over at the farm

Told my 2009 story - "The Six Legends of Bud Cox" - to the campers and staff at the Farm last night. This summer we've set up two new yurts (I still love typing that word) and so the program is a bit larger than in the past. But still very intimate. I mean, there's not much else going on over there in the East Valley of the Neversink. Yes, Straus, but it's quiet with mostly elderhostel groups (for whom the aforementioned Bud sometimes leads hike), and of course the road past Claryville is dotted with residents' houses but by 8:30 PM on a summer evening folks are gathering things up for the eve and heading indoors. The drive over there really is a trip into a previous century. While the farm operates in 21st-century style (hygiene, etc.) the look and feel of the place is....well...let's say, 1901-ish. That seems right and of course it's an apt date because that's the year the camp began - Wawayanda, I mean. Although farming was not the purpose of Charles R. Scott in 1901 when he took some campers with him to the wilds of Sussex Country NJ, I'll submit that tent-camping and tramping (hiking) was to Scott and 1901 as farming is now to the leaders of the Farm project at FV in 2009. It's the throwback, back-to-elements activity that induces some real thought about our connection to the land we stand on (not to mention the sky above us) that accomplishes what Scott wanted to accomplish in luring the urban and suburban boys away to the woods and big lake for the summer. So I'm saying: this Farm thing is really at the heart of what we are and do--which is to say, more directly: it's not peripheral, not an add-on, but really vital.

The story-telling? Oh, it went so well! I'm getting better at telling this particular tale, but that's not it. It's the atmosphere, the set-up, the mood, the weather, just the right campfire, stars above, attention by the staff, right level of tiredness (not too much) among the kids. In the right frame, one can keep the attention of theswe 2009-era children for an hour straight. And I did.

Bill Abbott and Bob Messick (board members who'd stayed after the meeting) came over too and joined around the circle.