a note on theme days; or Grandpa's Day Off

Villages create theme days. Some are merely ideas for costumes lightly affecting an otherwise regular daily schedule. Some shape the entire day. Forest today is enjoying "Survivor Day," and I don't quite know what it is but I saw some grittily painted faces, some camoflouge and some talk about how we will ever make it through the heat. Next week Lakota will have its Throwback Day, a return to old Frost Valley/Wawayanda traditions, practices and programs. I have been asked to teach the girls the old "Boys' camp" grace tune (we all now sing what used to be the girls' melody). They will learn some of the old cheers and songs and play some of the forgotten games. Today Lenape is enjoying "Grandpa's Day Out." I just saw them (with Sacky) playing a hilariously boring (and thus hilariously fun) game of Bingo in the dining hall. Here above you see two photos of the Lenape staff as grandpas.

some thoughts on the raid

"The raid" is an artifact of friendly village-to-village affectional rivalry. I've never been a fan of it (to say the least), but was amused by this mild, aesthetically pleasing version. What you see here is a little raiding done by Tacoma "against" Lenape. You're looking at the main room of Quirk Lodge, where Lenape resides, after some folks from Tacoma had come and gone, leaving a symbol of indoor-outdoor switcheroo. A little bit of camp left behind in what I consider a very non-camp kind of space (common room of lodge, with video-game-enabled TV, etc.). I like the humor here. Do you?

Lenape/Hemlock

This summer's Hemlock and Lenape VCs: Mike Taylor and Jackson Patterson, respectively.

catching up with Rick Cobb (FV 1971-80, 82)

Click on the image for a closer view. Catch up with Rick Cobb, Frost Valley years, 1971-1980 (& '82 for a guest stint as a Lenape counselor). Click here for much more about Rick's life and work today.

another happy Giannotti

Del Giannotti is the latest in the Giannotti clan to attend Frost Valley. Here's a photo of John and Toni and Del after Del's two happy weeks in Lenape.

weirdest noise

The weirdest noise contest at Challenge Night. Five groups of Tacoma/Lenape campers and staff cheer them on.

the sounds of fun

Not long ago I wandered by a fun-seeming yet intense game of Tacoma/Lenape volleyball. Turned on my audio recorder and this is what I heard.

we remember you, Howard

Howard Quirk directed the Victoria Foundation for many years, and was a devoted friend of Frost Valley. After he retired from Victoria he spent a huge amount of his time volunteering at FV. But then he got sick and soon was gone. Quirk Lodge, the newest of the super-lodges, was named after Howard. (It is where Lenape lives in the summer.)

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.

Max, photographer

Max Flatow writes: "I'm a Frost Valley Alum, 93' - 05' (not 06'...I double checked), having been a camper in every male village but Iscusfa and Woodwise, and working as a counselor in Totem, Lenape and Pac. I've been thinking about FV a lot lately, and how I miss that distinct, pungent smell of cinnamon buns as I walk up the hill from flag raising to the dining hall, on the morning of the last day of each session - which is part of what brings me to this e-mail. I'm currently living in my hometown of Brooklyn, NY, where I am a professional photographer, shooting everything from weddings, corporate/celebrity events and portraits, to travel, editorial and real estate. As a token of my appreciation for all things 'Frost Valley' (or people, rather), I want to offer my services to any Frost Valley alumni (including family and friends) at a special 50% discounted rate. Most of my business is based out of NYC, but am always available for travel."

Here's a link to Max's web site: www.MaxFlatow.com.

The photo above and at right is of Max's Tacoma/Lenape staff, summer of 2002. Max is underneath the arrow, camera in hand.

Below is a sample of the fine photographic work Max does. His subject here happens to be a Frost Valley guy--Ethan Dropkin.

Tacoma / Lenape

The kids here seem to be born knowing the village cheers. They seem spontaneous when performed in the dining hall. But of course they are taught and practiced. Two days ago I was walking by Pigeon and Biscuit Lodges, on my way to the Castle, and noticed Tacoma and Lenape sitting under the shade of the Reflection Pond pine trees, their staff forming an informal line in front of them. They were practicing a cheer together. (Yes, the brother and sister villages learn each other's cheers and thus support each other during after-lunch hoopla.) Click on the image above and watch a brief video of this.

new cabins in place

All five of the new cabins are in place and finished sufficiently for weekend guests to stay in them. Three of the old cabins (once numbered 16-20--Lenape; more recently, 13-17--Hemlock) are still there, two having been moved away into the possession of alumni who bid highest for them. Here is a photograph taken this past weekend, showing several of the new cabins and one of the old ones (#19 or 16). The new ones have two bathrooms, with great showers, and a small but very nice counselor's room.

cabin 18, we'll miss ya

I never thought it would succeed--the somewhat crazy notion of having alumni bid on the old cabins. But it has. There has been a great deal of talk and excitement. Jim Tisch at FV has been collecting bids, and the bidding will end on October 1.

Here's one of many responses I've gotten - from a long-time camper-staff of the late 90s and early 00s:

"Since the moment that you sent the original email about owning a frost valley cabin, my close group of best friends has been endlessly talking about the possibility! In fact, we are all getting together tonight to talk about what our options might be: if we all go in together (there are about 9 or 10 of us) – what could our bid be? If we win, where could we place the cabin?"

"We are truly hoping that this is a possibility," she continues. "All of us have been friends since we were young campers and just the thought of always being able to be in one of the original cabins, where it all began, is truly awesome."

So go for it. Send your bids and questions to Jim Tisch at jtisch [at] frostvalley.org.

Cabin 18 in Lenape was the highest-up cabin in the old days. Cabin 15 in Outpost (now gone--replaced on the site by the road running in front of Hyde & Watson and Quick Lodges) was probably a few feet higher up. But we of Lenape cabin 18 claimed we were highest. Whatever. I was a camper in that cabin for 6 weeks in '68. My AIM screename is "lenape68."

Bud Cox was a VC/counselor in that cabin for many years.

John Butler writes: "Just to add to the history of Cabin 18, I lived there with Andy Pilc for a while when I first worked in Hemlock. We had some of the best kids ever who are now off to become CITs. I remember, to tie it more closely to your history at the Valley, that we acquired 10 copies of the book you wrote about FV [Finding the Way Back] and gave them, along with a FV Visor to each of our 8 campers at a little ceremony on Big Tree Field where we talked precisely about the legacy of being in Hemlock and the legacy of Cabin 15 [18], which we made-up at the time. Later as a VC I chose to emphasize the history and legacy of the buildings as a means of cultivating stewardship of our little patch of land, which I still treasure as one of my favorite places on camp. My history is more closely tied with cabin 17, however, both as a CIT there and then as VC. If I had the money and location, I would buy 17 [old 19] in a second."

Dave King writes: "Cabin 18 was the cabin I lived in as Chief of Lenape in 1958. I also stayed there in '59. The original Wawayanda villages were numeric until we could figure what the village names were to be. Lenape was Village #4. Thankfully, "old timers" such as Hal Ressmeyer (Waterfront Director) and Bill McNally (Riflery Director) prevailed and it was decided retain the Wawayanda names. The whole cabin sale response again underlines the power and magic of Frost Valley."

has Forest got the spirit? (yeah, man!)

The camper here in the pink tie-dye shirt is Gary Gold, the older brother of Fran Grayson. The year, we think, is '69. The blonde in the white T-shirt is counselor Doug Cresson.

Gary earned 5 Wawayanda W patches. "I was in Forest, Outpost, Lenape, Hemlock, Catskill Explorers (2 years with Bud Cox), Trail Blazers with Pat Ricciardi.... and spent winters at the castle. My Dad (I think) donated and built the horse barn after the old one was on its last legs."

Gary also was there in late July '69 when we all sat on the Castle hill and watched a tiny black-and-white TV as Neil Armstrong stepped down onto the surface of the moon.

Gary was in cabin 19 in '69 and left his intitials in the top left bunk. Perhaps they are still there.

The more we talk about J. C. Pony, the more Gary remembers. "JC Pony yessiree," he writes. "He put the Forest cheer to 'Land of a Thousand Dances.' He sang, 'Oh the boys from Forest... they really got the groove!' And we responded, 'Na na na na na!'"

"When I was in Lenape," Gary continues, "I remember having the Live Cream album (and knowing about Woodstock). I remember the songs and the feeling I had listening to them on a portable phonograph with an extension chord we ran into the middle of the village. Look what happened: www.myspace.com/garygoldmusic. Were you there the summer that we put the big toilet paper 'X marks the spot' on the flagpole field? One of the campers parent (a hobbyist pilot) dropped a care package out of the plane... and then unsucessfully tried to land in the field across from the castle."

And more: "On a sad note... and I am sure all know. I sad Kim Connell in Elllenville hospital about 10-15 years ago. We talked for a long while. Ladd Connell (his younger brother) and I were on Trail Blazers together my first year (Frank Meigs and Pat Ricciardi led the expedition to Lake Treb... La Verendrye Park in Clova, East Abitibi Canada... 250 mile Northwest of Montreal). Ladd used to stay up all night reading Newsweek magazines from cover to cover. I heard he wound up in DC doing something political. I heard Kim (who was my fly-fishing hero) passed away."

Gary's younger sister is the super-talented Fran Grayson, who had her own stellar FV career.

lemme go

For years I thought of camp as a place where I met my deep-soul friends, my athletic friends, my "pals 'til the end" friends, my we-could-talk-all-night friends, my emotionally bonded friends, but--and this was a huge blindspot--not my intellectual friends. Maybe because camp always was such a conducive setting for being one's back-to-basic self. There were ideas discussed (and enacted) all the time, and principles aplenty, but sheer intellectuality--discussions of literature, world political problems, etc. Not so much...it seemed. But as I came of age I began to find people here and there who wanted to live the intellectual life and wanted somehow to make camp a place that integrated academic knowledge rather than set it aside for sheer-fun summertime.

I've mentioned John Mumford here once before. When he and I worked in Forest together, CQ fires were a veritable university of ideas and theses. A year later (I was out of the village) John had a brilliant quirky offbeat eggheady writerly JC by the name of John Ferris. Mumford came to me and said, "This Ferris is the real thing. Smart and a helluva counselor--both." We loved the combo and came to love John Ferris.

Mumford taught Ferris to say "lemme go" (as it let me go) somewhat under his breath, somewhat mumbly, as an expression and astonishment at how badly someone can muck up a task. Ferris could say it as connotatively as Mumford, maybe even surpassed him by the time Mumford "retired" from Frost Valley after his own 12 or 13 years there.

A few years later, though young and (I don't mind saying) still somewhat lacking in administrative skills (or desire) and perhaps not quite tolerant enough of the few lazy people among his village staff (he had a few, to be sure), the brilliant, hyper-articulate John Ferris became the VC of Lenape. He stayed a few more summers, met Jan Gikner at camp...and (another FV life-romance!) they married.

John was a journalist for some years and then eventually settled in Vermont. He and Jan have three sons, one of whom (Will) was a camper for a number of years. Jan is part of a medical practice up there. And John has become an English and journalism teacher at the local high school.

We don't see each other much, but we are life-long friends.

In this photo - Lenape 1979 - John is at the left (bearded and bear-like) and his JC Ian Glasgow is at the right. A heady cabin that was....Glasgow, another FV intellectual, went on to medical school and I believe is an MD somewhere in the midwest. Among the campers I note Lenny Aberman (second row in the camper pyramid, wearing striped shirt) and, to the right of Lenny, the halo-haired wildman, Tommy Martinez. Tommy came to camp on financial aid (campership) and not only loved camp totally--but, it was obviously, really needed camp. A number of us dug into our own pockets and paid for a second session for him. And then, we did the same for a third session, but this was a FV first: a campership on an Adventure Trip. Yes, Tommy was a camper on the bike trip I led with June Maiers around Lake Champlain. It was the same trip that Kyoko Honma, then the 13-year-old daughter of the Honmas who founded the Tokyo-Frost Valley YMCA partnership that year.

I assure you that Tommy and Kyoko were quite a pair on that trip! Two very different cultures meeting...yet by the end of the 400 miles of biking, they and we all were buddies 'til the end.

Johnny Forest moves up

Lenape 1981. The staff in the back row here are, from left, Johnny Bostick (VC), Martin Graf, Jon Mittelman, Gordon Fair ("Flash Gordon"), Donald Wright (?), and Craig Berman. Among the campers I can see Adam Gold***, the second boy in from the left in the third row up from the bottom.

Bostick was "Johnny Forest" for several years when he was VC of that village, but he moved up to Lenape. Johnny was sweet-hearted, soft-spoken, almost meditative in his style (not, at least in those years, your typical VC personality type!) and--to my annoyance and sometimes my amusement--invariably late to flagraising. Johnny came to us through his friendship with John Giannotti in south Jersey, another fine person in the Giannotti orbit.

Martin Graf was from Switzerland - an athletic swimmer and a big-time cyclist (and bike repair guy). Martin worked a wild season at FV for EE/conference.

Mittelman was brilliant and deliberately rough at the edges. A Long Island guy who perhaps laid the accent on thicker just to disarm you. But he was one the most creative camper problem-solvers among counselors I ever supervised, and never missed a trick.

I believe the camper with the white straw hat was "B. J." - was it "B. J. Moody"?

*** For more on the Golds, see an earlier entry.

From left to right: Jon Mittelman, Martin Graf, Johnny Bostick.

Lenape 1971

Another year I've neglected: 1971. Here's the Lenape village photo for one of the sessions that summer.

Among the campers shown here is Ira Sasowsky, who was later a staff member.

Wearing number 16 is village chief, Jim Beckner. Jim was from Virginia (Radford, I believe) and was then studying English literature; eventually he became an English professor. Although when Jim and I got to know each other (in '73) and we talked a lot about novels and poetry I didn't have a clue that I'd also end up an English professor, there was nonetheless a strong connection between us.

Just in front of Jim is camper Lee Fleischer (FV 1969-1980) who also later became a staff member and whose son attended camp this past summer.

Ira Sasowsky is now a professor at Ohio State, and Lee Fleischer is a medical doctor in the Philly area. Probably the rest of the people in this pic have terminal degrees too. Maybe there was something in the Lenape drinking water that summer....

golf at camp?

In the late 90s I got to know Steve Purkis, now a teacher and masterful soccer coach, as a talented VC (Lenape, I believe) and then Camp Director. I saw Steve in action a good deal and came to admire him, but here I want to say something that might seem miscellaneous, off the point. On his day off, Steve almost invariably went to play golf, no so much because his game was good but because his FV buddies loved such outings. I'm sure there were FV staffers over the years--in my time, almost certainly--who played golf, but I didn't notice it. In the 1960s, of course, Grossinger's in Liberty was thriving and had a pretty good 18 holes. But did Wawayanda people actually go there? Maybe because of my image of Grossinger's - the not-Frost Valley, the people there seemingly doing the opposite of what we did - I could never imagining reconciling golf and camp. This is naive and probably also a bias on my part, and maybe it's just symbolic and visceral: after all, I associate camp with a rocky field (rocks so plentiful you could never remove them), a hillside of ferns you'd never mow down, streams you wouldn't divert, and grass, such as it was, that was brown by the middle of July. Even the making of a football field behind the Ad Office in the early 70s seemed incongruous to me. A little after I noticed Steve's forays off camp to the links, I realized there was a 90s gang - Bill Baker prominently among them - that loved to do this. Even during one of our reunions, off they went, and it's a way for them of doing again what they did together summers--a tradition, a real custom they loved. Thus at first disconcerted by all this, now I am instructed: we each have our images of what camp in the summer should be, and we can't impose them. If Steve's excellence was aided by 18 holes, and modest watering at the 19th, I'm all for it. Culture is capacious, or ought to be. And open minds make culture.

The photo was taken in the Day Room of the dining hall during a Session 2 lunch, July 1999.

playing hookey from swimming lessons

When I was a camper in Lenape in '68, I met an Outpost kid named Steve Breitenfeld and we instantly hit it off. And we were together at camp for the next ten years. As it happened we were assigned together to the Olympic team from Egypt, which in those days of Nasser was called "the United Arab Republic" or "UAR." ("You'll go far / with the U A R!" we shouted hoarsely throughout; we came in dead last.) Steve's last summer was '75 as a Lenape counselor. Somehow - even though we were in different villages - we managed fairly regularly to play hookey from Waterfront period. We would meet in the long thin grove of trees separating the Big Tree Field from what was then called "the Flagpole Field" (currently Margetts Field--there were no hardcourts and the row of trees was denser than now and of course there was no road running up to the dining hall there). We had constructed a home-made checker/chess board at Arts & Crafts and we hid it somewhere in the woods. We used stones for pieces. And we'd spend a blissful activity period playing chess and talking. The other day I remembered all this and had to urge to contact Steve again. Here was part of his reply:

It was wonderful receiving your note, Al. It is great you found me in the cabin list from 1968; if I recall cabin 13. Hard to believe I started at camp in 1966 in Totem, cabin 3 with Jim Ross, and ended in 1975 counseling in Lenape. I often remember running around a bit wild with you - hiding in the woods between the Rec. Hall field and big tree field - playing chess with our camp-made chess set. I don't know if you remember that, too. There are so many memories sometimes it is hard to keep them all straight. It was a long time ago, but I have many fond memories of the 10 years at camp. My fondest memories are of the Olympics, which were then held on the last two week of the summer. It was held over four days - two full-time days - including country meeting, opening ceremonies, country trials, Olympic events and closing ceremony. It must have been so much work for the counselors, but it was pure heaven for me, as a kid. I came back year after year to live out that wonderful experience. I remember being on the UAR - United Arab Republic, my first year. In retrospect, it was quite a diverse experience - us all accepting and learning those different cultures. All is well with me and my family. My wonderful wife, Christina and I are living in Lexington, MA in an old 1780's home just 1/2 mile from the Lexington Battle Green, where we get to re-live the Revolutionary Battle of Lexington every April 19th. : ) Christina and I had lived a number of years in Tokyo, Japan in the early 90's before we started having kids & moved up here from NYC in 1995. We have three children, Sarah - 14, Laura - 12 and Paul - 10. They are avid readers, great skiers & back-packers. In fact, we just returned from a three day hike in the White Mts. of New Hampshire. Sarah is heading off to spend 12 days hiking & canoeing in the Whites & Maine with the Appalachian Mountain Club's Teen Adventure Program next week. She went on an all-girls 7-day trip last year, and was hooked.

Many reading this will also remember Cathy Breitenfeld, an FV mainstay in her own right. I recall Cathy as, among other things, a lifeguard at the waterfront.

Lenape 1995

Lenape staff photo 1995. Back row, left to right: Owen Flanagan (from Scotland), Derek Furr*, D'Arcy Oaks, James Raffo, O'Neil Guthrie, Khalid Jenkins. Front row, left to right: Ed Zimmerman, Zach First, Jim Barilla, Eric Schneider. Not pictured: Rick McKay, Kevin Pricket, Alex Shalom, David Sacher, Damion Frye. (Jim Barilla came back years later--in 2003, I think--to do a half-summer stint as a camp director.) The village chief recalls a few things:

Katie Kelly was Tacoma VC. Pete Swain called the NY State Police on some of our campers for graffiti on the Dining Hall chimney. This was the first summer that anyone could remember that there were no fistfights in Lenape (but there was one in Tacoma). I remember that at Hirdstock two of our campers did the first-ever Hirdstock rap, a clever play on the words "peace"
and "piece" (as in, a handgun). One camper tried to walk back to Jersey, and it took me, three directors, and the staff nurse to convince him not to.

* Derek had a "famous camper brother" named Joey. Thanks to J.D. Louis for this info.