Sacky sings Winehouse on a cloudy afternoon

Although it was one of those wash-out days - plenty of time spent waiting for thunderstorms to pass - it was also somehow one of those days when beautiful things just kept happening. I needed only to walk around the fields to find happiness, creativity and friendship. I walked along in front of Margetts Lodge and got instantly serenaded by a cabin of sisterhoodish Sacky girls singing a version of Amy Winehouse's version of "Valerie."

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."

assorted favorites reunited (video & audio)

At the reunion Vespers - the theme was friendship - Lexi Cariello, Chris Harper and Chrissy Mohle reunited as a group known in recent years as "Assorted Favorites" to sing an absolutely beautiful and apt song for the occasion. There's no way to say here--not without the need of filling too many screens of text--exactly why this song is apt. You'll have to trust me, if you weren't there, that it was. They (as it is said) had their audience, had us, held us, holding our breaths. And then it was over.

Here is both a video (YouTube - click on the dark image above) and also audio-only (downloadable MP3). I'd go for the MP3 if I were you: download it and stick it on your iPod. Then when someone asks you to explain the magic of Frost Valley, pull out your tunes and play them this one. (To stream the audio, click on the sideways triangle in the link above. To download, right-click on "MP3.")

then Chuck White came with the world's largest shovel

At the beginning of the "in memoriam" service at Reflection Pond (during the recent big Labor Day reunion), I sang "Old Wawayanda." (Video shot by Mike Marder.)

the grass down below (audio)

Listen to former long-time camper and counselor Kenny Abbott sing a song--"The Grass Down Below." Kenny and I used to sing a Dylan song (one of several, actually) at closing campfires, "You Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go." That song has a phrase in it: "the grass down below." So I like to think that years later, when Kenny was writing this song, he was thinking about those nights around the fire with everyone sad about leaving and we'd tune up and belt out the sentiment: you're gonna make me lonesome when you go.

Hearing Kenny sing this song makes me nostalgic--truly--for the era when singing songs (and really working to get them right, and teaching them to everyone) was a major tradition.

Above: Kenny Abbott in 1984, a counselor, with two of his campers, at the Castle. Kenny's twin brother, as most know, is Bill Abbott, now a resident, with his brother and sister, of Bozeman, Montana, after a big move from NYC. And with the aforementioned sister, Ann Abbott Klaas, also a longtime camper and staffer, these Abbotts made a huge impact on FV. Here's to them!

minstrelsy just walking down the hill

The last afternoon of session 2, in preparation for closing campfires, I needed to rescue my guitar from my son who had taken it to his cabin. So I walked up the hill, fetched the guitar, slung it across my shoulder and as I walked down the hill I began to play. Then I realized that the kids whom I passed were enjoying it and then I found myself taking 2 hours to get back to the office from whence my little excursion originated. I must have walked through six or seven villages doing various activities, and stopped at the Wellness Center too, where folks with twisted ankles and those waiting for dispensed meds sang with me too. At Pokey-Totem some of the kids took the pick and strummed while I fingered the chords. What fun and so relaxing!

rock version of Easy Chair

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.

nail your shoes to the kitchen floor

Here are the chords to a favorite camp song of Bud Cox. The other night Bud and I went out to dinner at a nice little place in Grahamsville, and on the drive back to camp, with the windows open (despite the rain), we sang this song together, loudly and happily. Tom Paxton's "Can't Help but Wonder Where I'm Bound."

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.

went to the doctor, went to the mountain

At 4th session Hird opening campfire, we witnessed a reunion of the three fab singers who in '07 formed the group called "The Assorted Favorites": Chrissy Mohle, Chris Harper & Lexi Cariello.

Last summer I put up an mp3 recording of this trio singing "There For You": check it out.

we can work it out

The theme of this morning's Morning Reflection was peace. These two Tacoma girls chose to sing "We Can Work It Out," because--indeed--it often feels here that we can.

look on the sunny side...

Here's a video recording of the version of "Look on the Sunny Side, Always on the Sunny Side" John Butler and I did at opening campfire a few days ago. Ah, the pie in the face. The oldest funny joke in the book. Kudos to Harry McCormack who did the camerawork, and of course to John and Theo who each took a pie.

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.

singing in the rain in the snow

Go to YouTube and watch camp director Bob Eddings lead his version of "Singing in the Rain" at the recent session of winter camp. While you're there, check out the "related videos" on the menu to your right.

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.

see Mike Gold as a Funkey Monkey

Whether you are before or after Mike Gold's Frost Valley era - or indeed one of his camp pals - you should make plans to see Mike in action. If you can't read the event detail, just click on the image and you'll get a larger, more readable version.

Oh, by the way, in the poster Mike is the second from the left.

I hope you had the time of your life

Green Day's song has become a closing campfire standard, with its sense of now being a turning point and its perfectly easy articulation of how good, really, it can be to say goodbye.

Another turning point,
a fork stuck in the road.

Time grabs you by the wrist,
directs you where to go.

So make the best of this test
and don't ask why.

It's not a question
but a lesson learned in time.

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

So take the photographs
and still frames in your mind.

Hang it on a shelf
In good health and good time.

Tattoos of memories
and dead skin on trial.

For what it's worth,
it was worth all the while.

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

It's something unpredictable
but in the end it's right.
I hope you had the time of your life.

Now listen to a group of campers singing this song. Musically not the best, of course, but how can you fail to be moved? In the end it's right.

Annie Old School

Annie Galligan is a rigorous Frost Valley traditionalist. But she's only 17. How is this possible? Well, she just finished her eleventh summer in the valley and loves it completely. She spent much of the summer in Sacky, although she did an unusual 2-week stint in Forest (yes, with the 10- and 11-year-old boys). One evening during session 3 I told a late-night story to Forest ("The Doubletop Plane Crash Mystery," featuring appearances by Ed Monda, Bud Cox, Dave King, Tom Ashbaugh, Bill Abbott, Jeff Daly, and Floyd Hird--quite a cast), and at one point looked around at the faces in the firelight and saw Annie standing there. "Hmmmm," I thought to myself, "I know Annie is Old School and seeks out every opportunity to hear about the old days, but this is really a stretch--that she'd come from her village to hear Forest's story." Then I learned that she was in fact a Forest counselor! My daughter (13 years old and a Sacky girl) thinks Annie Galligan is about the coolest thing going. "She knows exactly who she is," she says. How would I know her if I saw her? I asked. "Well, probably she'll be wearing clothes you wear at Hirdstock--except it won't be Hirdstock that day." Annie and her Sacky pals ran a village "Throwback Day" and it was once again the 1970s in camp. They sang an interminable version of the Announcements song, for one thing.

I recently caught up Annie while Sacky and Hemlock were having a lunchtime barbecue under the big tent. They were playing serious old Rock, grilling, and chilling. Old School backrubs were being dispensed. Someone was braiding someone else's hair. Several girls and boys were lazily throwing frisbees and chatting. It seemed the perfect moment to find out what makes Annie Old School so utterly grok the past. Here's the recording of our conversation.

Photo: from left to right, Dave O'Brien, Woody Kass, Harry McCormack, Lauri Bourette, and Annie Galligan.

"Old Wawayanda" dedicated to the '07 staff

The song "Old Wawayanda" is alive and well--its spirit never dies, indeed--and we've been singing it all along, but finally two nights ago had a chance to record it. Here is that recording. The preface is my dedication of the song to the 2007 staff. I asked three other FV generations to help me lead it: Jeff Daly, Chris Harper and my daughter Hannah--and attempted to convey to today's campers and staff that there's a lot of you folks out there who would have given eye teeth to sing along with us or at least to convey the same feelings. That spirit never does die.

An earlier entry includes the lyrics to this song.