still tired, often sunburned - but happy being at camp

Kathy Steinwedel (we will remember her as Kathy King, elder child of Dave & Shirley King) tells us that she's now working at a day camp in Maryland - and that all three of her children are at the camp. It puts me in mind of the feel of the King family here in the 1960s and early 70s. Dave and Shirley doing their work and Kathy and David Jr. at first tagging along and then moving into their own places as campers and staff. Anyway, here's Kathy's update:

I am working at McDonogh, a day camp in Baltimore. I run a cooking program where I use what I have learned from "Incredible Edlible" at Frost Valley. In each session cookbook, I enclose a dedication page where I give Frost Valley credit for starting the program. McDonogh isn't Frost Valley, but I have each of the kids involved in something. Dave, now 16, works with the "Outdoor Games" program. Megan, at 15, is my Assistant in the Cooking program. Dylan, my 12 year old, is a camper in Senior Camp. At the end of the day we are tired, often sunburned, but we love it. I guess summer camp never really leaves the blood.....

And here is the text of the dedication:

Incredible Edible… Incredible Edible at McDonogh is based on a program started in the 1980s at Frost Valley YMCA in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The philosophy behind Incredible Edible is that if children learn to make healthy food choices early, they will be healthy eaters throughout their lives. In the program we started examining foods for sodium content, sugars, calories, etc. You might find your children examining labels, looking at nutrition facts, etc. as a result of the program. I encourage you to try some of these Incredible Edible recipes at home with your children. Feel free to modify them to suit the needs of your own healthy eaters! -- Miss Kathy and Megan

Shirley King remembers

As Dave and Shirley King prepare to celebrate (in July) their 50th wedding anniversary, Shirley took a few minutes to remember her experience as one of the few spouses at camp in the pre-Girls' Camp days. This is partly in response to Bill Hawkins' recollections (recently posted here).

I guess Dave [King] was one who had the first shot of bringing a wife to camp. He was Village Chief of Lenape in l958 and '59, and had talked to Dick Carey about my coming along when we married in April of l960., and what job Dave might have. (I always teased that he brought me along in l960 as "excess Baggage") There were few women at camp at that time: Dottie, wife of Ray Grant, Mrs. Cole, Jean, wife of Dick Carey, and Marian Schreck, Secretary, Gerry Lester, Camp Nurse, and Dottie Parsons, Al's wife.

Dave became Program director, and I was hired as a "Castle Hostess" ( with Joan Grant) in l960, and in '6l, ( for awhile with Dorie Masemore, who had married Jerry) and In l96l, I also did some of the cooking at the Castle during the week, toted luggage for guests, etc.

Living quarters: In the early years, staff Living in the Castle would not have been considered; the Castle was strictly off limits to staff from l958 on, and crossing the bridge from the Office was considered grounds for dismissal, so that staff never even went into Pidgeon and Biscuit Creek lodges. In '60 and '6l the Grants were bringing people to the Castle who might contribute to the "Y", and the Castle was used as a Guest House.

When Dave and I married in l960, we had one rm. in the top of Biscuit Lodge ( with the old garage underneath.) Dottie and Al had 2 children at the time, and they had a couple of rooms beside us in Biscuit. In l962, [our daughter] Kathy was born in March, and renovations to Biscuit had begun. We had 1 rm. at the top front of Pigeon, with a windowed closet, and it was there that we put a bassinette for Kathy. Another staff member with a child had a rm. in Pigeon, and in the top back of Pidgeon were 2 rms. for the cooks: Dottie and Bill Van Zandt, Vilja Kohtz [cook], and the next year, the cook and his wife, Albert Fey and Inga. (It was their daughter Inga, who later met and married Bill Van Zandt Jr., the son of Dottie and Bill.)

I spent many evenings visiting the cooks with Kathy, watching Vilja braid a rug, and those were special times, lovely people. During these 2 yrs. at Pidgeon, during the day, I did Staff Laundry at the little Fisherman's shack beside the Infirmary, and in the evening I served snacks in the Staff Lounge at Pigeon Brook Lodge (during Staff time-off, for those did not have CQ.)

We think we lived 3 summers in the old house across from the old horse barn. It had a washing machine, so "Hambone" ... Ken Hamlin...would come down sometimes to wash his clothes, and play with Kathy and Dave, and then he would babysit once in a while, and Dave and I would go into Liberty to a movie. What a great guy.

The Parsons family lived in the old house behind what was Devlin's home and then Chuck and Joy White's home (now called "the group home"), and l year our family lived there in the old house.

In l967 and 68, Halbe Brown had asked me to run the Castle, do reservations, etc. and we lived in the 2 rooms on the 3rd floor overlooking the circular drive. These were the rooms which had originally been used as a Forstmann nursery and a room for the Nanny. When the children were in camp, Dave and I lived for a short period 2 yrs. in Rm. 32, and once, for a short period we lived in Rm. 22. We went where we were directed, and tried to do the jobs asked of us.

Wonderful memories of beautiful Frost Valley, and of all the special people we have lived and worked with over the years!!!! We always enjoy coming back to see the valley, and meet again all of those wonderful people.

Castle tour to end all Castle tours

It was billed as the Castle tour to end all Castle tours. It might well have been the greatest Castle tour-giving talent assembled in the old mansion's living room at one time. The featured tellers were Dave King (not pictured here), Chuck White, Bill Devlin, Dave Haight, Dave Gold, and Bud Cox. This (again) was Labor Day 2001, the Wawayanda Centennial (1901-2001) reunion. In this picture you see Bill Devlin (white beard), Chuck White (wearing sweater), Dave Haight (next to Bill), and Dave Gold. Bud and Dave King were on the other side of the room.

on change and not-change

After hearing the recording of the conversation Dave King and I had on Olympic Day last month, Rick Cobb sent us his thoughts:

I just listened to your recording at the Big Tree Field; what a masterpiece! While I'm sitting here on the porch looking at our mountains early Sunday morning and listening to your podcast on my version of the Crackberry (which is my Dell laptop), I'm really right there with you. Or, I'm going back in time as you mention folks: Mike Ketcham, Dick Haney (who was my first counselor on the Adirondack Explorers [along with Bud Cox, Hoby Spitz, and Mark Fisher]), Peter Boyd, etc.

I then flashed back to a story about Jane that I told at Halbe and Jane's retirement event (2001?), where Peter Boyd walked into the Ad Office one summer with his wife and young daughter (who may be Ellen Boyd that you mentioned in your recording). Peter and his wife, who had worked at a different summer camp growing up, had argued about which camp to send their daughter. Apparently Peter had "won"; as they entered the Ad Office, Jane, who had not seen Peter for ~20 years, said: "Peter Boyd, from Summit, NJ". Peter turns to his wife and says: "See! I TOLD you this was the right camp!" And the tradition continues with Elizabeth....

As far as changing and not-changing goes, to me Frost Valley represents core values and principles that hopefully will never change; it's their internalized existence that allows us to deal with the ever-increasing rate of change of everything else around us. I agree that FV is a very special oasis that, while its physical appearance changes, the real core value and principles have remained constant through the years. While the manifestations of those values and principles change as programs and initiatives change, the values and principles underlying them do not.

Thanks for reminding me of that today. Keep the podcasts coming!

talkin' with Dave

Dave King's visit ends tomorrow. I'm glad we had a chance yesterday to walk around and talk. I recorded our conversation and am delighted by all the Olympic-style interruptions. We walked pretty much everywhere, from the Olympic Circle to the Big Tree Field and beyond. At the Big Tree itself, someone snapped a picture of us. Please have a listen to the recording here.

Dave King on diversity (video)

Dave King at Morning Reflection, July 20, 2008.

we've been up to Wawayanda...

Mike DeVita remembers the early years of Wawayanda at Frost Valley, in a tribute to Dave King:

I HAVE A ZILLION memories of Wawayanda and Dave King. We both started there together after a summer break-in at Camp Conoy in Lusby, Maryland. I remember our first week at camp when we were first year VILLAGE CHIEFS (WOW! IN CHARGE AND WE HAD ONLY HAD ONE YEAR UNDER OUR BELTS). It worked out so well that Dave eventually became Program Director, then Camp Director and I eventually became HIS Program Director. Little bits: Singing on Sundays in the Camp Trio/quartette; Breaking down the rafters in the OLD DINING ROOM when we did a Rock and Roll Tribute and mimicked 'YAKETY YAK'/ the duets in the dining room...."Where's the golf ball, Dave?" "What golf.....mmph."/ leading the camp in singing "Michael Row the Boat" and "Kum By Ya" in dining room and at campfires/ the "privileged information and casual talks we had together when he was "the boss" (jest becuz we was friends)/ "The Mutt and Jeff" jokes/ scheduling overnights when everyone waited for me to select my overnight dates so they could steer clear of them and NOT get caught on a rainly overnight (it happened every time we went out).....gosh I could go on forever but I will stop and give someone else a chance. I am only sorry i got "out of the habit" or returning to Wawayanda...while Dave has become a "fixture."

happy 50th, Dave King

The photo shows Dave King and me leading "Deep & Wide" at the Labor Day 2006 reunion. Once again I long for such good moments achingly.

This very afternoon I spent a little more than an hour talking with Dave by phone, and we recorded the conversation. Click on this link and you will be able to play an hour-long mp3 sound file. If you right-click on that link, you can save the file to your computer and/or mp3 player; if you left-click you can play the recording. If you want to stream it, you can click on the right-facing triangle in the circle next to the link.

And here is a 6-minute excerpt about the summer of 1958.

During this interview, I learned a few things I had never ever heard or known before. I had never asked anyone about the details of using the swimming hole (muddy and awful) that had been dug in the field across from the Castle for the summer of 1958 - where the campers took swimming lessons before Lake Cole was built in '59. I also didn't know or didn't remember that in the first years the area across the bridge (Pigeon and Biscuit Lodges, Reflection Pond, and the Castle) was off limits to everyone, staff included. I didn't know that the Castle wasn't called "the Castle" until Jim Whyte was the executive director in the early 60s. I hadn't heard the story of the camper who drowned on one of the canoe trips in the early years. I hadn't realized that the staff were still finishing the new cabins during staff training just days before the campers arrived in June of '58.

Many folks know about the plane that crashed on Doubletop in 1966. But did you know that in 1968, during a holdover weekend, a small plane crash-landed in the Castle field? During our discussion, Dave talked about that one. And since posting this initially, I've heard from Ken Nathanson about that incident. Ken must have been 11 or 12 at the time, and he happened to be staying in the Castle that weekend and saw the crash. Here's Ken: I actually have my father’s old movies of the recovery of the plane. There is good footage of Dave, Halbe, Paul, Joe Chandler, Bud, John Paul, me and Peter Tilles, etc. I actually saw the plane come down into the field as I was walking up the steps to the patio of the castle. I ran up to the tower to see if I could find it and sure enough the tail was sticking up out of a small ditch. It took a bit of convincing to have the castle staff call for help. This was the summer holdover in ’68.

Well, in the summer of 2008 it will have been 50 years since Dave King, at 20 years old, came to Wawayanda at Frost Valley as the VC of Lenape. A few years later Dave was the Program Director and then began a long era as Boys' Camp Director. During all my years as a camper, Dave was my camp director. Later, when I was made a young Program Director (at 19 years old!), Dave came back for a half-summer as Camp Director and suddenly I found myself in the position of working as a co-director alongside the legendary King. I had been one of his kids, and now I was a colleague. Yikes. During the first summer or two working together as directors (we were Mutt & Jeff in height, that's for sure), he taught me a tremendous amount and we worked closely together for several years before he left Frost Valley to do full-year work as a superintendent of the Baltimore public schools. Between us as directors, we spanned 1963 to 1985 (to be sure, with others as well: Mike Ketcham, Bob Hettler, Jim Ewen and a few others) and more generally our involvement covers the whole 50 years to the present.

For a few years in the late 60s and 70s, Dave was a member of Frost Valley's Board of Trustees. But because he was in Baltimore, and the meetings were held on weeknights in Montclair, Dave could not attend often and he felt it necessary to resign his seat.

You can hear in this interview my repeated invitation to Dave to come visit us for a few days during the summer of '08. If he and Shirley do make the visit, we will be sure to sing Dave as well as Frost Valley a joyful rendition of "Happy Birthday" in honor of our 50th.

the magic of mutual respect

I've been corresponding tonight with Geoff Hazel, an Outpost and Forest JC in 1967--his last summer at camp. (He had started in 1961 as a camper.) I was myself a camper in Outpost in '67 and remember him! I hope I wasn't in the cabin of unruly kids he describes. Okay, here's Geoff, remembering:

I was a Jr. counsellor in '67. I started out in Outpost, and shortly after the summer started, was moved to Forest. It was an amazing time for me, spiritually. The first time I was left alone with a cabin full of kids, they ran roughshod over me, I had no control over them at all. I went up into the fern fields above the rifle range, just bawling and praying for help. I didn't know what to do. Somehow I got through that first weekend. Then I had to take another cabin, and a kid threw a rock over the cabin and broke a window. No problem. Let's go talk with big DAVE [Dave King, the camp director]. And we did. And he took care of it. And then something happened, God answered my prayer. I had to take what appeared to be the worst cabin the village. The counsellor was always yelling at them during the lineup at the dinining hall "Get in line" "Stop fidgiting" "Be quiet!" and so forth. Oh boy, did I dread taking that cabin! But when I got there, they were angels. Never had to shout, they obeyed right off the bat, and it was great! What the heck?? And then one of them said to me "We like you. You never yell at us the way Doug does." Well I didn't HAVE to. And along the way, I learned about the magic of mutual respect. I expect the respect due to me, and I give you the respect due to you, and most of the time, it works. It worked the whole rest of the summer in Forest, I didn't have lick of trouble after that first week. Once I got into college, I fell away from my faith, but found it again not too long after in 1972, and have been faithful ever since. That summer will live in my memory forever.

Kids would sometimes arrive with a bundle of comics: Superman, Archie, etc. They quickly became the property of the cabin and were fodder for reading during quiet time after lunch.

The rain in summer is often a warm rain. One time when I was JC in charge, it was cabin night (Wednesday) and we walked down to visit another cabin that was on an overnight at some waterfall just down the road a litlle ways (what was the name of that place? It had a small swimming hole and a waterfall? [High Falls]). Anyway, it was light when we left, but we returned in twilight, and as the rain fell, we were walking down the road getting totally utterly soaked and not minding one bit. Then we got back to the cabin, took hot showers, hung our wet clothes on the rafters and then fired up the stove until it glowed red.

Remember "Cabin Night dinner," Wednesday cookout? The pickup [truck] would drive around and drop off the hamburgers or hot dogs, along with a big milk can full of "bug juice". Had to be at least a 10 gallon can. Then you'd make a camp fire and cook your food. I don't know as I can recall a single "rain out" on Wednesday night, either. Must have been one but I can't recall it. One year I was JC in Forest, and those little kids wouldn't always eat all the food that arrived on Cabin Night. One Wednesday, I sat by the [CQ] fire which was on the main trail between Outpost and Lenape and the staff lounge, and offered hamburgers to everyone who strolled by. I got quite a few takers, too.

The photo shows Geoff today. He'll send me a photo from his days at camp and I'll post it when I can.

Later, Gary Gold - who was a camper then - saw this blog entry and, sure enough, he was in the cabin Geoff staffed in Forest! What a convergence, all these years later! Gary writes: "Then I read the [entry] about Geoff Hazel. Holy Canoli! I remember when they moved him down to Forest from Outpost. We were a rough cabin when he took over thats for sure. I remember JC (that was his name) [Pony] leading us in the forest village chant. And Steve Gladden running faster than any human alive! And... And..." JC Pony's chant was "Has Forest got the spirit? Yeah, man!"

ache

I've gotten an overwhelming response to this blog - to the blog as it is but also to the very idea of it. This morning this awaited me in my inbox:

The blog is awesome - I just went back through the whole thing again. I'll say this without shame - I ache for Frost Valley. I spend a lot of time and cerebral metabolism trying to devise a way I can get back up there for a session....

And "ache" befits the other responses. Occasionally I stop to think of what else (other than an individual person) is that for which I feel such longing. Once every so often, I want to re-read a book that badly. At the end of the baseball season, maybe Shea: a playoff ticket down in the boxes. But otherwise it's only this. And you?

And if I could transport myself not just back to this place, but to a certain moment in my personal history here, it would perhaps be:

end of lunch on any July day in 1968, and Dave King (our camp director) walks to the center of the dining hall, without microphone, and without introduction of any kind begins to lead one of the 25 or so camp songs we sang in those days. He is the maestro, waving one arm to the rhythm we are to follow and with the other arm, at turns, directing us to sing quietly or loudly or pointing toward some one camper who isn't singing or (rarely) is talking. And it's "Young Folks Old Folks" or "Zum Gali Gali" or "Deep and Wide" and I look down to the end of the table at my counselor and he's singing too, no hesitation, not too old for this, totally entranced and I myself turn my gaze back toward Dave....

Okay, I ache for that. Not being young again, not quite. More like being momentarily again part of such harmony.

In response to the above, someone wrote me the following: "Your time was a little before mine, and what you describe is certainly magic. If only there were video at the time of Dave King's reign, but I'm sure video would never have done that "feeling" justice. My memories are most vivid from my earlier years there, the mid to late 80s. A lot of what I remember involves you and Rick in the Girls' Dining Hall, and by '87, the new Dining Hall. The way you describe Dave King? That's a lot how I remember you and Rick. You held court."

9 Wawayanda directors in one place at one time

At the 2001 reunion we celebrated the 100th year of Wawayanda camping, which began of course in 1901. There was a moment when we realized we had seven former Camp Wawayanda directors in the dining hall at the same time. There were a total of nine Wawayanda directors at the reunion, but neither Jim Ewen nor Mike Ketcham had yet arrived at that moment...and maybe ten if Steve Purkis was there, as I think he was, and if Steve had been a Wawayanda--as distinct from Hird--Director. Well we present seven gathered up front and led the 400 former staff attending the reunion in a surprisingly emotional rendition of "Happy Birthday" sung to Wawayanda itself. Emotional...because...perhaps because Wawayanda had always taken time to sing happy birthday to us and now we were returning the favor. Then of course there was the Hula Hop and then the "Order of the Oar." The gathering was given a choice of which director to toss into the air 100 times: Dave King, Rick Wormeli, or Al Filreis. King won the vote, I'm sure, but would have refused to be thrown up 100 times, lest he throw up his lunch on us, so the fiction was that I received the greatest applause and hence I became surely the person tossed into the air the greatest number of times at any single "Order of the Oar" affair. A hundred times is a lot, I can tell you now from firsthand experience, and, to be sure, the people tossing me were not holding back. I rose eight feet into the air...

The directors were, from left to right: Dave King (director in the 1960s and here & there in the early 70s), Digger Shortt (also in 1960s), Rick Wormeli (directed in late 1980s), Al Filreis (director in the 1970s and 80s), Dave Allen ("the amazing Dave!"--1980s), Bobby Hettler (early to mid-1970s), and Eileen Barnes (1990s).

Castle hostesses on final day of summer '67

On the final day of the summer of '67, the Castle "hostess" staff were literally leaving the old stone mansion through the basement door when this snapshot was taken. From left to right, they are Kathy Ketcham* (sister of Billie Jean and Mike and John--of Westfield, NJ), Shirley King, head of the Castle staff (long-time camp partner and of course wife of Dave King**), and Linda Gridley (of Grahamsville, NY). The Kodacolor Print was given to Shirley who gave it to me. On the reverse, in Shirley's handwriting: "Castle Goodbye, Aug 1967 - notice the tears?" She also notes: "(missing Carol ________ from Westfield.)"*** FV folks who came along later might not know that in the late 50s and 60s the Castle was run like an inn, with rooms for rent (for visiting parents and others), 3 meals a day served in the dining room and (I think I'm remembering rightly) men's jackets required at dinner. I believe tea was served on the veranda in the afternoon. My own memory: summers '67 and possibly '68, during "holdover" weekends, my parents took a room in the second floor (probably #24) and we had a heavenly two days away from the cabin mattresses and mildew and lived in luxury on what truly seemed the other side of the Wawayanda tracks. This otherness was surely emphasized by the rule against any camper crossing the Biscuit Creek bridge near the Ad Office. No campers lived in Pigeon or Biscuit Lodges in those days and only for special programs and events did we visit Reflection Pond. There were certainly no "Castle tours." The Castle, by the way, functioned as a quiet/alternative staff lounge (with snacks served) every evening well into the 80s. I'll leave it to others--perhaps Shirley herself--to write me with more details about this extraordinary and mostly forgotten history of our use of the Castle as an inn, after which I'll add it to this entry.

* Kathy is listed on the staff list as "Hostess--Housekeeper."
** Shirley is listed as "Castle Director." By the way, in '66 Shirley's position was "Staff Lounge Hostess."
*** According to the '67 staff list, she was Carole Plenty, indeed of Westfield.

1959

The grainy blow-up of a photo here shows Dave King as the Lenape VC among the 1959 Wawayanda staff. Here is a link to a web page which presents the whole photo, which Dave & Shirley King lent me to scan. At one point Dave had identified everyone in the photo, but I don't seem to have that list at the moment. I'll find it and add the names. 1959 was of course the second summer Wawayanda was at Frost Valley. There were five villages, from youngest to oldest in order: Totem (cabins 1-5), Forest (cabins 6-10), Outpost (11-15), Lenape (16-20), and Hemlock (21-25). Girls camp would be built a few years later.