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.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Totem Village having fun!

A cabin of boys in Totem Village, summer of 1962. We don't know which cabin (it would have been 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5) and we can't identify any of the boys. If you can help, please email me at afilreis [at] gmail.com. Jim Wilkes thinks that the village chief of Totem that year was Mike DeVita. Dave King believes that Mike was the counselor of this cabin (and VC of the village). Dave was the Program Director in '62. When Wawayanda moved to Frost Valley in 1958, Mike DeVita was the VC of Forest that first summer.

Kaufmans bring their happy attitudes - and steaks

Gary Kaufman, longtime camper and staffer, returned for a visit this weekend, along with his dad, Jeff, who is a new member of FV's board of trustees. Gary settled immediately and naturally into his former role of Totem counselor, spending the day with his former Pokey-Totem colleagues and meeting the new young kids in the village (and some returners too). And yesterday afternoon Jeff was already marinating all the good steaks he was going to cook over the fire at the Pokey-Totem CQ for the staff. I missed that meal but I imagine it was not only scrumptious but also drew quite a crowd, even on a rainy night. Thanks, Jeff! And welcome back, Gary! Don't stray too far from your FV family, ever.

the amazing Dave

David Allen, Village Chief of Totem Village, 1980.

Pokey-Totem for the 90s

Karen Carnegie Johnson ("KC") has scanned and put up on Facebook a number of weekly village schedules for Pokey-Totem from the 90s. Above is one of them.

best athlete in Totem cabin

In the 60s and into 1970 and maybe '71, Frost Valley's summer camp gave out lots of awards. There were riflery awards (issued by the NRA) and archery awards (this lasted into the mid-70s). There were physical fitness tests and score sheets - tallies kept of push-ups and pull-ups and broad jump, etc. Campers received a scored sheet to be brought or mailed home. Attached to the sheet was a mimeographed retyping of a speech by JFK who had made "physical fitness" a big deal for youth in the early 60s, the time of Cold War competitiveness. Here, below, is an example of one of these certificates. It was given to camper Glenn Kreismer, who was then among our youngest campers - in Cabin 1 of Totem Village. He "pass[ed] all requirements for recognition" as "BEST ATHLETE IN CABIN #1"! Who knows how that was determined. Nor does one know how the sight-impaired, geeky, uncoordinated or indeed formally disabled boy in the cabin felt about all this. But there you go. The sketch at left, mostly obscured by creasing and the age of the document, depicts a young boy, tent in background, efficiently preparing a meal over a campfire. Bottom right is the Y in YMCA and below that "Camp Wawyanda" - spelled wrong.

from Tokyo to Claryville

Frank DeGraw grew up in Grahams- ville, or nearby. He went to high school with the White kids and the Brown kids and fell in with the "Brown boys" and eventually, when he came just of age, worked here at FV weekends through the fall, winter and spring. Soon he joined the summer camp staff and was a counselor in Totem and, I believe later, was a VC (just after my time in the late 80s). He moved to Japan many years ago, met and married his wife there, and has two daugters.

Last session his daughter, Anna Kikuchi-DeGraw was here in Lakota cabin 44, and loved it. It's not an easy matter for Frank to arrange to send his daughter to camp in upstate New York while the family resides in Tokyo! In fact I'd guess that among former staff who send their kids here he's probably managed the longest distance.

Eric Blum remembered Frank for his own first years here (starting '86) and we had an impromptu reunion in the dining hall last Friday. There's a littler Kikuchi-DeGraw who was jealous of her older sister and will wind up here one day soon.

In Japan, Frank is a teacher.

mix 'n match Totemite

Is he or isn't he your classic Totemite? Left to his own devices (I confirmed this) he shows up at the dining hall in this marvelously busy get-up. I just love this. This and the whole scene - everything implied by it: the combination of emergent independence and absurd obliviousness. Little kids at camp!

first staff member to become a doll

The actor Wentworth Miller--born in England, raised in Brooklyn--is known mostly for his role as Michael Scofield on TV's Prison Break. Less well known is that he was a member of Frost Valley's staff, apparently in Totem village, and apparently for a few years up to 1990.

During the first year Prison Break was aired, a female FV alumna--let's call her R.--was hanging out with another alum, K. K. and R. looked through old camp photo albums. R. had had a big crush on Wentworth and took a nice photo of him at a campfire. The two were admiring this photo when K. noticed that the kid in the photo looked very much like Michael Scofield on the show. R. had already become a big fan of the show and (naturally) had a place in her heart for the actor who plays Scofield. Wentworth both times! At least R. is consistent. The two jumped around in excitement and then went back to marveling at how handsome he'd been even then, at camp.

David Lockwood has pointed out that there's now a Wentworth Miller/Michael Scofield doll (see photo at right), thus making Miller the very first Frost Valley staff member to become a doll. (The first that we know of, anyway. If you know of others, please let holler.)

Hmmmm. The Mike Ford doll. The Sue Goldberg doll. The Bud Cox doll. The Rick Wormeli doll. The Peggy Rub doll. The Rick Cobb doll. Or the generic VC doll. Maybe we're on to something. Manufacture these dolls and sell them in the store....

Well, here is a photo of Wentworth during his Frost Valley days:

1966 scene

Check-in day, session 2, summer 1966.

Here's some perspective on this view. Behind you is the dining hall--maybe 200 yards behind where the taker of this picture (my father?) was standing. The dirt road that goes off to the right no longer exists; it's now a grassy field, sloping down in front of Hussey Lodge. The cabin to the front right is Forest, cabin 6 (next to the telephone pole). The power lines are buried now and cabin 6 itself has been moved. To the left is cabin 7; that's where Hussey Lodge is now. To the left off screen were cabins 8 and 9, and directly to the left of this view was cabin 10. Cabins 9 and 10 (I believe now called A and B) are still there--serving as year-round staff housing. So 6 through 10 was Forest, right there on the lower flat to the east of the dining hall.

In the photo, a tick to the left of dead center, you see three cabins in the distance. They are cabins 5, 4 and 3 - Totem Village. Cabin 2 is obscured by cabin 6, and cabin 1 was out of the frame off to the right. The road to the right went all the way down to cabin 1, then past and down the hill (with "Hogan's woodpile" to the right) toward Pigeon Brook and the Trailblazer's Barn (now Sequoia).

All but two of Totem's cabins are gone. And now there are three lodges still further east from Totem: Snow, Scott, and Wolff (Wolff was Neversink for years, now named in memory of Dr. Jerome Wolff). In '66 behind Totem were groves of trees and then the wooded slope down to Pigeon.

Notice that during this particular summer families were permitted to drive their cars to these lower cabins (but never further up the hill--the roads were too rocky).

The road forking off to the left is now a paved road, much wider. Here it was not much more than tire tracks. (Most vehicular traffic went down the lower road.)

See the two figures walking in front of cabin 6? The one in the white shirt...is me.

In the background is Banks Hill. At least that hasn't changed.

our epic goes back to Homer

Homer McLemore worked at Wawayanda from 1961 through 1963 and has visited only twice since that time. But he's been following this blog and it has conjured up clear memories. "Wawayanda with its staff and several of its campers are experiences that I cannot seem to forget - they are with me always with great fondness. I know that the camp physical facilities and programs have significantly changed; however, it is 'yesterday' that I remember."

He remembers a boy from Canada who was probably under minimum camp age. He was with Homer in Totem. Maybe he was permitted to be at camp at too young an age because his father was our contact in the Canadian wilderness (for our canoe trips there). One chilly rainy night at the top of Slide Mountain, this little boy managed to get a fire started when no one else, including Homer, could seem to do it.

He remembers an 11-year-old boy perhaps named Furman - from Alabama. He remembers him because he knew or learned that due to segretation no camp in the South would offer this boy the camp experience he got at Wawayanda.

He remembers the 1962 campers of cabin 11 who won a talent contest by performing a skit based on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

videos: Pokey-Totem cheer & Susky too

Seen and heard your Pokey-Totem cheer for the day? No? Well your day's not complete without it, so click on this link and see a video of what will for many be a familiar cheer--recorded during the current (4th) session at camp. The cheer is called "Bang Bang Choo Choo Train."

Now let's leave the dining hall and watch Susky in the Big Tree Field perform their favorite cheer: here's your link.

the amazing Dave

Dave Allen spent a few schooling years in Lebanon and learned Arabic. When I first met him here at Frost Valley, I thought him to be a serious, somewhat shy, dour, intellectual type. He was a very good counselor (starting in Totem, I believe). But as a first impression, I thought: This guy is probably too serious.... Then several counselors from Lebanon arrived and I immediately saw a vivacious even wild side of Dave. And over the years came to know him intimately. We worked together, first as director and VC and then as Camp Director and Program Director and finally as Camp Directors of the two camps. Dave and I had many intense long good conservative-liberal/right-left discussions. And when Stuart Kaufer (dialysis coordinator) joined in, it was two left versus one lonely right. I think it's fair to say that I learned for the first time the true heart of a conservative when and as I came to know and love David Allen at Frost Valley. It has been some years since Dave and his family were here, but he and I are in touch by email. He is currently the principal of a school for the deaf in West Virginia and I have no doubt whatever that about his doing a wonderful, thorough and thoughtful job.

The photo above was taken at Hirdstock in 1984 or so. Dave's giving me that mock-stern look. He was really rather relaxed that sunny day. As we sang Give Peace a Chance ("all we are say...ing - is GIVE peace a chance..."), and Dave sang too, I knew again that at Frost Valley there were no serious left-right distinctions. Finally we wanted the same things and Dave embodied them: let's be good to kids, let's have high expectations of and for them, let's take care of them as if they were our own, and let's see what it's like to live peacefully. Hirdstock as an all-camp program never quite worked perfectly but it always reminded us of these things. Dave Allen the Peacenik...symbolized it so well.