the wall at old Arts & Crafts

We'll soon be taking down the old Arts & Crafts shop. For those who go back many years, they will remember it as the old maintenance shop. Later it served as a bike shop, and on and off as an extra Out-trip storage area. For a few years it was the staff gym, with weights and a few machines. Anyway, this old building, built against the Castle hill wall, will come down in deference to a new Pigeon Lodge. More on that later. Meantime: I walked through the old place today and took some photos. This one is one of the original stone walls, covered by the creative spatterings of many many summers of campers and staff at Arts & Crafts.

how does it feel to be so loved?

Chris Harper's summer was her first as a village chief. 2007 is her 12th year at camp; she's come up from Pokey. In the past few years she's done something that was unheard-of in my day but seems to be a pattern now among the staff. Chris was a Sacky counselor when her current Windsong campers were in Sacky, then in '06 she was a counselor in Tacoma with many of the same girls, and now, as I say, she's their VC in Windsong. She will probably apply to be a CIT Coordinator next summer and work with the same kids. Some counselors "move up" with their campers. Several of my daughter's Sacky counselors have been with her since Susky (Susky-->Lakota-->Sacky) and are contemplating Tacoma for '08. Remarkable. What continuity this creates. It makes for actual generations...cohorts. I caught up with Windsong recently out in front of Arts & Crafts on a sunny day. They were untying their recently dyed tie-dye shirts, and as you can see from the photo, they turned out well. I asked them about the shirts and then conversation inevitably turned to their VC who blushed upon hearing such kudos. Listen to the audio recording of that fun encounter.

(For old-timers reading this: in the early 70s we created Cherokee to be an oldest girls' village, beyond Tacoma. For a year or two later this was Sunburst, and then in the early 80s we created Windsong - same age, 15 year olds, the sister village of Quinnipiac, "Pac" for short. Pac's first summer was '85. Windsong's was either '83 or '84.)

Outpost candle-making & more Sicko Ball legend

I've mentioned Mike Mensik, '07 Outpost VC and son of former 70s VC Deb Trosvik, several times--and I've also told the legend of "Ultimate Sicko Ball" via D'Arcy Oaks. Last week I wandered into Arts & Crafts during a day of candle-making and found Outpost there, began to talk with the Outpost boys about their candles, and the conversation turned to Sicko Ball and finally to Mike Mensik who told his vague (and wonderfully incorrect) version of its origins. He concludes by talking about his alumna mom, who urged him to come east to FV to experience the magic she'd felt a mere thirty years before. Listen here to that recording. Here are the related earlier posts:
(1) origins of Ultimate Sicko Ball
(2) Trosvik-->Mensik: 1977 to 2007

Susky lanyards

I spent about an hour with these Susquehanna (Susky) girls and their counselors on a warm sunny afternoon about a week ago. For their "feelin' good" cabin activity they chose to make lanyards, that time-honored pastime at camp. They were marvelous - concentrating on their lanyard-making yet chatty and relaxed. I recorded part of my conversation with them and here it is. At the end of the recording they perform for me "The Hill," a cheer that is chanted by Susky and Lakota together, they being the two villages that currently reside in cabins 41-45 and 46-50, the two groups of five cabins assembled in rows up the hill above the lake. I've always thought of these two villages (for many years they were Sacky and Tacoma) as not a very nice place to live--cabins too close together, not enough of a woodsy setting. And yet there is remarkable unity among the campers who live here, just as there's always been. In recent years the two village staffs even share one CQ fire, just in front of cabin 48.