I've tried not to make this blog what most blogs are - a personal diary. I hope it is more the long story of a generationally interlaced, complex human community, a community that shares a place, an implicit set of values, a part-historical and part-legendary history, and an actual network of relationships (many of them not-quite-known to the relators) in common. But how can I help it if every so often my lens on this place focuses on my literal family instead of the larger view of my Frost Valley family? Hannah and I were walking back to the Castle from a late-night Holdover Weekend campfire last night and I said something about what real happiness I felt at seeing how fully connected she and her brother were to this beloved community that meant so much to me--that their own connections were by now so strong that they didn't need me to sustain them. Then we talked about the people who joined us at our little impromptu campfire: Bud Cox (here since 1954), Mark Gottdenker (here since 1979), Eric Blum (here since '86), and me...147 years of Frost Valley/Wawayanda camping...and how Wawayanda at FV will be 50 years old next year (1958-2008). "Fifty years," Hannah mused as we walked flashlightless (as always) in the dark. (By now we were holding hands.) "Fifty years." And then she began talking about what she would be doing and feeling here fifty years from now. In her mind she'd already sprung forward to a time when she would be looking back. We walked by Reflection Pond. We walked up the thin road to the Castle, entered, turned lights off in the living room, went up to room 26, and wordlessly prepared for bed. Hannah has been in camp for six weeks and has another two to go, and this was a night she could sleep as long as she wanted (and in "a real bed"), and she relished it. A break before another sprint toward the end of the summer of her life.
Camp was quiet last night. There are perhaps 25 campers "holding over" between sessions 3 and 4. Almost all the staff are taking their days off. It had rained all day so people who were still around were mostly indoors anyway. The CITs (including my niece Danielle) had watched a movie and had their snack of ice cream, and were now banging around the hardcourts under the lights (but not as noisily as they might have been). Bud and Hannah and I drove down to the woodshed and picked out some dry kindling and maybe a dozen logs, delivered them to Forest village's CQ fire, and at 9:30 pm our little troupe gathered, built up a roaring fire, made s'mores (Hannah managed to bake the graham crackers and melt the chocolate next to the fire while roasting her mellows over it), and began swapping stories. I learned from Mark Gottdenker, in detail, his years here starting in '79, and, with Eric joining to tell about the late 80s and early 90s, was able to stitch together the pieces of that part of the puzzle I knew least well. Three international counselors joined us for a while, staring into the fire, eating s'mores, and listening with some wonder (if not also a measure of boredom) at all this talk of people (unknown people yet in familiar roles--doing specifically unknown things in generally familiar ways) from 20 and 30 years ago. Then these 3 women rose and told us they had to get to bed. Why? Because at 3 AM they were getting up in order to hike up Giant Ledge and catch the sun rise. "Okay," I thought, "but it's very wet and, although the rain had stopped during the time of our campfire, surely it's going to rain some more overnight." Well as I write this it's 7:45 am: the sky has cleared, it's a gorgeous day already, cold but beautiful, and those three were right to plan such a crazy adventure. They're tired themselves after 3 sessions and ought to sleep during the holdover weekend. But no.
Yesterday afternoon, as the staff began leaving for their days' off, we passed a car on its way out and they stopped to say hello. The two passengers were Eric and Lisa Colton (Lisa is shown above), twins who have been coming to camp here for years. Eric is a program staffer this summer and Lisa is the VC of Susky. Their mom, as I have probably mentioned elsewhere, is Hope. She was here as a camper during my time as camp director and her name then was Hope Simons. Eric and Lisa mentioned that Hope would be driving them back to camp on Sunday for the start of session 4. I'll be here and will have my camera ready to try and catch a photo of them much like the one at the very top of this entry. It will convey much the same story too.
I've been looking through summer camp yearbooks that were made and printed in the early to mid-70s. (For a few years we diligently took photos of every village and sometime in the winter put together and mailed to every camper and staff member an honest-to-goodness yearbook. They're rare now, although a few of us have them, and they are also on display in the Historical Room of the Ad Office at camp.) In the yearbook for 1973 the photos are all of the villages and candids of kids and staff doing activities. But one is a nice black-and-white shot of High Falls. The reproduction here doesn't do it justice. 
Director. I recall Cheryl Teare as a few years later one of those counselors universally admired--talented, fun-loving, just great to have in camp. BJ Turner was the daugther of Ed and Jane Turner, who lived at FV year-round; Ed worked maintenance with Carl Hess and Jane worked in the kitchen. There were long-time friends and South Jersey neighbors of Carl and Marie Hess. The Turners were always extraordinarily kind and generous to me.
