Dimitris from Greece

Dimitris Emmanouil, an international counselor from Greece, was a counselor with us for at least two summers--I'm guessing '82 and '83. At one point, I think his first summer, he came to me to say that his girlfriend, also Greek, was "stuck" at another camp and was very unhappy. Somehow we arrange for her to leave that camp and join us. If I'm rememnbering correctly, the two of them returned together the next summer as well. The photo here was taken in 2008. I'll try to dig up a shot of Dimitris at camp. He was quite the soccer player. Ah, I found one. It was already in this blog--that great 1982 U.S. vs. The World game. Below you see Dimitris in the middle of the shot - around him, counterclockwise, starting from the bottom, are Paul King, George Lordi, Tom Franzkowiak (Germany), Gorm Fosdal (Sweden), Todd Payton, Walid Sakr (Lebanon).

One of those summers, '83 I think, Greece was the host country of our Olympics. We made a big deal of that--since of course the ancient games, and the "modern" games since 1898, were held in Greece.


And now Keara Giannotti has come along with a photo taken one night at Cold Spring Lodge. Here are Bill Abbott, John Giannotti and Dimitris.


A note from Dimitris a day after I posted the above....tells me that he and Aliki are happily married (after 29 years), that they have three children--one of whom is old enough to be a counselor at Frost Valley. When we knew Dimitris in the early 80s he was studying to be a dentist, and in fact helped out around the Health Center quite a bit. Today he is indeed a dentist.

our sculptor

John Giannotti is getting recognition once again for his sculpture. Click here for more.

be there on May 13

Our annual gala (cocktail reception at 6 pm; dinner at 7 pm) will once again be at the Newark Club, which is a four-minute walk from the Amtrak train station in Newark. Every alumnus and alumna should make an effort to attend. It's lots of fun.

We will induct three new people into the Frost Valley Hall of Fame. Last year was the first year of the Hall: Halbe Brown, Eva Gottscho and Woody English were inducted - Woody, posthumously (but his family was there); Halbe and Eva was on hand to receive the honor. Who will be inducted this year?

You can print the two images above - fill out the form and fax it. Or you can download this PDF file.

After last year's ceremony I wrote a bit for this blog and included an audio recording of the inductions.

where did "Straus" come from?

The East Neversink River valley estate we've owned since the mid-1970s--which we call "the Straus Estate" or "Straus House"--was in a sense the result of the convergence of two families through marriages -- the Straus family and the Guggenheim family. Yes, the latter is really the family that also gave us the Guggenheim Museum in New York, as well as modernist art-acquiring adventuress Peggy Guggenheim. On the Straus side we get several generations of Rogers who formed and sustained Farrar, Straus & Giroux publishers. The image above is a piece of a large New York Times article from 1914 about the coming together of the two establishment clans. Here is a PDF of the whole original article.