For a summer or two in the mid-70s we experimented with "FV" patches - big colorful things - but they didn't seem to have the value of the old felt black-and-orange W's.
I remember strolling as a teenager in Manhattan, seeing some freaky long-haired guy sitting on a bench in Central Park. I took a second look and saw that he was wearing a jacket that had ten of these Wawayanda patches sewed onto it. Of course I approached him and we talked for an hour about camp.
In the earliest years, the patch was shaped as a W - with no number or shield.
Anyway, these patches were always merely symbolic and the system was administratively complex (you want to give each kid the right patch, at the right campfire), but it's one of those things that brings kids back the next summer.
There are many people who, upon reading this entry, will go to the closet and find their patches. There are several FV generations who will respond by wondering why we gave up the patches before their time.
Well, Dan Weir and others among the current directors are bringing back the patches - for the summer of 2008 and beyond. Campers this summer will get their new patch at the end of their stay, and apparently will receive (in the mail?) all their previous patches. Campers in Hird - for the older kids, Sacky and Hemlock and older - will receive, e.g., an "H4" if it's the fourth summer camp; but she also will have a W1 for her Pokey summer, a W2 for Susky, a W3 for Lakota, and the H4 for the first summer in Hird (Sacky). The directors will have to deal with the clamor among staff for their patches and figure out whether post-camper-years patches will be W's or H's. I'm Old School and would grab the W.
So here, below, are your sneak previews of...the return of the patches.
