Jim Marion, long-time Environmental Ed & Conference Director, has died

I'm very sad and sorry to be passing along the news that Jim Marion has died. Jim was Frost Valley second Environmental Education Director (after Bill Devlin) and Jim served for many year in that capacity, also at times serving as the Conference Director in addition. In sum, he directed pretty much all the non-summer programs at Frost Valley, hired and supported his staff with tremendous vivacity and kindness and good humor. Hundreds of former FV staffers worked for Jim and loved him. He was extremely hard working and always generous. He had a wicked sense of humor and he loved practical jokes.

Jim and Cheryl have lived in Grahamsville for many years. Cheryl worked at Frost Valley, too - first in the kitchen and then in the office. After Marie Kremer, long-time office manager, retired, Cheryl was our office manage. Jim and Cheryl's daughters, Christina and Renee, came of age at Frost Valley and both worked on the staff for a time. Cheryl's younger brother, Foster Portzline, also worked both summer camp and environmental education/conference.

Below is the obituary for Jim Marion posted today in the Times Herald-Record:

December 5, 1947 - February 22, 2015 -
Grahamsville, NY

James Ivan Marion, 67, of Grahamsville, NY passed away Sunday, February 22, 2015 in the comfort of his home with his family. James was born in Cortland, NY on December 5, 1947 to Ivan and Eleanor Marion. James is survived by his wife of 47 years, Cheryl Portzline Marion; his daughters: Christina Marion (Agustin Martinez) of Hilton Head SC, and Renee Viningre and husband Lejon Viningre of Napanoch, NY; and his grandson and buddy, Nathaniel Viningre whose life he most enjoyed being apart of. James is also survived by his father, Ivan Marion of Bradenton, FL and his sister, Connie Rejman of Venice Center, NY. He was predeceased by his mother, Eleanor Marion. He will be missed and has been a special part in the lives of many nieces, nephews, aunts, and in-laws. James was a graduate of Cornell University and received his Masters in Environmental Education at SUNY Plattsburgh. He worked for the Sullivan County Cooperative Extension as a 4-H agent, and the Frost Valley YMCA as the Director of Environmental Education. James worked for the New York State Department of Corrections as the Natural Resource Director where he designed and established composting and recycling programs as well as managing the farms for all New York State Correctional Facilities. He was an outgoing and personable friend to many. James took pride in his achievements and participation in various organizations. He served on the Sullivan County Cornell Cooperative Extension Board, Tri-Valley Central School Board, NYS Outdoor Education Association, and the John Burroughs Woodchuck Lodge Historical Site. In 1994 James was named the National Recycler of the Year. He will be remembered for his wealth of knowledge, admiration of nature, and his friendly personality as well as being a great dancer. Celebration of his life will be private. Donations may be made to the Islesford Congregational Church, PO Box 111, Islesford, ME 04646 or the charity of one's choice.

"If I were to name the three most precious resources of life, I should say books, friends, and nature.... - John Burroughs

Arrangements were under the direction of Colonial-Bryant Funeral Home and Cremation Service, for further information please call 845-434-7363 or visit www.colonialbryantfuneralhome.com.

***

Rick Cobb, prompted by the mention above of practical jokes, recalls as follows:

During one winter event at Frost Valley, Al and I came up with the idea to sign Jim up with as many military recruiters as possible.  We'd go to supermarkets, pick up magazines by the binder, and shake them to see what postcards fell out; we filled out navy, air force, army, coast guard, and other similar
organizations' postcards asking to send Jim Marion at Frost Valley information on their programs.  Yes, feel free to call!

After a few months, it was time for summer camp!  During orientation, Al and I were standing in the dining hall and just happened to overhear Cheryl Marion telling someone about how Jim was receiving all this information and phone calls from recruiters; we looked at the ceiling as we strained both to hear the story as well as suppress our laughter.  All of a sudden, we caught Cheryl's eye; her eyes narrowed a bit as she studied the two of us.  She then asked with a sense of suspicion in her voice: "Do you two happen to know anything about this?" 

"What?  Us?  Don't know what you're talking about!  Hey, Al, we better get to the pot sink; duty calls!" In a flash, we disappeared!

she visited once and never forgot

You'd think that most of the folks who find this blog and read it intensively are long-time "lifer" types, people whose lives are entwined with the place over years, decades even. But there are people who encountered the valley just once and will never forget it. One such person is Alyson, who visited Frost Valley for an "Indian Princesses" weekend (girls and their dads) back in the 1980s - as a 7 year old - and has thought about it always. Then she went searching on the 'net for FV and found us. So take a look at photos of a person whose life was memorably influenced by just one visit. Let's now go back to the early 80s.**




** (By the way, we know her visit was in the fall of 1983, 84 or 85, because we see her eating with her group in what is now Geyer Hall, the "old girls' dining hall," which was used while the new dining hall was being built in place of the original which had burned in the winter of 1982-83.)

late 1970s program instructor remembers

Doug Redosh is back in touch with us. He was here at FV in the late 70s. Here's what he writes:

I started working at FV in the spring of 1977. I had finished a BS at SUNY Albany (now the University at Albany) the June prior, with an emphasis on Environmental Biology. I had wanted to use my training to educate others about the wonders of the natural world, and wanted to live in a less urban setting than my native Queens. Initially I found work at Lake Minnewaska Hotel as a cross country ski instructor, but also had to wait tables to make ends meet. This was the mid 70s recession. The FV Environmental Ed Director, a great guy named Jim Marion, hired me and I was terribly excited. I spent a great spring teaching Environmental Ed programs. There was little developed then, so I believed I help set up programs in Ornithology, Pond and Stream Study, Astronomy and Forest Ecology. Favorites were hikes up Doubletop, Graham and Slide Mtns. I helped set up the climbing wall on the chimney of one of the buildings. I worked with a great bunch of fellow instructors: Vilis Ozolins, Louie Comeau, Lin Denham, Stan Treadway, Chuck White, Jim Marion and his wife Cheryl. Vilis and I shared the old farmhouse behind Chuck White's house [then called "Old John's House"].

That summer I traveled across the US and Canada, but returned to work Environmental Ed for the fall and winter. Hunting season brought hunters and fewer kids, but winter brought the best cross country skiing. I helped Joe Trela set up the ski shop and we taught tons of lessons. That was a great winter for snowfall and the skiing was absolutely tremendous. I shared the Ricciardi Cabin cabin with Louie and Joe. March saw me leaving the US for a 5 month gig as a program director at the YMCA camp at Fairthorne Manor, near Southampton, England. That was a great cultural experience and Frost Valley helped prepare me for that. Upon my return, after 2 months travel in Europe, I landed a job as Director of the Wilderness Program for the New Milford, CT Youth Agency. My FV experience helped me land that job as well. That lasted 2.5 years, after which I became a Physician Assistant, then ultimately attended medical school. I now practice Neurology in the Denver, CO area, but frequently ski, rock-climb, hike, backpack, bike etc. - all the outdoor sports.

Not only did the FV experience help me land those positions, it also taught me how to live with a small number of people in a relatively isolated location, not always an easy feat. It also renewed a sense of optimism about the human condition and the fate of the human race.

the day Jim's car floated in the lake

It's a VW Rabbit, on the docks. Yes. And yes, you read the title of this entry correctly. Jim Leaver's car, floating in the lake. The first telling of this true tale of FV antics--dated 1989--comes from Glenn Horton:

My end of the story comes from a conference director's position. Jim Leaver and Chris Dumas had put together a great rocketry program with Chris Dundorf standing in when they needed engineering assistance. The weekend of the occurance was one to remember. We had a substantial amount of rain all weekend, no power since Friday evening, 600+ guests and a tired group of staff that had assisted in a Friday night bus accident. But believe it or not, most of the weekend went off well.

It was Sunday morning and I made an early trip to the dining hall to help staff set up when I noticed a lot of the kitchenstaff was not there. A mud slide had closed the road into FV. I was trying to figure out how to tell 600 people they might have to add an extra hour plus to their drive home due to the closed road when Jim Leaver comes to me with a small problem.

"I don't have a lot of time Jim, what is it?" He said his car was in the middle of Lake Cole. Took me a minute, but I breathed a sigh of relief when he said it was floating on the dock in the middle of Lake Cole. But that wasn't Jim's concern. Jim was most concerned about the fact that all the rocketry equipment was in the trunk and he had a 9AM launch in Big Tree Field.

In walks Dundorf and his accomplices with huge smiles.....until they saw my appearance of discontent. I think my words, calmly spoken, were "Great practical joke, just bad timing," and I asked them to have the car off the pond and Jim's program ready to go by 9...which they did.

I could have yelled and screamed for hours over that, but I have always felt that humor got you through a lot and during those years, it got you through long hours of work and lots of time away from home and family. Oh, and there was the part where I wished it had been my idea. It was done so creatively well.

A few days after Glenn's account got mailed around--to me and the participants in this drama--Chris Dunforf himself, a perpetrator of above-narrated sin, chimed in as follows:

I scrounged up a photo of the Leaver's VW on the raft. It's taken from across the lake so you can't tell how far from shore it is but proof none the less. Wheels on raft, raft on water. The back of the photo reads "Weekend of 5th Annual Frisbee Golf Tournament, 1989."

Now as for Glen's version of what happened... couple holes there but fairly good account for someone of Glen's... ummm... numerous life experiences. I would be remiss not to bring into the story Kenis Sweet. Kenis has always been a form of a mentor for me. In the late 80's he was quick to guide my cabin mate, Patrick "Patman" Brasington and I to the best stores of building materials, unsanctioned beverages and to discuss numerous off-road FV vehicle driving techniques for when driving in non-off-road vehicles. I digress. At some point after dinner on said weekend Kenis and I decided it was appropriate to repark Jim Leaver's VW Rabbit. The waterfront didn't seem too busy that night so we settled on one of the floating rafts. There were however two unfortunate factors needing to be dealt with. First off, the raft was still moored in it's winter offshore position, and secondly it began to downpour challenging our marginal-at-best logistical planning. We headed out across the lake in a borrowed rowboat, untied the raft and brought it in to shore. Next, Kenis scored a pair of long 2x10s to act a ramp. (Technical Note: For those of you who've never done this before but might someday, remember to not bring the raft all the way up on shore before loading the vehicle. Otherwise, the weight of the vehicle will sink the raft floats to the ground and you'll have trouble getting the raft afloat and free of the shoreline.) We set the ramps up and I think it was Kenis who drove the Rabbit on to the raft. Taking an engineering approach to the task at hand we were naturally concerned about an elevated center of gravity since most swim rafts are not designed for this use. With the car fully onboard and the raft floating we performed a quick stability test by strongly rocking the raft from side to side. The raft and cargo remained upright so we deemed the the vessel seaworthy and began the long row to deeper depths.

I think I'll take a break here and see if Kenis or anyone else wants to chime in. In the meantime I'll dig around for some more photos of the era and will try to revisit memories of the next morning. I will say this, Glen was not pleased. Until next time...

conference weekends, early 1960s

Even before Frost Valley was available to schools and families and conference groups year-round (today some 30,000 people visit each year) - when the place operated mostly as a summer camp - there were a number of weekends when, for instance, groups of "Indian Guides" were there. Jim Wilkes took this photograph on one such weekend in the early 1960s. Here are three staff who worked that weekend: Baldwin, Levy and Augustine.

Later, when I was in high school, I "worked weekends" just like this. It was the early 1970s. I would get out of h.s. on a Friday afternoon, jump into my red VW bug, drive northward through the NJ suburbs picking up various weekend workers, and arrive at camp at 7 or 8 PM. We ran programs (archery in the fall and spring; led hikes all year; ran the tobaggan run and tube run and ski shop winters), rushed to the dining hall to set the tables before meals, did dishes in the kitchen (exactly as these guys in the picture are doing), and ran back out to programs. Evenings we led campfire singalongs. For all this I was paid $20 for the weekend and got a tank of gasoline for my car.

expert corner-cutters asked to run a dangerous activity

Danny Shelburne (left) and Doug Tompkins "working" at the toboggan run during a December winter weekend in the mid-1970s.

The toboggan run shot down a clearing running downhill and in the southern direction from cabins 21-25. It had been cleared of trees to make way for power lines (the lines, now buried, are no longer there). It had been graded and grooved, and we sent weekend guests down 3 and 4 and 5 at a time on one of the maybe 15 toboggans we had. At the bottom of hill was a lean-to - which had been used for summer activities such as "Nature" and "Indian lore" in the 60s but was most commonly referred to, even in the summer, as "the Toboggan Shed." There was a working pot-bellied wood stove in it, and indeed the toboggans and some sleds were stored there.

When the snow was scarce (for about 3 winters in the early to mid-seventies we had very little snow--cold but little snow) we shoved ice and snow on the run and even occasionally watered it, just to have some kind of surface on it. (Later FV acquired snow-making machines.) The run got super-fast and was exciting but also incredibly dangerous. We stacked bails of hay along each side, to keep people from squirting off the course into the woods (and smashing into trees, which happened fairly regularly). Of course with all that watering (and the warming and cooling temps) the bails of hay eventually became hard as rocks, making the journey down still more perilous, the rider a pinball bumping its way through a bonkers pinball machine.

Add to that the hilarious Laurel-and-Hardy-like nonchalance (and occasionally--why not say it?--the downright laziness) of these two characters, Danny Shelburne and Doug Tompkins, and you got a FV activity area that seemed, to the weekend visitors, truly akin to Evel Knievel's leap across the Grand Canyon. They loved it and feared it - and we of course (e.g. during dining hall announcements) trumped up the fear and fervor with hysterical narratives of insane heroism, folly, recklessness, life-long phobias only realized mid-course, bizarre close calls, and stupendous feats.

Jack recovers from leukemia

Jack McCue (now Jack McMurphy) and Marcia Murphy (now Marcia McMurphy--you're getting the name thing by now): another couple, now happily married for years, who met at camp. They both started in summer camp and then worked together for several years as members of the Environmental Education staff.

A few years back we were all worried about Jack's health, after his diagnosis of leukemia.

Now Marcia reports that life is good for them! Jack has fully recovered from leukemia with a bone marrow transplant 3 years ago. They are back to their adventures . . .300 miles of biking in Michigan, 4 days of kayaking and a 25 miles of in-line skating in 12 days. Last summer Jack climbed another 14,000 foot peak in Colorado, hiked and did some awesome mountain biking. He is celebrating his 23 year of teaching carpentry to juniors at a vocational school and enjoys it a lot. Their son Travis, 22 returned from the University of Hawaii at Hilo after 21/2 years and is now attending Edinboro University in PA. Their second son Brandon is 16 and plays football, basketball, baseball and keeps them very busy with activities.

Johnny Forest moves up

Lenape 1981. The staff in the back row here are, from left, Johnny Bostick (VC), Martin Graf, Jon Mittelman, Gordon Fair ("Flash Gordon"), Donald Wright (?), and Craig Berman. Among the campers I can see Adam Gold***, the second boy in from the left in the third row up from the bottom.

Bostick was "Johnny Forest" for several years when he was VC of that village, but he moved up to Lenape. Johnny was sweet-hearted, soft-spoken, almost meditative in his style (not, at least in those years, your typical VC personality type!) and--to my annoyance and sometimes my amusement--invariably late to flagraising. Johnny came to us through his friendship with John Giannotti in south Jersey, another fine person in the Giannotti orbit.

Martin Graf was from Switzerland - an athletic swimmer and a big-time cyclist (and bike repair guy). Martin worked a wild season at FV for EE/conference.

Mittelman was brilliant and deliberately rough at the edges. A Long Island guy who perhaps laid the accent on thicker just to disarm you. But he was one the most creative camper problem-solvers among counselors I ever supervised, and never missed a trick.

I believe the camper with the white straw hat was "B. J." - was it "B. J. Moody"?

*** For more on the Golds, see an earlier entry.

From left to right: Jon Mittelman, Martin Graf, Johnny Bostick.

borderman Pat "Patman" Brasington

I believe there's a pistol in that holster.

Pat "Patman" Brasington worked summers and as a full-year program staff member in the years around 1986-88 - so Chris Dundorf, who circulated around then too, reminds me. Chris sent me a link to a Slate article about Pat, who is now a ranger for the Bureau of Land Management, and he patrols the Sonoran Desert National Monument, 496,000 acres of heartbreakingly beautiful and lonely desert an hour southwest of Phoenix and 70 miles, as the crow flies, from the border. Carrying a gun in this arid place is a long way from working environmental ed in the green round Catskills. And yet of course Pat's FV experience has served him well. The Slate article is about the U.S.-Mexico border wars. Here's part of the article:

Brasington and I are walking out of a wash in a remote section of the monument, and I'm there when his posture changes from relaxed, with his rifle slung on his back, to slightly bent at the chest, rifle forward, finger on the trigger guard. It's the classic infantryman's patrol position. We hit the top, and he relaxes. I point out his change in posture, and he just looks at me.

"You know," he says, "I didn't even know I did that. It's just instinct I guess, from working out here."

We walk in silence for a minute, and Brasington starts talking.

"When I came here, I used to complain about the cows. They left pies everywhere, they cut trails through what should have been a wilderness area. Now I've got foot traffic and smugglers and someone potentially laying under any tree on the monument, and I have to wonder how they'll react when they see me, because they're not supposed to be in this country."

Brasington's a pretty positive, cheerful guy. But his voice gets an edge to it on this topic.

Here's a link to the Slate piece.