closing campfire

Camp Hird's closing campfire a few days ago, the final night of session 1. It was a gorgeous night. After a while, the sun all the way down, a full moon rising over Wildcat, and plentiful stars, the songs got even sweeter and the sentiments rose - with the finale being (of course) the VCs each saying a final word about the session and then singing together (with a little help from yours truly) "Four Strong Winds."

cool cap

Jim Vaughan, President-elect of the Frost Valley Board of Trustees, was here on Sunday to help out during the first session's check-in. He saw Kam Kobeissi's Wawayanda-patch cap and fell for it completely. Kam went in search for a new hat that fit Jim, and there ya go. Happy Jim poses with Kam, our fabulous Hird Director.

the girls' camp staffer who led songs "on the girls' side"

Above is a portion of the photo of the 1962 boys' camp staff. The handsome young guy in the middle on the bottom row is a Junior Counselor by the name of Henry A. Cox, Jr., known as "Bud."

If you click here you'll see photos of the entire 1962 summer staff, along with the names of just about everyone in the pictures.

The other night a member of the girls' camp staff that summer--Kathy Schonmeyer--found this stuff on the web, and then wrote to me. Here's part of what Kathy (who now goes by "Kate") wrote:

I just logged into your Frost Valley blog, went to the "alumni photos" page and scrolled down, and what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a link to the 1962 Wawayanda staff. I clicked on the link to the picture and there I was, as I knew I would be. I'm sitting next to Penny Hanna, and the name should be Kathy Schonmeyer. Jumping up one row, Jane Doncey should be Jane Donley.

I have some pictures from that year and the next few. I worked at Wawayanda for four summers, '62 - '65. I was one of the Ohio group. I was a counselor for two years, then waterfront director, then program director, and then I had to get a serious job that paid real money. The fact is, I'd still be happily coming back every summer if I could....

1965 was my final year. Carol DeVita was Girls' Camp Director that year. I just read about Gerry Lester's passing. She was good people.

I also read about Dave King. I usually led the songs on the girls' camp side during my tenure, all the raucous songs from Broadway Y in Cleveland, some of which I'm sure were retired many years ago, like "Titanic." "Hey Look Us Over" was one of the songs that came from Broadway Y, my incubator.

Kate will be happy to know that the campers and staff of girls' camp (Camp Hird) sang "Hey Look Us Over" at least until the early 1980s and that "Titanic" was sung through the late 80s and maybe even into the early 90s.

Hey, look us over, lend us an ear
We are from Y camp, you have heard us cheer
Never a letdown, never a frown,
Whenever we get together life is just a merry-go-round,

For there are two weeks of swimming, two weeks of fun,
We're all in clover and always on the run,
So whenever you're feeling down and out
Remember us and shout
Wawayanda is for you.

The Wawayanda version of the song was imported through the staff women who came to Frost Valley from the Cleveland Y. Dorothy Stenger, Girls' Director of the Broadway Y in Cleveland, wrote the words to the Cleveland version of the song.

final '09 hoopla

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.

Margaret Kremer remembers...

Margaret Kremer McLaughlin's daughter Emily has been a Tacoma counselor here all summer, and this vicarious re-emergence into Frost Valley has set Margaret to fond remembering. Here is what she recently wrote to me:

Ray my oldest brother was actually the first employee of Camp Wawayanda from the Kremer clan under Jim White in the early 60s. (Mom and Dad were late entrants into the Frost Valley employment pool). I think Ray met his wife Meg at Camp. All the Kremer siblings worked there as you know -- my son Nathan was also a counselor for a couple years in 1998, 1999.

I was hired the first year they had a girls camp kitchen with the Van Zandts as cooks. I was either 15 or 16 (1965-1966)... but the main criteria for employment was being at least 5 '10' as the men were not certain that girls could handle the heavy workload - particularly the pot duty. If there were pictures... we were quite a hefty crew.

Elsie Kimble was girls camp director when I began.. I became very attached to her. I tried to find her after I dropped Emily off this summer. I know she was a Professor at Mississippi State University. I was allowed to visit her during my junior year of high school while she was in graduate school at the University of Alabama for Romance languages. It was my very first plane ride and I was only allowed to go if I made it into the National Honor Society..

I continued to work every summer afterwards in a variety of roles. The next big "boy-girl" issue arose over "out tripping". The boys went on extended out-trips and canoe trips... and the girls staff had to push for equal opportunity for the girl campers. I recall hiking with girls wearing desert boots because there was no such thing as a girl's hiking boot available at the time. Desert boots had very flimsy soles. At some other time, when I have more time, I could muse a bit about the boy-girl development at the camp!

Carol English, Janet Winner, myself and I think John Paul Thomas (although I don't recall all the male counterparts) took the first co-ed cross-country trip in early 70s. [This was called "Western Adventures."] We flew stand-by with a passel of campers out of New York into Denver, rented a bus and traveled all over the place, and I think the thing cost about $400 per camper. I remember at the end of the trip the bus driver was in tears because he had never had a group behaved so well for four weeks. The bus got impounded the day we visited Disneyland as we had been on the road for too long... so we had to stay at the park for 14 hours. This was not a problem!

old songs

I've been leading old camp songs here and there. I've done "Father Abraham" and "Deep & Wide" at Camp Wawayanda's opening campfires, and "The Hoola Hop" (old-style) too, and led the younger kids in a revival of the "Waddat-'n-chew" cheer. At the most recent opening campfire for Camp Hird that camp's director, John Butler, and I did a rousing version of "Look on the Sunny Side." I hope to post a video of that in a few days.

Here's a photo of me at the most recent opening campfire, leading "Deep & Wide." The photo captures me apparently at the moment when I'm doing the widest of wides.

girls at Wawayanda

In the early days of what was called "Girls' Camp," or, more formally, "Camp Wawayanda for Girls," it seems that the organization felt the need to persuade parents that Wawayanda at Frost Valley was really serious about wanting girls to enroll. Their approach will seem dubious to us today, for sure. But here is a brochure from (I'm guessing) around 1965 or so, a few years after Girls' Camp (later Camp Henry Hird) was founded and situated in 20 cabins above the lake. The "Girls' Dining Hall" was not completed until '66, I believe.

A word on where I got this image. Elizi LeBard (who worked full-year at Frost Valley for several years) scanned some historical photographs and materials while at camp and led me to them online. She's now in Tempe, Arizona right now, working at a day camp and going to school, and we wish her well - and welcome her to the alumni family. At some point, unless you're Bud Cox, you're inevitably away.

For the past few summers Lizi specialized in Staff Lounge Diner Night. Mmmmmm, diner food was always just what the Staff Morale Doctor ordered.

Myra Margolis (now Myra Margolis Katz) remembers:

I was taken with the flyer from girls camp as I started in 1963 and ended as a LIT (aka dishwasher) in 1969. I remember when we only had nine cabins (I started in 3 with Bev Gross and Karen something) and finished in 19. We spent much of our day (or so it seemed) walking back and forth to boys camp for 3 meals a day, up and down the hills, often in rain and mud to eat in a cramped little space with a wall separating us from the boys. I remember standing in line (each cabin had its own line) singing "Here we stand like birds in the wilderness waiting to be fed" over and over. I would like to know if any readers of the blog date back to this and would love to hear their memories. Camp was one of the highlights of my life, made me grow and more independent.

Floyd Hird's annual speech at staff training

The photo here was taken just moments before the start of the beginning-of-summer staff banquet, held on the last evening of staff training week. I have to guess at the year: I'd say '79 or '80. The shot was taken just below Pocohontas (cabins 1-5 or 31-35) a few feet away from the entrance to the girls' dining hall. From left to right: Floyd Hird, Halbe Brown, Carolyn Shelburne (who was either girls' camp director or program director that summer), Marie Hess, and Jane Brown. Floyd Hird always drove up from his home in Ho-ho-kus, NJ, to join us for some part of training, usually on the last night--and made the same speech every time. I can still hear his unusual slow, folksy, drawled, gravelly voice in my head. The key line in his annual 5-minute speech to the summer staff was this: "You have a responsibility so immense you can hardly imagine it. For a parent there is nothing more precious, more important, more life-affirming that one's own child, and you, my friends, are being given charge of this child. What you do can change a child's life. What you have is the most valued thing adults have. There can be no greater thing. For these parents who have trusted us, you can either ruin or save the world." In later years, while Floyd made this speech, I would silently mouth the words, word by word (and get it right). The people sitting near me would quietly laugh at my perfect imitation of Floyd. And I suppose I was satirizing his predictability. And yet now, as a parent myself, I know that that is the message I want today's counselors to hear, and if given the chance I would make the same speech every time myself.

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.

"The Hird Song" on YouTube (go figure)

So far as I know there are two recordings of "The Hird Song" out there on YouTube. Here's one from last summer (2006), recorded at the second session closing campfire: WATCH & LISTEN. Another one was made in 2005, recorded by Tacoma at the end of a Challenge Night: WATCH & LISTEN.

Giannotti's totem pole

One of the most creative people I've ever met, John Giannotti spent an entire two-week session sitting out on the lawn in front of Hird Lodge carving a new totem pole from a huge tree Chuck White selected and felled for him. John was the camp director and seemed to be able to do all his work--talking with campers and staff, even taking phone calls on an extention dragged out the lodge's window--from that spot. At the end of the session the pole was done and it was time to put it in the ground at the entrance to the main part of camp. Take a look at several photos of this hilarious scene. No one can remember whether this was 1977 or '78. Asked to identify some people in these photos, Michele Palamidy wrote:

Well in the first one i think that is Lou Senor from maintenance in the back [with mustache], Valerie Kay [the blonde on the truck], Karen Giannotti, with her head cut off, Bernard Gauthier [dialysis doctor] bent over near the totem, Paul Brown's back with the heart on his shirt, Jan Gickner on the ground to the right [curly hair, in overalls], and, sitting on the totem pole is one of the Kremers. [The little girl is Dani Giannotti.] Of course that is the indomitable Chuck White driving the backhoe in the later pictures!

John Giannotti writes:

Michele's photos of the totem pole brought back so many wonderful memories. Seeing my then 6 or 7 year old daughter, Dani, in one of them induced incredible tears of joy. Your account of the carving, however, is totally inaccurate! You state that I did 'little else' for two weeks while carving it. Hey, I was Girl's Camp Director at the time! Carl Hess and Chuck White chopped down this twenty five foot hemlock and dragged it up the hill. We mounted just outside of Hird Lodge, where the Girls Camp Director's office was located. I remember getting an extension for the phone so that I could carve and talk to upset parents at the same time. Now THAT was multi-tasking!

John Kremer remembers:

I remember that summer well, and can also recall having to repaint the Totem pole shortly after it was raised, the wood was still so green the paint just did not hold. By the way, the 'Kremer' that Michele recounts sitting on the pole was me - next to Lou Senor, in the dark blue shirt; also in the last photo I am working level with Chuck on getting the pole plumb. 1977 or '78 would have been my 2nd or 3rd summer on the maintenance crew, as one of Carl's and Chuck's boys.

I suppose what intrigues me about this scene is that it is like so many others: it becomes mythic; everyone remembers it more or less similarly yet with different emphases; it serves as a springboard for associational memories. This was the time of our lives.