Since this summer we're inaugurating a big beautiful new Wellness Center, it seemed apt to dig back into the history of the Wellness Revolution, which took place from around 1976 through 1981 or so. In '77 and '78 in particular, it seemed that every thing we did, said, touched, trained and progammed was wellness, wellness, wellness. It was such a huge change, and bred such natural resistance among the campers and staff (and to some degree camper parents also), that I suppose it could never have happened had it not been so forcefully and relentlessly implemented. Had it not felt to many to be a rejection of beloved customs and the general spirit of the place (what-the-heck fun, a certain spirited recklessness, a non-PC approach to giving kids a good time), it would have seemed too obvious to fuss about. After all, the idea was simple: camp should be a place where kids have lots of healthy options; where they can get away from the Junk Food, Couch Potato World out there.Several effective and well-meaning zealots were empowered by our Exec Director, Halbe Brown, to make this happen, and several mild-mannered good-health-above-all types, such as the beloved Mike Ketcham, continued in their genial ways but felt emboldened by the zealots, made it all happen. And fast. Cigarette smokers on the staff were confined to a small space. Soda, candy and ice cream served for many years in the canteen were gone. And the after-dinner "canteen" (long lines visiting the camp store on the end of Hayden Lodge) was eliminated, which, since it was a hang-out hour for both camps, felt like a huge loss to everyone. It was our free period after dinner and the only time in those days that Boys' and Girls' Camp could casually get together. Sugar was removed from the dining hall tables.
And staff training was completely redone. I might be misremembering, but I believe that in '78 at least 50% of the week-long staff training was on topics and programs related to Wellness. That's a lot!
The iamge here is a scan of the cover design for the 1978 Counselor's Manual. Oh that design! It was on the manual, on t-shirts, on brochures... everywhere. The people were (ironically) drawn as pudgy generic figures, skin color quite diverse (more diverse than the actual people on staff, though we were trying) and rainbows always in the background (just in case you didn't get the idea).
By '81 or '82 we'd moderated the emphasis a bit, but the change had been made and Frost Valley as a whole - not just summer camp - is much better for it.
Now the challenge is: We have an fine new Wellness Center, which we're formally dedicating on September 13, so we need to re-focus on some of the old Wellness questions. I don't mean health and medical ones (content ones)--although these are also of crucial importance--so much as institutional-political ones: what is the tone with which we want to be wellness "back"? There are many many possibilities among the options.At the 2006 Labor Day reunion Dari Litchman (a wonderfully design-conscious person) thought to base the reunion T-shirt on this by-then outdated late '70s design. It was hilarious and everyone loved the retro look. How funny (well, not funny, but you fill in the word) that wellness could have become retro! It's then, it's now.
Above: the new Guenther Wellness Center (to the left of the Brown pavillion) as you see it from the lower field. I was standing in front of the Ad Office when I snapped this shot yesterday. The building is up on the hill about 200 feet to the southwest of the dining hall. You can see it's landscaped already, grass growing, and it blends into the hillside well. I'll have more photos of the building later.
