Family Camp memories

For several years I was the Program Director for the legendary week-long family camp at the end of the summer. After four sessions of resident camp, this wasn't the easiest assignment, I have to say. I was tired and the Family Campers - families that came every year and really knew the place and loved it and anticipated a full fabulous week - were ready to push me hard. But I quickly fell in love with the regulars, including the Hildebrands, the Schnaufers, the Abrams and the Merinos.

We played an intensely competitive game in the lake called "Yak Ball." I'm sure I've described this somewhere in this blog. We took street hockey goals and put them inside rowboats, and anchored the rowboats at either end of a "court" area in the lake, in the area in front of the boathouse. We gave one team yellow helmets and the other team white. Each player got into a little red kayak (a playak), with those long plastic two-sided kayak paddles. And a volleyball was tossed. Abrams led one team and Hildebrand the other. I and several other staffers really got into it - no spectators we.

Paul Merino was one of the avid players. And for that matter, one of the avid fathers of a longtime FV family. Soon the Merino children, including Donny and Rachel, were campers and then staff. Well, yesterday: whom do I see in the dining hall but Paul Merino! And his daughter and his grandkids, who had just finished session 1 at camp. The Merino tradition continues.

Paul and I shared a few wild Yak Ball memories, you can be sure.