Lake Cole in 1960

yakball during Family Camp

"Yakball" squad during Family Camp, in the late 1970s (probably 1977 or 1978). At far right is long-time friend and supporter of Frost Valley—and probably the longest-standing participant in Family Camp who continues to spend that week in the valley each year—Paul Schnauffer.

We invented Yakball, a cross between street hockey and water polo. We floated street hockey goals in rowboats at either end of the water "court." Players got in those little orange plastic kayaks ("playaks" was their official name). They could use their paddles or their hands to move the ball (a volleyball) forward toward the goal.

Yakball for a few years was an Olympic sport during session 2's Olympics, but then, during Family Camp, it got very intense—and quite a rivalry among families was formed. The staff got into it too.

Click on the image for a larger view.

boathouse fixed

Oh, did we forget to tell you? The boathouse has been totally refurbished. Fantastic. Now there's a real deck, from which one can either keep an eye on the boats out on the lake or just while away the hour watching the clouds pass slowly over the water.

Art Harmon

Anyone who visited the waterfront in the middle of the 1960s would have instantly come to know the amazing Art Harmon. Dave King (director on those years) took to calling him affectionary "the Water Rat." Art did his job with relentless care. He was also one of the most amusing characters around camp in general.

Art and his wife Lou attended the huge reunion in 2001 - marking the 100th year of Wawayanda. Art continued to be a lifeguard at the Jersey shore for many many years after his Wawayanda time.

Art was just 63 when he did suddenly last week. The only details we have come from a newspaper report (below).

ARTHUR WILLIAM HARMON JR.

AGE: 63 WALL

Arthur William Harmon Jr., 63, of Wall, died Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009, at Jersey Shore University Medical Center, Neptune. Mr. Harmon was a Health and Physical Education teacher, Athletic Director as well as coach during his 36 years at Rumson Fair Haven Regional High School in Rumson before his retirement. He was a graduate of Roselle Catholic High School, Roselle, a graduate of Dean Junior College, Franklin, Mass., a 1968 graduate of Springfield College, Springfield Mass., where he received his Bachelors Degree, and a graduate of Georgian Court University, Lakewood, where he received his Masters Degree.

Art was a lifeguard along the Jersey Shore for 44 years before finishing his career in Sea Girt as a lifeguard supervisor. He volunteered 30 years of his life as a ski patroller at Bromley Mountain in Vermont. He also was a Driver Education instructor for the past 41 years. He was a 20 plus year member of the Shore Soccer Officials Association and was a 40 year member of the IAABO Shore Board #194, where he served as a basketball official, administrative officer and past president. At Rumson Fair Haven Regional, he coached soccer, baseball, swimming and gymnastics. Born in Jersey City, he grew up in Roselle before moving to Wall in 1969.

Predeceased by his parents, Arthur William Harmon Sr., in 1979 and Adelaide Murphy Harmon, in 2006. Surviving are his loving wife of 27 years, Frances G. "Lou" Harmon; two sons, Timothy A. and his wife Kristin of Sea Girt, and Matthew Thomas and his wife Megan of Wall; his stepchildren, Harry Drew of Basking Ridge, and Jennifer Drew Coelho of Haddonfield; and a brother, Richard K Harmon of Forked River. He also leaves grandchildren, Daniel, Cooper, Jack, Paul and Eamon, as well as an expectant grandchild in December; and nieces and nephews, Justin Kevin and Amie Harmon.

Visiting will be from 2 to 9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 29 at the O'Brien Funeral Home, 2028 Highway 35, Wall. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated Friday, Oct. 30, time to be announced, at St. Mark's R.C. Church, Sea Girt. Interment will be held privately at the convenience of the family. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in his name to Sea Girt Surf Life Saving Association or to Bromley Ski Patrol - educational fund, both c/o P.O. Box 55, Sea Girt, NJ 08750. For further information or to send condolences, please visit www.obrienfuneralhome.com.

The photo of Art below was taken at the 2001 FV reunion:

Rick Sanborn, CIT

Rick Sanborn. He was a CIT in 1959, Wawayanda's second summer at Frost Valley. He spent as much time as he could that summer at the waterfront. (Photo courtesy Mike DeVita.)

another Westfield guy

Walking towards us, looking down, is Scott Sanborn of Westfield, NJ. It's Family Camp (late August), 1961 - at the waterfront (obviously). My own sense (just a few years later as a young camper) was of a Westfield corps: the Ketchams, the Barnetts, Scott Sanborn, the Ewens, Jody Davies, later Cindy Titsworth, Peggy Hope, later Martin Kunert (now a film-maker)...the whole gang. Wawayanda was for a time Westfield-dominated, Mississippi State-dominated, Baltimore-dominated and later eastern Ohio-dominated, Woodmere-dominated, and Stevens Point, Wisc.-dominated. (The Westfield-Frost Valley pipeline has slowed somewhat, but there are still Westfielders around, e.g. Annie Gallgian.)

When Halbe Brown and Jane and their kids arrived in '66, they looked for a home to live in from September through May (they didn't live the full year at camp then) and of course they chose to live in....Westfield. Bill MacLeod, a Program Director for several summers in the early 70s, maybe late 60s, was recruited from the ranks of Westfield.... And on it goes.

My hometown of Springfield NJ produced a few notables but we never strung it together the way Westfield did. Mike Marder, Al Inselberg ("Weasel"!), my sister Liane, the Fridkis brothers, Stu Sherman, Cindy Drucker (now Keppler), the two Krop girls, there must have been a few others. And of course Bud Cox, a Westfield guy, taught math for a few years at the middle school in Springfield. He was totally a Westfieldite, but we in Springfield claimed him. I owe Larry Fridkis of Springfield a shout-out: it was Larry who persuaded me to come my first summer and we were in Totem cabin 2 together. Counselor: Tom Fewel...from Mississippi, of course.

we won't forget ya, John

John Ketcham in the early 60s.

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.

building Lake Cole

Lake Cole is a man-made lake, as almost everyone knows or recalls. Wawayanda's first summer at Frost Valley--1958--was a lakeless summer. Harry Cole led the team that created our current stream-fed 23-acre lake between the summers of '58 and '59. This photo was taken in '59 or '60. The dock and swimming area you're seeing here is situated on the eastern edge of the lake, near the boathouse--not along the northern edge which is where the swimming area is today. (In this picture the boathouse would be off to the left at about 10 o'clock.) In the background you can see the grassless, treeless rim of the newly dug area. Later pine trees were planted all along the southern edge of the lake between the high rim holding the water in and the road. These trees are now tall and full. The blonde counselor on the diving board here is one of a number of staff who came from Towson State College--brought to Wawayanda, I believe, by Digger Shortt and/or other Baltimore-area folks. I can remember, as a camper, that my camp director (Dave King) and program director (Dick "Yo-Yo" Sommers) were both Baltimoreans. It's even the case that at dinner Baltimore Orioles scores were announced (they were of course a great team in the mid-60s*). Even later, in the early 70s, prominent staff members like Barry Dunkin came out of Towson State. By now the Towson connection has long faded, but my memories of the odd-seeming Marylandcentricity of Wawayanda in those days hasn't. (Someday, in another entry, I'll say something about another eccentric geographic pipeline: the Mississippi connection.)

* I suppose there would have been protests about this had the Yankees or Mets been any good then. The Yanks had just gone bad, starting in'65, and the Mets of course were perennial 10th-place finishers in the National League. My dad, Sam, mailed me short short notes when I was at camp--always enclosed with a Newark Evening News clipping about the Mets game the previous day and the National League standings. I'm not sure why I enjoyed this. My team typically lost 90 to 100 games and typically sent no one to the all-star game. But I can remember as one of the great pleasures of being at camp, this: rest hour, a cool breeze blowing through my own little crank-up window in my cabin, my green navy wool blanket (always tucked neatly into my bunk), resting my head on my pillow and gleaming white pillow case (I changed the case at least 3 times during each 2-week session), and the day's mail just brought in by my junior counselor, and I always started with the letter and news of the Mets from my dad. His letters read like this:

Dear Al, nothing much going on here. I don't see any of the neighborhood kids. You are lucky to be at camp. It's hot here. Must be cool there at night. The Mets lost again. What else is new? Ron Hunt was hit by a pitch twice. Love, dad.