sis visits at holdover

Dave Scherer and his sister Amy during holdover weekend after 2nd session, 1985. The totem pole at the spot where the camp road turns in from the county road (main entrance) was made by John Giannotti just a year or two earlier.

"Old Wawayanda" at closing campfire, 1985

At my final closing campfire as director, at the end of the 2nd session in '85, Adam Diamond (then a camper) and I led everyone in a sweet-quiet last go-around at "Old Wawayanda." Eric Wechter made a cassette recording of this and other songs sung around my retirement from active FV staff duty and recently mailed me the old tape. I've digitized and reminisced while listening. Wooh. Here's the mp3 version of "Old Wawayanda." You can download, of course, or also just listen. Stay tuned to this channel for some more songs converted into mp3s from that old cassette. And thanks, Eric, for stirring up the memories.

Here's a 2007 version of the song.

winter camp

Winter Camp (summer camp-style happenings over three or four days usually between Christmas and New Year's) really got into gear in the winter of 1973-74. It's gone in and out but in the past few winters has really flourished. Above is the flyer for the 1985 Winter Camp.

songs of the Hird '85

'84 was the year we started to refer to Camp Henry Hird as "the Hird." It was now the older of the two camps - co-ed gathering of the oldest villages. "The Hird" (as in a herd of loud spirited people) seemed apt. Above is a song-sheet I made for The Hird in '85. "Hey Look Us Over" was a traditional Girls' Camp (Camp Hird) song we decided to keep, with slight adjustment. It didn't catch on and I think is no longer sung by anyone. "You Ain't Goin Nowhere" (or "Ooo Wee") had been adapted by John Mumford and me in '74 and got revived big-time in '84 and '85 and is still sung lots. (There are more verses that you see here.) "That's the Way that the Hird Goes Round," based on a John Prine song, was great fun. We sang it as part of a kind of after-lunch dining hall skit. We wrote verses particular about individual staff and a few of the older campers.

Who's Your Father - now available in mp3 audio

I have been asked 1,000 times at least to re-tell my 45-minute blockbuster comic epic, "Who's Your Father." Since I "retired" from Camp Director-ship in 1985, I've told the story exactly twice. Once was at a reunion in the early 90s, at the urging, I think, of Dave Gold, Eric Wechter and Adam Diamond. And once, spontaneously, just two summers ago, I told the story to Lenape Village one late rainy night in their lodge up the hill. I'm really not sure they knew what hit them. The story was always funniest when the listeners had heard the legend of the story. Then they were ready to persist against the story's deliberate narrative confusions. These Lenape boys, knowing nothing of all that, scratched their heads, conceded that this bearded guy apparently can tell a good story, but wondered really what it was all about.

Anyway, I can't imagine telling the story too many more times. It takes a lot out of me and really requires loosening up - a ready-familiarity with the story's complicated turns. Something like story-teller's RAM (ready-access memory). Let's just say that "Who's Your Father" requires a lot of RAM.

One of my dearest Frost Valley friends says: ""Who's Your Father" is, of course, part of the furniture of my mind." I like that. I like something I've made being in the structure of things. Nothing so fancy as the air we breathe, but more like the furniture we sit on.

The story was recorded twice that I know of. The last time I told it in 1985, billed as "the last time the story will ever be told," the VCs and program director (Sue Yennello) actually arranged to have my father drive up for the telling. He emerged at the end of the story, to my surprise and that of the campers. And they presented me with a beautiful painted three-legged stool, with a Frost Valley horizon in green and white and the words "Who's Your Father" scripted out nicely by the then Arts & Crafts director. Nice. The recording was a video tape. Not bad (I still have it) but it turns out that that was not a great telling of the story (for reasons I can't remember now).

The other recording was an audio cassette made in 1983. Someone was taping from the back of the room so the sound quality isn't the best. But this must have been one of the better tellings because by the end I was really getting into it.

This morning I found that old cassette here at my house, in a box of old Frost Valley things. And now I've converted it to digital recording, 1's and 0's that will last forever. So click here, if you dare, and listen to the story. Let me know what you think. It's a bit odd and seems to make light of vices like vandalism and gambling, but I'd argue otherwise.

Hoganmania

Three mid-80s mainstays, from left to right: Phyllis Gherardi Caputo, Kathy Hogan, and Ruth Krotchko DiGiacomo.

Phyllis as you know has been here all session (now with both her kids in camp--son Vincent has been experimenting in day camp and spending some night sleeping in a Totem cabin), and Ruth has been up and back a few times (her twin daughters were here as camers in July).

Faithful readers of this blog will know (see "Hogan invasion from down under") that Kathy and her partner Jenny had been planning to visit all the way from Australia. Kathy has two nieces on the staff and Jenny's daughter is also a counselor. They are here now, honorary members of Lakota and smiling at all the smiles. Come back to this space later today or soon to hear an audio recording of my conversation with Kathy about what it's like to be back after so long.

- - - -

Later the same day...

Cathy observed loud spirited cheering (hoopla) at lunchtime and was amazed at the scene. Right after that we walked and talked, ending up some time later at the waterfront, where she had worked as a lifeguard during her summers here.

Here is the audio recording of that talk (you'll hear a bit of Ruth Krotchko DiGiacomo toward the beginning also).

Jon Coates

International counselor from England (York, to be specific), fab soccer player, great counselor who became the Hemlock VC, early to mid-80s...Jon Coates...emails me out of the blue this morning. Here's Jon:

"Discovered your blog by chance a couple of days ago and have thoroughly enjoyed the happy memories it has brought back. Hard to believe it's 26 years since I was first introduced to FV and 18 since I last visited. I was last there in 1990 when I drove up from New York where we were on a football (soccer) tour with a team from the Bahamas. I spent the afternoon with the Swains and a very young Bradley who I now see is not so little and has joined the staff ranks.

I'm now back in York (have been for about 12 years now), married to Liz with 2 beautiful kids, Maya (9) and Joel (7) and working with the Youth Service."

Pac man back

Buy me a ring and a Dave Gold that sings.... The Pac VC (later the Hird Director) who couldn't sing a note. Aw well, folks who can't keep a tune can become camp directors. Yes, Dave Gold was here today, dropping off his 9-year-old daughter Lily for session 2. Lily's in cabin 22, Pocohontas. I had the chance to introduce Dave, who was the first-ever VC of Pac in '85, to the current Pac VC, Harry McCormack. It was a good meeting.

Jeff Daly was a CIT when Dave Gold was the director. Jeff remembered that it was Dave who picked up the CITs after their 9-day hike. Jeff, Dave and I have a love of the Mets in common, and Dave noticed that this summer's staff shirt is Met blue and the directors/admininstrative shirts are Met orange. That's for real. Let's go, Mets!

Dave Mager (and his wife Stacey and their two adorable kids) are here all two weeks. Dave will be taking photographs the whole time. The kids will be enrolled in our day camp. That's Mager, shaved head in orange shirt, arm around Gold.

winner of the big-foot contest...is back

Michael Schneide made contact with us again last night after 23 years. Mike was a camper in 1983, '84, and '85. Those were perfect-storm years: he's one of the few FV mainstays who never ate either in the old dining hall or the new, as his time coincided with the three summers of makeshift meals at the smaller dining hall (now Geyer Hall). But they were good, high-spirited years, to be sure. And, per Mike last night, have had lasting positive influences on him. He was thrilled to be back. Just buying a new home in Queens; enjoying his job; and now contemplating a visit back to camp this summer.

Mike was a star, particularly in his final two summers. His last summer was the first summer of Pac (VC = Dave Gold). Mike had huge feet - size 15's I believe. He won Challenge Night in the big-feet event each session. David Marcone (who was a camper then) reminds me that Mike did a fabulous impersonation of Barney Rubble. A basically shy kid, he learned to step onto the stage and perform the funniest things. We brought out the joy in him. This he reminded us last night. And he asked about his old mates: Dave Gold, Dargie Mombo (Dargie, where are you?), Adam Diamond, et alia.

Welcome home, Mike.

we are the world

Well, we really are the world. The number of international counselors and program staff at FV has, in some years, peaked at 30 and each year their origins range extraordinarily. The impact this has on NY/NJ metro area kids is incalculable: they meet and learn to love adults from Asia and Africa and Australia. In the lead-up to Hirdstock one year--1985--the internationals and I (and a few other Yanks) learned to sing "We Are the World," a song written that year by Michael Jackson and Lionel Ritchie and produced by Quincy Jones and recorded by a supergroup of popular musicians to draw attention to famine and drought in Africa. We sang it in at least four-part harmony and got quite good at it. On a day off between sessions 2 and 3 we took a crowd of staff to Manhattan and actually performed this song in Washington Square and on various subway platforms. No kidding. Here's the photo of that memorable Hirdstock performance. In white shirts, four over from the left, are Dimitris and Aliki from Greece. In the blue V-neck staff shirt is John Giannotti. The short girl to John's right is Avra Jordano. Moving from Avra's right: Carolyn Doris, Vicki Lewis (Australia), Cathy Hogan (Australia).

any pile of sticks can become legend

Hastily constructed to serve as an administrative office for the Girls' Camp director and program director and housing for the girls CITs in the early 60s, Hird Lodge is by now a skittery, dilapidated, house-of-cards with unbearable summertime heat braising those who live on the second floor, bowed stairs with lots of "give," and walls so thin you can hear people breathing from one end to the other. And yet every time I walk into the place in the summer--it's been in recent years the home of Quinnipiac or "Pac" village--the kids and staff insist on its sacredness and sheer beauty. The old lodge is a legend by now. Back in the day, the girl LIT's (Leaders-in-Training, a second summer of training after CIT) lived there and had an unending good time. But just imagine that loud hilariousness (and mischief, I'll add from personal knowledge) being had above the offices of the camp director. When Wawayanda was for boys (on the whole east side of camp) and Camp Henry Hird was for girls (the four groups of 5 cabins each above the lake, that dining hall, Hird and Turrell Lodges), the main "living room" of Hird was used as a social spot for women staff coming back from staff lounge late at night (the lounge was in Pigeon Lodge in those days and served hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled cheese sandwiches, root beer floats, etc.--cooked by Marie Hess--and you paid cash). Funny how such camp buildings go through phases: first, new and luxurious; second, horrible & no one wants to live there; third, a treasure that every camper anticipates for years as the culmination of tradition. Dari Litchman saw this entry and got "teary-eyed and nostalgic," and offered this addition:

Pile of sticks indeed! One of my favorite lodges ever. I remember the first summer of PAC [1985?] - how great was Dave Gold in all his glory? MEET THE PAC? Probably the best cheer that ever was. I remember when Hird Lodge was the mailroom! Can you imagine how many packages were stolen and eaten that summer? (It was the mailroom AND Pac lived there at the same time, whose bright idea was that?) The best memory though, was one flag raising held there. I recall an amazing performance - Tom Cometa himself channeling Jimi Hendrix. We are all bleary eyed and still sleeping when the counselor door at the top of the stairs is KICKED open and he commences with the Star Spangled Banner. What a way to wake up! (Maybe we were kicking off Hirdstock?)

I'll note that "Meet the Pac" was sung to the tune of the N.Y. Mets theme song. Dave Gold, Pac's founder, and I were huge Met fans.

staff list for "The Hird" 1985

Here (click on the image for a larger version) is the beginning-of-summer staff list for "The Hird" in July of 1985. The roster changed a bit as the summer went on, but only a bit. It was a superb staff--the best group of VCs I ever directed. I believe this was the first summer of PAC, possibly the second--only called "Quinnipiac" at the start of the summer. Notice that there were just two staff there--Dave Gold and "Flash" Gordon--for all those boys in Hird Lodge. What's odd-seeming is that Hemlock's sister village, Sacajewea ("Sacky"), is not here. It's not that Sacky was in Wawayanda that summer; Sacky was in The Hird, run by Wendy Brady, but not until session 2. (Session 1 that summer had low enrollments. Sacky's staff was spread throughout other villages.) Lenape matched with Tacoma and Pac with Windsong (also new--it has been "Sunburst" before that and "Cherokee" before that). Note too that in 1983 Lenape lived in what had been for many years the home of that village--cabins 16-20 (currently numbered 13-17 and currently the home of Hemlock), but in this year, '85, we moved Lenape over to where Tacoma had always been, cabins 46-50, atop "the Hill," so that all of the Hird could be together on that side of camp. Tacoma now moved into 31-35 where Pokey had been and Sacky was where Susky had always been (36-40), while Hemlock was with Lenape on the Hill, in 41-45. All this moving around was made necessary, or made possible at least, by the destruction of the main "boys" dining hall by fire on New Year's Eve 1982. I'll save that story for another post, but gosh, my memory of all this detail scares me; looking at this mimeographed staff list of a group of good young people 23 years ago, it all seems ridiculously clear. I note finally this was also the first summer of "The Hird" as such, after "Camp Henry Hird" or "Camp Hird." We were a herd...for sure.