ping pong in the old dining hall, 1974

 

Bud Cox and Bill Clarke enjoying some free time during pre-camp.1974 Old Boys' Dining Hall. Photo by Doug Tompkins late May or early June.

Everett Lake

This is Everett Lake, the legendary long-time Food Service Director ("Cook," we mostly called the position) of the 1970s. The photo was taken by Carolyn Shelburne at the December 1973 celebration of Paula Brown (Halbe's sister) and Tom Holland, at the Castle. (I believe this was the party after their wedding ceremony. I'm not certain of that.)

1973 behind the old dining hall

 

From left: Al Filreis, Peggy Hope, Marie Hess and Doug Tompkins. That summer I was the "third cook" in the Boys' Dining Hall (working for Food Service Director Everett Lake). Peggy was "second cook" and "dessert chef." Doug was the LIT Director (LITs worked in the kitchen for two weeks and spent two weeks living in cabins). Marie Hess worked all summer with Everett in the Boys' Dining Hall (that summer Marie Kremer was head cook in the Girls' Dining Hall) and then in the evenings cooked in and ran the Staff Lounge in Pigeon Lodge. This photos was taken behind the old Boys' Dining Hall in the mid-afternoon - after all the lunch mess was cleared and in the brief lull before it was time to get back to work for dinner. That's Marie's ubiquitous Jeep Wagon. Doug was the original photobomber - never took a serious photo in his life, for sure.

Lion Hunt '92

I ended my full summers as director in '85 but began visiting - usually for one- or two-week stints at first - in 1987 or so. In '92 I spent all of session 2 at FV and here I am leading a Lion Hunt in the dining hall. It would seem that the Tacoma girls at the first table were less than enraptured. Photo by Meg Hanna, and thanks for Katie Kelly for pointing this out to me. If you are not a Facebook user, this link won't work for you, but if you are, it should take you to all of Meg's 1992 pics.

rock version of Easy Chair

old dining hall

The old dining hall in winter. Build Strong!

a beacon

The dining hall at night.

bemused over "alternative"

Yes, tonight was spaghetti night. Most kids on this night eat without utensils--quite a tradition. Anyway, an "vegetarian alternative" is soy meatballs. This Susky counselor tried her hand at one, but then gave up in semi-despair. Her facial expression tells it all.

dining hall

The dining hall, a photo taken by Mike DeVita, not longer after its construction was completed (I'm guessing it's late spring/early summer 1959). The shot is taken from the east of the building. Mike was standing at the top of the wide path that came up from the lower flat - the path that now runs behind Margetts Lodge.

hoopla 1978

The scene is the Boys' Dining Hall, August 25, 1978. The last full day of camp for that summer, lunchtime. Time for what later become known as "hoopla." I think in '78 we still called this rollicking session "cheers." But it entailed cheering and loud singing (and sometimes a skit). Jean-Louis Lalanne had been an ICCP (international) counselor in the summer of '76, and missed all this. He asked me if I could make a recording of hoopla and I did. I recently rediscovered this old cassette and I'm glad it hasn't deteriorated too much. The recording is fifteen minutes long. At first you hear the villages cheering - Totem, Forest, Outpost, Lenape and Hemlock. Sequoia was with us usually in that dining hall, but they were out that day. And Cherokee, a village older than Tacoma (they lived in Biscuit and Pigeon Lodges and ate in the Boys' Dining Hall), wasn't happening in session 4 that summer (they'd been there 1, 2 and 3). Among the cheers you hear are two versions of "The Gridiron" (Lenape's: "The Gridiron's cold, you can't beat Lenape 'cause we're too old") and a classic Lenape "triple locomotive" left over from the Bud Cox Lenape days ("L L L - E E E - N N N - A A A - P P P P P P P - E E E... LenapeLenapeLenape"). And a Forest cheer that had been introduced and perfected by J.C. Pony in the mid-60s: "Has Forest got the spirit?" "Yeah, man!" Then "Announcements" and then two songs: Father Abraham and Green Grass.

Here's that recording - an mp3 audio file you can download.

1960 dining hall dedication ceremony

Above is the program for the dedication of the newly built main dining hall in the year 1960. (It was unnamed at the time; only later was it given the name Thomas Hall after Emerson Thomas.)

Ed Tomb spoke a few words here. Ed was instrumental in the move from NJ to Frost Valley in the late 50s and was a key figure in maintaining good relations between the new "Frost Valley Association Y" and the feeder Y branches in NJ who'd had a proprietary view of Wawayanda, deeming it "their" camp to which to send children in the summers. As Frost Valley became its own strong and vibrant organization, Ed was one of those who kept the peace among the Y parts. We named the Administration Building after Ed and there's a nice picture of Ed and his wife Elsie in the main room of the office.

Note too that Henry Hird himself - Floyd's father - spoke here too.

"Jimmy Ewen" is Jim Ewen - whose father Ed was a key Y guy (ran the Westfield Y for some years, I think). Jim must have been quite young when asked to speak at this program. When I got here as a camper Jim was a mainstay camper and then staff member, VC of Forest, trip leader, horsebarn director (hilarious) and eventually - in '73 - a camp director. He's a dear friend and I've written about him before. Have a look. Jim met the love of his life - Ellen Rutan - here (at the horsebarn in fact!) and I'm happy to report that Jim and Ellen will be visiting for a day next week.

Then Floyd Hird, Henry's son, spoke.

And then Walter Margetts - a strong but kindly and elegant man. Not a great speaker but a great effective person. He was the Forstmann's attorney and at the same time a long-time Wawayanda man and it was Walter who brought the two together. We really owe Walter's backing-and-forthing between the two, a truly unlikely match, to the move here and the extraordinary development of the camp into one of the nations' few great camping and conference facilities. Walter's son Tom was a member of our Board for many years until just a few years ago. The Margettses are still in contact, here and there, with members of the Forstmann Family.

amazing fireplace

I've mentioned the old dining hall several times recently - the one that burned on January 1, 1983. It arrived in pieces (a "kit"!) but without plans. Harry Cole and others put it together and it was ready for the '59 season (or was it '60?). I remember it as a somewhat modernistic/Gothic cathedral of wood - long elegant curved wood beams came to a peak: vaults. Descending down from the highest point, where the vaulted beams met, was a stainless steal hood....a fireplace! The hood hung from the ceiling! So the fireplace was right in the middle of the dining hall. Amazing. Great for indoor campfires. We all sat around and the fire roared in this modern-looking fireplace. I found an old photo of this. Judging from how clean and empty the building is, I'm guessing this was taken very early - 1960 or thereabouts.

Pokeys go back to basics

This morning at breakfast I noticed two earnest Pokey campers making what they called "fresh squozen orange juice." Watch and enjoy. I especially like their skeptical cabinmate.

Bud Cox goes on a lion hunt (audio)

After Bud Cox finished leading us in a high-octane revival of "Lion Hunt" at the September 2006 reunion, the several generations of FV'ers gathered there gave him a seven-minute standing ovation. It was a great moment. Bud started at Wawayanda in 1954 and this was 52 years later. I made a video of the miraculous performance and will eventually find the patience to make it available here, but for now I've made an audio version. You can download it by clicking on the link; or right-click on the link and choose "save as". Be sure to have this on your IPod! Or you can stream the audio by clicking on the little encircled triangle (if you see it). So here now is your link to Bud.

the moment cabin 10 was moved

There has been a surprising amount of email coming in from you folks about the old pattern of cabins just to the east of the dining hall - what used to be Forest, cabins 6-10.

So I dug around in a pile of photos Chuck White sent me years ago and found a picture of the very moment when cabin 10 was hauled away.

In fact I believe this cabin was moved temporarily. Let me explain.

After fire took the old dining hall, and after the old Girls' Dining Hall was quickly enlarged and converted into our one full-year full-service eating facility (no small trick that was--in the middle of winter!), the next step was to clear the fire site, bulldoze around the space, and make ready for the construction of a new dining hall. It became clear that the spot where cabin 10 had long sat was in the way. And so it had to be moved. Eventually this cabin - or perhaps one of the others nearby - was put back maybe 50 feet further east from the dining hall, and there it sits today (curently used for staff housing). (Again, of the 5 old cabins in that circle, 2 remain.)

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."

care continued, pardon, rest (with the commas)

As I was posting the photo from the early 90s in the previous entry, I noticed the grace board at the top of the shot. In 1999 the Windsong girls created three new grace boards; indeed, at the end of each sung grace, the campers and staff took to chanting, "Windsong '99!" Even those graces have been replaced (the boards, not the words--the words are the same as ever). But for many years all three graces were woven into a single home-made tapestry. The year (you can barely see it in this photo) was 1975 and the artist signed her name as initials in the bottom right corner: "DLZ" - Donna Zelaney (who was a staff member at Arts & Crafts and sister of Beth who was, I believe, at the waterfront). Donna's piece served as the grace board in the Girls' Dining Hall until the new main dining hall was completed in '86, whereupon it was moved over and was used until it frayed 24 years later and Windsong's artistry took over.

By the way, the current grace boards make a mash of the final line of the dinner grace.

Tireless guardian of our way
Though has kept us well this day.**
While we thank thee we request,
Care continued, pardon, rest.

The final line is now rendered as:

care continued pardon rest

--which of course doesn't make any sense. Yes, the old Wawayanda graces are tortured syntax, made long ago to fit the meter and rhyme without much regard for easy understanding (such as ballads--and these graces are of course ballads). The final two lines mean: We're thanking You and while we're thanking you we might as well also make some requests. Please give us continued care, please also give us pardon (or: please pardon us), and please (since it's evening now) give us some rest. The phrase "care continued" is another way of saying "continued or ongoing care." Otherwise the final line is a list of three items: care, pardon, rest. Without the commas it means nothing. Maybe Wingsong '08 will get it together and make a new one, restoring the commas. Not to carp, but...maybe we can also return to quietly sung grace too! There's nothing quiet as easeful, especially at dinner after a long day of running around.

** Back in the day, the girls sang "today" and the boys sang "this day."