Roy Sheinbaum, writing me out of nowhere: I definitely knew you at camp in the late '60s to early '70s and I believe I was in the same cabin with you at least one time and may have been a CIT with you in 1971. I was able to figure out that 1971 was the year I was a CIT from your account of the new building which housed the CITs that year. I have not thought a lot of Wawayanda in specifics but more about how great of an experience camp was for me. I do know that my long lost Wawayanda W patch from my last year there had the number 7 on it. 7 Summers of my life, so many incredible and character forming experiences, and I kind of assumed that like everything else the camp must not resemble what it was back then. Then somehow I got the inspiration to google 'Camp Wawayanda' and was blown away by what I found. I'm sure that the timing of this has something to do with the fact that my son is returning home from camp tomorrow (Camp Coleman, a Jewish camp in Georgia).
Among the materials I found on the site and on your blog was an account of watching the Apollo 11 moonwalk on a small black and white TV, set in a window of the Castle in July 1969. All of us were sitting on the lawn and barely could see the screen, but we were witness to history the likes of which we will probably never see again in our lifetimes. That was the summer of the flood and Woodstock. I have told the story of where I was watching the moon landing many times. I was interested in the preserved staff contract; I myself was an LIT probably in the summer of 1972. I know I made 200 dollars for 10 weeks of mostly washing dishes often while listening to the Allman Brothers 'Eat a Peach'. I saw the closing campfire agenda and do remember Jim Ewan the camp director. I have an extremely fond memory of a guy named John Thomas who I think was once camp director. Around 1970 I know I was elected 'camp director for a day' and got to make all of the announcements and run flag raising and got to feel the 'power' for a day. I don't remember many names but I am still friendly with Mike Margolin who I went to elementary through high school with. Mike told me that he took his family to Frost Valley during the fall one year. Some names I do remember are Ko Van Woune (a dutch guy who was a counselor), Danny Shapiro, Dan Tilles, Rich Friedland, Ellen Eisenberg; others escape me. I remember the overnights to 'High Falls' and some of the other sites. I don't think I truly appreciated what a special place the camp was.
I lived in Philadelphia and was an anesthesiologist at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital from 1986 until 1999, and worked at other hospitals in the Jefferson system until 2003. I got my medical degree from Columbia U. in 1982 and my bachelors from McGill University in 1978. I moved down to Florida in 2003 and now I practice in Broward County and live in Parkland, FL with my wife Sharon and stepson Seth.
