70s) was so wonderful and patient and talented that inevitably we kept asking him if he would please become a village chief--move up in the camp hierarchy, assume more responsibility, etc. But he always refused, preferring the role of the cabin counselor. "Just me and my boys," he'd say. Thus he might possibly have the record for the most consecutive summers in the counselor position. Not sure of that but he'd certainly contend for such an honor.
"It's just a camp." Well, yes. But for those who for one reason or another found themselves the leader-supervisor of a dozen or so young people and head coordinator and inspirer of between 40 and 45 children...it was generally a life-changing and frequently a life-making experience. I can't tell you how many people, years after being VC, have told me it was that experience--that flat-out demand, that achievement of balance, that hands-on administration, that combination of nuanced skills--that made them the great [fill in blank: teacher, businessperson, medical doctor, community organizer, parent, innovator...] that they are today. 
During the summer of 1999, the VCs designed a Tshirt for themselves. Jody Ketcham was there taking photos for the book she and I did together, Finding the Way Back, and caught this shot of a VC wearing one of these. The shirt reads:"It finally sunk in during my weekly trip to your blog why I love it so much....it completely eliminates the boundaries of time. One story about modern-day camp...now my son's Frost Valley...and the next entry I'm back in the late 70's...oh, to be 20 again! And through the blog with personal stories and pictures...it doesn't seem long ago or far away any more. And even more importantly, it reminds me of how much it still is alive in me, so big a part of me. This was especially true in the audio and story of the VC's. It's no coincidence that I took to the role of Chief Medical Resident fairly easily ... at Presbyterian Hospital 1988-89. Basically the same skill set as being a Frost Valley VC...scheduling the Residents, including on call (much less fun than CQ), mediating the conflicts between staff, setting up the educational experiences for the staff all the while trying to provide the best care possible of those entrusted to us. Or maybe it was just the water in Lenape in '71 as your other piece suggested."--Lee Fleischer
I had asked Pete to give his talk just before the final song ("Gambler"--see the previous entry) and it would be the last speech before Halbe's. Pete knew what he was being asked to do. To speak very, very personally and at the same time to speak for all of us. He did it. He did precisely that. It's remarkable.
As we introduced the song, everyone gathered held lit candles. There were more than 400 people seated in rows of chairs facing the pond on the gently sloping lawn on the north or Biscuit Lodge side of the pond...as I say, facing the pond. It just happened that the moon was full that weekend, at its fullest on this evening. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and it was very cool (in the low 50s when we began at 8:30 PM)--and, as it happened (could we have planned this? no!), the moon rose over Wildcat, just in front of us, about halfway through the ceremony.
At the end, as we all sang Let it shine, the camera pans the 400 Frost Valleyites singing the darkness, holding their candles, bathed by moonlight, tears streaming down faces, arms around each other, close together, singing as one. What a sight. If you listen closely to the audio recording, you can perhaps hear the great emotional all-as-one chorus of everyone singing at that point.
Tom Cometa just now sent me this shot from 1984. From left to right/clockwise: Oran Giannotti, Tom Cometa himself, Katherine Distler, Stuart Duff, and Mike Gold. I don't think this was Hirdstock Day; I think, rather, that that summer we dressed for Hirdstock every day. Cometa and Giannotti in particular.
Above: Tom Cometa a few years earlier, part of a village photo (Hemlock?).
Dan Goldman (middle) and Rick Mckay (at right) and Chris Giampapa (left) at the 2001 centennial reunion.
Nicholas must be the older brother of Zach, who came of age later - doing a summer in '06 as CIT Coordinator. Zach engineered his Olympic staff dream team (for China, I believe) and then promptly lost his voice within 10 minutes of the start of the program. (Here's an exhausted CIT Coordinator Zach along with Chris Cariello.)
I had met Beth Schwartzapfel maybe 5 years earlier when she was a camper. I could see immediately how bright she was (and also how committed she was to FV). I believe she came up to me and said, "I hear that you can teach me some of the old songs." And so we sang and talked for a while. Later she earned a degree in writing and spent several years as a journalist (and perhaps a journalist-activist). Beth and I are of entirely different real-world and FV generations, but I have a feeling that if we'd worked together, she in my era or I in hers, we would have seen eye to eye and been very close.
The other day I reported on Stu Alexander's and others' efforts at stewardship of Frost Valley's butterflies. Well there's more butterfly news this morning.
A soaking wet winter rain...the worst weather at Frost Valley. When you're on the staff, you're outside a lot, inevitably, and you get chilled to the bone. No sitting around the fire in the dining hall for you.
Now Marcia reports that life is good for them! Jack has fully recovered from leukemia with a bone marrow transplant 3 years ago. They are back to their adventures . . .300 miles of biking in Michigan, 4 days of kayaking and a 25 miles of in-line skating in 12 days. Last summer Jack climbed another 14,000 foot peak in Colorado, hiked and did some awesome mountain biking. He is celebrating his 23 year of teaching carpentry to juniors at a vocational school and enjoys it a lot. Their son Travis, 22 returned from the University of Hawaii at Hilo after 21/2 years and is now attending Edinboro University in PA. Their second son Brandon is 16 and plays football, basketball, baseball and keeps them very busy with activities.
cabin and broke a window. No problem. Let's go talk with big DAVE [Dave King, the camp director]. And we did. And he took care of it. And then something happened, God answered my prayer. I had to take what appeared to be the worst cabin the village. The counsellor was always yelling at them during the lineup at the dinining hall "Get in line" "Stop fidgiting" "Be quiet!" and so forth. Oh boy, did I dread taking that cabin! But when I got there, they were angels. Never had to shout, they obeyed right off the bat, and it was great! What the heck?? And then one of them said to me "We like you. You never yell at us the way Doug does." Well I didn't HAVE to. And along the way, I learned about the magic of mutual respect. I expect the respect due to me, and I give you the respect due to you, and most of the time, it works. It worked the whole rest of the summer in Forest, I didn't have lick of trouble after that first week. Once I got into college, I fell away from my faith, but found it again not too long after in 1972, and have been faithful ever since. That summer will live in my memory forever.
Frost Valley is hosting a new survey. I just completed it and it took me 20 minutes, and I did it slowly. It can be done in 10 minutes, probably. Here's a chance for us as former staff and former campers to say what we think and feel. Please click here and take the survey.
This is Lake Wawayanda, Sussex Country, NJ, as seen today. Many thanks to Donna Marines for taking and sending me this photo.
Our beloved long-time maintenance guy - his favorite fix is roofs (not!) and cabin plumbing (double not!) - Stu Alexander has lived with his family in what we used to call "Old John's" house for many years - since, I believe, maybe around '84 or '85. Many reading this will know Stu. What you might not know is that Stu has gone ga-ga about butterflies. He is a huge promoter of Frost Valley's Monarchs and as you see below, in today's update sent to the FV staff, there are some sophisticated projects being set up to support our butterflies. Have a read and contact Stu at camp if you want to help in some way - or if you just want to come up and talk with him about it. I know from first-hand experience that he will be happy to tell you lots about these frail little beauties. Here's Stu:
At right, cabin 21 before renovation.
It's Labor Day today and I woke up wondering whether what the day symbolizes has anything to say particularly to us. But of course it does. We all worked hard at the valley--very hard indeed (think about how much time off per day we got--very little)--but I'm thinking about "labor" in the traditional sense: physical supportive work that makes things function well, the infrastructure labor of the sort that mostly we take for granted. Were leaders, citizens, good family people being made of this kind of work just as they were in the counseling and helping-kids roles we normally associated with camp? You bet, and so for Labor Day '07 here's a story about the work ethic.I just wanted to thank you for the effort, and memories of your blog. The photos and the musings sure bring back the memories. I especially like the recently posted photo of Carl and Marie Hess, Bill Van Zandt, Chuck and Ron, and Lou. This one pictured managed to capture some of the most influential people in my life.John met Jacqueline Dundorf at camp (we called her "Jackie Sacky") and later they married. The photo above shows them, with their son, on the last day of session 4 this summer, coming to pick up their daughter after her own camp experience. I'm sure at some point John will tell them about the guy who made daddy so straightforward and disciplined--the late, great & sorely missed Bill Van Zandt.
I vividly remember as a teenager (14 or so, which would make it about 1975) getting up the courage to ask Carl for a position on the summer maintenance staff. It was in the FV office, and after some pointed questions to make sure I was serious, and worthy, he said yes. I was thrilled. That summer I became Bill Van Zandt's "helper". Ron was on the staff, as was Chuck, so it must of be about the time this picture was taken. I worked will Bill rebuilding many of the porches in the upper girls camp cabins, some of which are still in use. I spent long hours cursing camp in the yellow truck with Bill. He was a quite a character, as I'm sure you know. I'd known him for years, as my Mother [Marie Kremer] and Sisters worked with him when he was camp cook, but despite the familiarity, he still scared the hell out of me! Rough, grump and hard on the outside; with a heart as big as the Catskills. I learned much from him, not the least of which is a work ethic that still drives me today. I learned to use a power saw, swing a hammer and, pull a spoke shave. I came home with all my fingers, so the lessons took! I learned the importance of loving what you do, as he spent 20+ years as an administrator in the NJ Prison system, in a job he hated. I learned the horrors of war, as he often recounted his time in the Pacific during WW II. He, Carl, and later Chuck White, entered my life during those impressionable teenage years when my parents know nothing and as looked for guidance as I struggled with the transition from boy to man. They were all there, mentoring, supporting, and accepting me. I owe so much to them and by association to Frost Valley. The life lessons taught to me by that place and the people I encountered there will be with me forever. For that I am truly blessed.
