the tale of the midnight Jeffburger

Last night, for me, was a quadruple header. So long as I can get some sleep another night, I just love being out and around, and busy, and involved, on one of these nights--at night, especially. Last night it was warmer than usual, but still cool enough - in the upper 50s. But the stars were out, beginning with a Jupiter so bright that it seemed to cast a shadow on the path.

What a night for Sacky and Hemlock and Lakota and Outpost and Mini-Mac to hike out to their overnights. Chris Harper and I took a little walk to CIT Point where Mini-Mac was cooking hot-rock pizzas while the sun was setting behind them across the lake. The "crust" seems to be a flour tortilla and the toppings are tomato sauce, shredded mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. Lay the concoction on a flat rock set at the edge of the fire and (carefully now!--don't burn yourself) rotate the crust around every few minutes until the cheese is melted and the sauce steams up a little. Then serve a happy camper.

Chris and I had set up Challenge Night in Geyer Hall (old Girls' Dining Hall) for Forest and Susky and Sunburst, and then gathered wood for a fire at a little used fire-ring way up above Hirdstock Field and below Turrell Lodge - where Pac would gather much later for a story.

Back to Challenge Night in Geyer, where the Sunburst girls joined the five Forest/Susky teams and were a big help. We had a great Challenge: the individual songs at the end were sweet and meaningful; the weirdest noises were, well, weird; and we added a new/revised challenge: a counselor spins around, looking up at the top of a broomstick, for 35 seconds and then must walk 30 feet to a ball and toss the ball into a hoop. The dizzy swaying and swaggering was hilarious and the dizziest one, Becca Schneider, managed to get the ball into the hoop. Winners had an ice cream sundae party. Among the judges was Bob Eddings, now FV's director of Environmental Education programs--coming out of Evening Program retirement to don an Al's Challenge Night tshirt and join in the fun. He's a talented improviser and it was great to see him in action again.

Then it was down to the lower floor of Geyer (formerly Conover English Hall) to tell a story - "Sawmill, 1958" - to Forest.

After that I met Pac at the great infrequently used campfire site and told a story to them too. It was a perfect storytelling situation: these 15-year-old boys were totally attentive, stars above us, good fire, and a view of the lake to our west.

On such a night it seemed impossible to turn in after all this. So before heading home I wandered around, finding a few CQ fires, walking through the empty villages of those out on overnights, and then went into Hyde-Watson Lodge to chat with the Forest staff who were getting ready to build a fire indoors there. I ended up in the dining hall - staff lounge - where Jeff Daly was cooking Jeffburgers. The rule is: you either eat a Jeffburger with all the standard toppings, or you don't get a burger. I'd eaten 3 meals this day and then partook of the winning Challenge Night teams' ice cream sundae snack and certainly did not need a Jeffburger, but how could I say no? Jeff prepared one for me with panache, but then I saw him grab the hot sauce bottle and the chocolate sauce. Oh boy. Could I decline now? Not a chance. Two slices of American cheese, hot sauce, chocolate sauce, a well-done patty, on a Wonderbread roll. First bite. Perfection. It is a taste that tastes good only at midnight on such a night as this was. Unforgettably not an evening lazing in front of a ballgame on TV or at a desk deleting the day's spam with the city's heat staved off by a loudly rattling AC unit. No, this was a different summertime. This was the real deal.

messages to Garcia

The story I'm telling this summer is based on the origin of the phrase "Messages to Garcia," which is, as most FV'ers know, the name of a game we play here. Like "Ultimate Sicko Ball," it's a phrase that is used but not really understood. Who was Garcia, anyway?

The photo here shows Andrew Summer Rowan, the man who was sent by President William McKinley to deliver a message to General Garcia in Cuba, along with General Garcia himself and a few of his mountaintop-hideout adjutants. This was 1899.

What was the message to Garcia? Come to camp and find out.

stories under the big W

This past Friday night was the starriest night I can ever remember at Frost Valley. Moon not up yet, crystal clear skies, low humidity. One of the planets (Jupiter, I think) was rising over Wildcat. On the opposite end of the starry dome, hovering over Doubletop as if offering it a drink, was the brightest Big Dipper one can imagine. So bright and clear it seemed to be right there with us - and had a 3D look about it. Just my luck: this was the night I was scheduled to tell a doubleheader of stories around campfires. Forest at 9:30 and Windsong at 10:30. Windsong has a beautiful lodge with a common room (and its own fireplace) so, alas, they haven't been known this summer for their outdoor fires, although they have a gorgeous fire-ring from which you can look up across the open field on which the observatory sits (where the old Rifle Range once was).

Bill Abbott has been around for a long weekend and on Thursday night, the night before, traveled to overnight camp sites and at at least one of them told his story, about the "Norwegian Sweater." About a dozen Susky girls the next day exclaimed about that story and wanted me to confirm details, which I gladly did.

Back to our starry Friday night, then: At Forest I told the story of J.C. Pony and the Haunted House, scary lite and full of "the Wawayanda Spirit." ("Has Forest got the spirit?" "Yeah, man!") At Windsong, 10:30 PM, they gathered around the outdoor ring-ring, the staff made a good roaring fire (after a bit of work to make it) and everyone turned eyes upward to the darkness, watching sparks floating up and being swallowed by it. Then I told yet another narrative variation of "Stories of the Pygmies"--a reprise of tales told roughly from '72 through the late '70s, and started by Bobby Hettler who brought the stories, and the little creatures, from Camp Fitch in Ohio. After that story I asked the girls how many and how much they believed in the Pygmies. Were they in the "Pro-Pgymy-ite" faction? All said yes. One said, "Yes, I believe all of it. Everything." And she is about as tough and skeptical a 15-year-old as you can find. Must have been the stars. Must have been the Milky Way, spreading down its magical stardust.

Starry night factoid: In the summer, in our hemisphere, the constellation Cassiopeia forms the shape of a W. W for Wawayanda, of course.

one legend isn't enough

This summer I've been telling a story called "The Six Legends of Bud Cox." I won't say any more about the story here, but most readers can fairly well imagine what it might consist of. There's a t-shirt that goes along with the story, and here is Willie, VC of Outpost, modelling it. In Wawayanda black and orange, it says: "ask me about the six legends of Bud Cox," with an image of my own W-1 patch inserted in there. Tonight I'll drive to the farm, arriving at 8:30, to tell a story there. I always love the story-telling atmosphere there: a road almost no one travels, so it's quiet; a great open field with a fire-ring and (tonight, anyway) the stars above; super-attentive kids, exhausted and ready to listen after a day of weeding, tending livestock, cooking produce, etc.

The ubiquitous telling of this story has re-made Bud a legand for the campers, who in recent years have seen Bud around but not been able to make sense of who he is and was. Now every camper in the place runs up to Bud when he walks by, running and screaming after him as if he were the Beatles. I think Bud kinda likes that.

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.

enjoying the quiet at farm camp

Last evening drove over to the east valley along the East Branch of the Neversink, some miles beyond Claryville on the road that dead-ends at the Tison estate and the start of the back trail up Slide....and told a story to the kids and counselors at Farm Camp. It had rained hard during the afternoon but by the time I arrived it had cleared--blue early evening sky with lots of mist hanging up over the river and its feeder streams. They managed to build a fire and the kids came out of their yurts, sat on benches in a circle, and listened to an hour-long story with an attentiveness I'm not used to. Even in the main part of camp, in order to get the pure quiet one needs for good storytelling, one has really to strategize. I've told stories around the campfire in the middle of a village way up the hill, only to have another village, in all innocence, walk back loudly and excitedly from evening program right through the quiet story. It's just what happens in a camp of 650 kids and 200 staff. But at Farm Camp....oh boy. The few residents of the valley were home, maybe one car passed on the road the entire time I was telling the tale, and the kids focused on nothing but the fire and the sound of my voice. In this photo you see staff and campers making a fire from sopping wet wood, a few of the yurts behind them, and far in the background the main barn (goats, sheep, cows, a horse, and pigs there), and the main farmhouse (years ago the home of the Erts family).

Don't know about this paradise within the FV paradise? Well, click here and learn about Farm Camp.

toothless roosterman returns

Last night marked the return of an evening program called "The Ichabod Craine Revue," a story night featuring an anthology of three stories by noted FV story-tellers. Most of the Hird villages (older kids) and a little more than half of the CITs were in attendance, sitting in the upstairs of Geyer Hall waiting for spun yarns to delight and astonish them - give them something to talk about later into the night.

First up was Gail Morris, who started here in '92 and is this summer on the administrative team as, among other things, the coordinator of our Newark Partnership Program. Gail casually but mysteriously told the story of strange happenings up on Banks Hill over the years.

Next up was Jeff Daly, celebrating (have I noted this yet?) 20 years since he first came to Frost Valley in 1988 as a Sequoia camper. He's now one of the two overall directors of camping and--as those who know him already know--a person of unmatched summer camp instincts: timing, staff talent, the balance of enthusiasm and sternness, etc. Jeff told a new and truer version of a legend that had (he tells me) come up through the ranks and years starting in (I think) Hemlock in the 90s. The figure in this myth is the Toothless Roosterman, a scary figure who at the same time is utterly ridiculous.

Jeff told "The Legend of the Toothless Roosterman," and the campers and staff loved it. I made a recording of this. Tonight, when you get home from work, build a fire in your Manhattan apartment or Mississippi condo or Seattle suburban house, get out the marshmellows and sticks, and put on this story. Camp again.

Here's your link to Jeff's story: LINK

Oh, yes, I told the third story last night - the story of J. C. Pony (Forest counselor in the 1960s) and the mysterious "Haunted House" overnight camp site. The key lines are: "Does Forest have the spirit?" (to which you answer: Yeah man!) and "Does Frost Valley have the spirit?" (Yeah man!)

a story like an owl hoot in the solitary woods

Alyssa Zuliani was a camper and counselor in the late 70's and 80's (she calls herself "a silent lifer"). When she was in Pokey (her VC was "Patty Pokey" - and also Alyssa's counselor), she writes, "I remember you joining us for a bit on our overnight by the creek and telling us a ghost story - great memory! This is only one of the many great times I remember about FV."

Now a little more about the story, as she remembers it. This is very cool. How articulate and nuanced a memory is this?!

"All I can remember about the story at the moment is that it was scary, but in a lonely way, not a terrifying way. More like the hoot of an owl in the solitary woods, Eros and Psyche-like, than an axe-murderer type! Will try to remember more."

former camper makes horror cult film from FV campfire stories

Martin Kunert (a recent photo is at left) was a camper in Totem (in '73), Forest ('74), Outpost ('75), Lenape ('76), Hemlock ('77), Sequoia ('78) - and then was a CIT ('79) and then FCC ('80), and loved hearing scary stories around the campfire. His specialty emerged during Challenge Night. He would always do his dog-bark impersonation...and it won every time. And here Martin--who found this blog late last night, surfing the web--picks up the story:

I remember your telling of the toboggan run story, which I heard several times.

Speaking of hearing stories in FV, you may get a kick out of this.... I heard so many scary stories around the camp fire while at Forest Valley, that ten years ago I made a film called... surprise, surprise... CAMPFIRE TALES. It's become a sort of horror cult film. Take a gander here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115813/

Every single one of the stories in that film I heard in Forest Valley.

Later, I created a reality show for MTV called FEAR, where six contestants take cameras into haunted places and scare the hell out of themselves. I'm sure the seed of that was planted in my head during my time in FV too. Funny how life works.

I've never seen Campfire Tales and have just ordered my copy through Netflix. My kids and I will build a virtual campfire here in Philadelphia a few nights from now and have a watch. A Netflix reviewer (a viewer) wrote: "These stories are the the stories of childhood camping trips and sleep overs when you were able to make yourself scared over stories simply for te fun of being scared. This movie brought back that being frightened for fun feeling. You will know how the stories end long befor the climax, but it's still worth watching if you can approach it with that nostalgic feeling of childhood fright and fun."

More recently Martin has made a film called Voices of Iraq. Here is an interview with Martin and his co-producer about that film.