Totem Village, 1979

Totem Village, 1979. At far right, back row, is Peter Allen (father of '00s/'10s camper-counselor Robby Allen). Next to Peter is Jurgen Bobrowski, German ICCP counselor that summer. Third from left in the second row is Mike Rubin. With some intense time and work I could pick out names of some of the kids (they are 42 years old now) but I'll save that for another time.

Well, we can identify at least one camper: Stephen Pelosi is in the 2nd row, 5th from the right.

I was the Camp Wawayanda director that summer and I believe the Totem VC was David Allen, but for some reason he's not in this village photo.

archery awards, 1971

Bill Madden dug up his archery awards from the summer of 1971. The archery director that summer was Ko (Jakob) Van Wouwe, as you can see from the "membership" card Bill received. These awards was (time-consumingly) handed out at each session's closing campfire.

Eric Blum - four photos

As we prepare to bury a time capsule in/under the new Blum Center at Frost Valley, I quickly went through some of my old photos of Eric. Here are four of them. One of these I will send to camp now to be among those put into the time capsule. Fifty years from now when our successors at Frost Valley open it up, they will know exactly who these people are. Why? Because Blum and his colleagues did legendary work for kids, unforgettable. For a larger view of any of these photos, just click on the image.

Lake Cole in 1960

1980, the view from Pigeon Lodge

Jurgen ("Bobo") Bobrowski spent a few weeks being the village chief of a special village that resided in Pigeon Lodge. He took this photo from the second-floor west-facing room in the back of the building. He's obviously looking out across Biscuit Creek to the main part of camp. Notice the newly paved parking area in front of Smith Lodge. It was set up for street hockey, which ran pretty much all day every day. It was 1980 and Margetts Lodge was just a few years old at that point. Notice that you can't see a single car parked anywhere!

yakball during Family Camp

"Yakball" squad during Family Camp, in the late 1970s (probably 1977 or 1978). At far right is long-time friend and supporter of Frost Valley—and probably the longest-standing participant in Family Camp who continues to spend that week in the valley each year—Paul Schnauffer.

We invented Yakball, a cross between street hockey and water polo. We floated street hockey goals in rowboats at either end of the water "court." Players got in those little orange plastic kayaks ("playaks" was their official name). They could use their paddles or their hands to move the ball (a volleyball) forward toward the goal.

Yakball for a few years was an Olympic sport during session 2's Olympics, but then, during Family Camp, it got very intense—and quite a rivalry among families was formed. The staff got into it too.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Dave Scherer's video collage of summer 2000