speaking of Totem Poles...

 

Rebecca White Bordonado has made this photo available to us. She writes: "Another totem pole photo of Sylvia White and cousin Jason Goldstein around 1976?" I think John Giannotti carved this pole in 1977.

1980, the view from Pigeon Lodge

Jurgen ("Bobo") Bobrowski spent a few weeks being the village chief of a special village that resided in Pigeon Lodge. He took this photo from the second-floor west-facing room in the back of the building. He's obviously looking out across Biscuit Creek to the main part of camp. Notice the newly paved parking area in front of Smith Lodge. It was set up for street hockey, which ran pretty much all day every day. It was 1980 and Margetts Lodge was just a few years old at that point. Notice that you can't see a single car parked anywhere!

Forest village, 1980

Mark Gottdenker's mother recently found a village photo taken in 1980 of Forest village. Mark was a Forest camper that summer. Here is what Mark writes about the photo:

To give you an idea how long ago this was taken, my own mother couldn't pick me (or my older brother David) out from the campers in the photo!

I was a camper in cabin 6 (with Dave Hall, standing counselor on the far left of the photo) and my brother was in cabin 9 or 10 (with Scott Robinov, standing second from the right). Other village staff included Tom Frankowiak, Greg Aggs, Gigo from Egypt, and Jim Neilson.

I believe that you blogged about this staff during last summer when Greg visited the Valley with his family and soon after Jim dropped off his daughter for an adventure trip. Hopfully this will put faces with the names.

local & foreign

Danielle Schiffer and Graeme Sephton in 1980. Danielle is a member of the large Schiffer clan (based in CT, they've always had a home in Claryville). Graeme came from Australia, met Helen Ann Hickey at FV, later married her and they live to this day in the Boston area.

Forest staff, summer 1980

I said goodbye to Greg and Ulla this morning. They left to spend a few days with Jody Ketcham in NJ. As we breakfasted and looked back on their happy return to the valley, Mark Gottdenker sat down to grab his own breakfast (eggs, sausage, home fries) and I realized that Mark must have been a camper around the time Greg was the VC of Forest, so I (re)introduced them and it turns out that my hunch was right: Mark was a Forest camper in 1980 and of course remembered Greg Aggs well. We reconstructed the village staff for Forest '80:

cabin 6 - Dave Hall, from Virginia
cabin 7 - Tom Franzkowiak - ICCP from Germany
cabin 8 - Gigo Abdallah - ICCP from Egypt
cabin 9 - Greg Aggs VC, Jim Neilson JC
cabin 10 - Scott Robinov

VCs in 1980: Totem, Dave Allen; Outpost, Doug Green; Lenape, Bill Petrick; Lacota, Dave Gansler; Susky, Kathryn O'Keefe. Who were the others? Write me and add to the list.

This is all 30 years ago.

googling Robinov

Marc Robinov's son was googling his dad's name over the holiday weekend - perhaps to see if there were any skeletons in his papa's closet - and found a mention of the name in this blog. Marc was mentioned in the entry about Lenny Aberman's CIT Journal a few months ago. I'll let Marc take it from here:

"What a pleasant surprise it was to find your FV Alumni Blog entry from Tuesday, February 5, 2008. My son did a web search for my name and discovered the entry! I was a resident camper with Lenny for many years and enjoyed being part of that wonderful group of CITs led by Glenn [Horton] and Dawn [Helfand] in July '82.

I have been on the computer browsing the entire blog for many hours this weekend. I found your September 13, 2007 entry, which included familiar faces, kind words about John Ferris, and the Lake Champlain adventure trip that you led. That was my first bike trip, which was followed other trips to Maine, led by Gary and Alexis Carter, one to Nova Scotia, led by Graeme Sephton and Ceil Smith (now Ceil Snyder), and the the 1st trip to Great Britain in '83.

I remember John as a great counselor and I was fortunate to be in his Outpost cabin either during the summer of '77 or '78. I also dug up my collection of FV papers and pictures, which also brought back many fond memories."

Marc was indeed a camper on the Lake Champlain bike trip I co-led with June Maiers in August 1979. Marc's older brother Scott was also a camper and later a JC and counselor (in Forest).

I'll add Marc to our alumni listserv now and send a hearty welcome back to him!

Above: Sequoia Village ("Adventure Village") summer 1981. Second row, to our far left, is Marc Robinov. Standing in the back, to our far right, is the VC, the Australian wonder, Ron Aggs. Fran Grayson, wearing one of those Wellness shirts with the rainbow design, is standing in the back, second from our left. Christine ("Chris") Briggs is in the third row, second from the right end, partially kneeling, with the long hair in a middle part.

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.

death on my mind

I always take the very end of summer, the coming of autumn, as if a death is occuring. The end of something (is Hemingway's phrase). Early dusk; colder nights; the first hints of orange leaves. (Ever notice the one tree that turns orange and yellow first at Frost Valley? It's the one along the road in front of the Lake House.) When I was 9 years old I used to think, at least momentarily, that my camp friends just went dormant for the year and would exist again next July. They ceased to exist for me, and that was pretty much right (in the days before IM and email and Facebook).

Then there are the real falls. George Marion suffered mightily as a young person with renal failure. There was at least one transplant, unsuccessful. He came back as a camper year after year. This photo of him is from a Lenape village portrait shot in 1980. We became attached to George, and he to us. He wasn't really cut out for being a staff member, but he was a passably good CIT and then a JC - in Totem, I believe, with the little kids. And he loved every minute of it. But he got tired, fast. One sensed it was the beginning of an end. I believe he left camp suddenly after one health crisis or another, having to do with his heart, I think. Later, in the fall, we heard that he has passed away.

The "dialysis program," as we call it (not quite accurately), was meant to give pleasure to people whose lives would be almost certainly shortened, if not dramatically shortened, by the effects of their complex disease. Especially in the early days, there was very little longitudinal information: how long could these kids last. "A few years earlier," the camp nephrologist would explain, "we didn't really have ways to keep them alive for very long. Now that we can keep them alive, we have no idea what the long-term side effects of the treatment will be." (Today, I should add, and happily, kids with renal failure have much improved survival, although they still face major and more or less constant threats.)

It's just the story that Eva Gottscho tells about her daughter Ruth Carole, who died of renal disease in 1960. Eva wanted to give Ruth the quality of real life: fun. "She never got to go to camp, although it was really what she wanted," Eva would say (I've heard her tell the story a dozen times).

It was also what George Marion wanted. And thanks to Eva--and to the efforts of George's counselors (among them Paul Webster) and the staff of the dialysis unit (Michele Palamidy and Stu Kaufer in particular)--he got what he wanted for a few blissful summers.

Here's to George!

Here's to autumn! All right, let it come and with it, the memories.

If you have a good George Marion story, please send it to me. Click on the envelope icon below.

Or, for that matter, a good Tommy Morales story. Tommy is shown above in a photo taken in 1982. Tommy had a kidney transplant for a few years, but it failed; he is also deceased.

27 years later...

In the summer of 1980, Lee Fleischer led an Adventure Trip in July and was a VC in August. Other trip leaders that summer were Dave Allen ("the amazing Dave!"), Nancy Brady, Bob and Bonnie Breithaupt, Nancy Burkholder, Jean Druffner, Tim Dry (he of the long long beard), Lisa Ernst, Carol Grove, Norm Gurfinkel, Jackie Hamberg, Sue McKernan. And other VCs were Kathryn O'Keefe (Pokey!), Bill Petrick of Baltimore (Lenape), Melanie Teslik (Susky, if I recall right), Dave Gansler (Lacota), Dawn Helfand (FCC Director the other half), Dave Allen (Totem 1/2 the summer), and Doug Green of Wisconsin (Outpost).

Lee went on to med school, became a doctor and now resides with his family and his practice in the Philadelphia area.

Lee brought his son Elliot to the September '06 reunion and after that it didn't take much to persuade Elliot to come back as a camper this summer. That he did. Above is a photo of the two of them on check-in day on July 1. And here, below, is Lee's eloquent account of his experience as now the parent of a camper:

Well, during Session One I found myself looking online 2,3, or 4 times a day (to paraphrase our local news radio) at the FV web site to find the latest pictures from Outpost village. I would also take time to look at pictures from the other villages, and see the sights and activities from all around camp, and be amazed how much things have not changed in a generation or so. My dream of having my son have the same amazing experience that shaped my life really did come true this summer! And yes, he already has planned out being at camp for four weeks next year, and becoming a CIT when he's old enough....

Since Elliot's return home, I'm looking at your blog about once a week, and still feel quite connected to the whole FV karma. The circle really does continue to go 'round and 'round, just as we used to sing at the closing campfires. One thing that amazes me is the number of alumni sons and daughters that are now campers and staff, and not just from the metro NY area, but all across the country. I think that says a lot about FV, and about both the potential strength and depth of commitment that the
alumni can bring to the table.

I look forward to keeping the circle going.

Floyd Hird's annual speech at staff training

The photo here was taken just moments before the start of the beginning-of-summer staff banquet, held on the last evening of staff training week. I have to guess at the year: I'd say '79 or '80. The shot was taken just below Pocohontas (cabins 1-5 or 31-35) a few feet away from the entrance to the girls' dining hall. From left to right: Floyd Hird, Halbe Brown, Carolyn Shelburne (who was either girls' camp director or program director that summer), Marie Hess, and Jane Brown. Floyd Hird always drove up from his home in Ho-ho-kus, NJ, to join us for some part of training, usually on the last night--and made the same speech every time. I can still hear his unusual slow, folksy, drawled, gravelly voice in my head. The key line in his annual 5-minute speech to the summer staff was this: "You have a responsibility so immense you can hardly imagine it. For a parent there is nothing more precious, more important, more life-affirming that one's own child, and you, my friends, are being given charge of this child. What you do can change a child's life. What you have is the most valued thing adults have. There can be no greater thing. For these parents who have trusted us, you can either ruin or save the world." In later years, while Floyd made this speech, I would silently mouth the words, word by word (and get it right). The people sitting near me would quietly laugh at my perfect imitation of Floyd. And I suppose I was satirizing his predictability. And yet now, as a parent myself, I know that that is the message I want today's counselors to hear, and if given the chance I would make the same speech every time myself.

Tokyo partnership nears 30th year

Frost Valley's partnership with the Tokyo YMCA was an idea hatched in 1979. I'm guessing that the first summer in which Japanese campers joined us at camp in this program was '80. But in '79 the daughter of Emiko and Tatsuo Honma--Kyoko, who was perhaps 14 at the time and spoke almost no English--went on a 2-week Lake Champlain bike trip led by me and June Maiers. Kyoko was a great kid--and loved the experience. From there her parents got to know FV and Halbe Brown and the partnership grew. The Tokyo-FV program has its traditions and continuities--and of course its fervent alumni. A number of these folks came to the September '06 reunion. Misa Abe-Whang was a camper, a Leader, and then an Assistant Program Director, from 1987 through 1994. She writes the following:

Just a quick Hola from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I left my job in Dec. 2006 to live in Argentina to be closer to my husband's family. I have a 3-year-old son who is speaking better Spanish than I am after 6 months here. But I do miss home and plan to go to FV the weekend of July 27. My sister, Miki Abe-Jensen, is a grade school teacher and married too with a 4 year old boy. She also lived in FV for a year doing environmental education. My other sister Mio Abe is currently working at Fox 5 News and is enjoying the single life in NY. We all enjoyed the Big Reunion last fall and are currently helping to organize the 30th anniversary reunion for the Tokyo-FV Partnership (2009). It's so nice to be able to share our love of FV with our kids and can't wait until they're old enough to attend summer camp!

In the photo above the alumni are: Ghen Saito and Miki & Misa Abe.

Lacota (not Lakota), the tipi village

In the 1970s there was a proliferation of new villages: Sequoia was created in the early 1970s (our adventure village), Cherokee for the oldest girls (forerunner of Windsong), Winnetou for a group of German-language campers (Winnetou, Winnetou, ja, ja, ja!), Seneca (a forerunner of MAC)...and also Lacota, a Native American village modeled on the Oglala Sioux, the creation of Leon Van Heusen, who was Lacota's first village chief. The Lacota people were very very serious about reproducing Plains Indian ceremonies and customs (and costumes). The tipis were pretty real - the poles were made of Lodge Pole Pines, brought to the Catskills by Chuck White who several times drove all the way to South Dakota and back to pick up the poles just in time for the start of camp. The tipis lasted five or six years, as did this experimental village. "Van" as he was known, alas, died of heart failure in the village's second summer. Folks such as Dave Gansler, Heather Sachs and Rich Weinberg succeeded Van as VCs. In recent years, the name Lakota (with the k) was brought back as a girls village to match Outpost. Here is a photo of the Lacota staff.