Memories from:

• Bill Abbott
• Eric Colton
• John Giannotti
• Marguerite "Peggy" Rub (January)
• Marguerite "Peggy" Rub (June)
• Andrew Karp

If you would like your memory added to FrostValley.org, please send it to alumni@frostvalley.org.

Bill Abbott (September 2007)

I first slept at Frost Valley as a five year old in 1968 visiting camp with my parents during holdover weekend when we drove up from NJ to see my brother and sister who were campers that summer. We did the same thng the following year, staying in Biscuit Lodge both times. (That first trip to camp found my brother, Ken, and I playing checkers in the Castle under the gaze of Mr. Forstmann's portrait. We both got a funny feeling and both swear we saw the old man bend over to ppick up his riding gloves! Very spooky and that portrait bugged me ever since.) The next year, 1970, I was a first-time, seven year-old camper in cabin # 5 in Totem Village with Mark Chodish as my counslor. I had an association with Frost Valley every year thereafter, whether I was at camp or on an Adventure trip. I finished my camper years as a 14 year old in Sequoia Village, now our Adventure Village. Then I did a few more summers as an Adventure Program camper before joining the staff as a JC in 1980 and then counselor and VC through 1984 when I had to start thinking of getting a "real" life. The only summer I didn't have any association with FV since the time I was 5 was the summer I graduated from high school in 1982. That year our dad set Ken and me up with a job in an Aluminum factory in Passaic, NJ that made out door furniture. It was an hourly job that my dad wanted us to take so we'd "learn what we didn't want to do for a living". They made up jobs for us to do including patching the factory roof in August, building a retaining wall and, wearing HazMat suits, we cleaned out the boiler. Yuky, sweaty, hard and thankless work. (And on the weekends we worked both days as caddies at a local golf club.) One day we were supposed to sweep out the stairwell of the old, humongous warehouse. Push the broom and up came 25 years of fine dust. Push a couple more times and then run back up the steps for fresh air - repeat. When we got to the mid-way landing, we paused for air in the big warehouse - think of the scene from The Fellowship of the Ring in the Mines of Moria when they were walking through the main hall of Moria and you'll have an idea of how big this ostensibly abandoned warehouse was! Ken wandered away while we were taking this break and then ran back saying I had to SEE this thing over on the side of this monsterous space. When we walked over I saw that there was another big wareouse annex off to the side. It had a big opening but there was no light inside the annex and I wasn't about to walk in there on Ken's suggestion! But he didn't want me to go inside. He wanted me to look above the opening at the Keystone of the arched enterance. I looked up and saw that there were words written in the stone. Would you care to guess what those words were? They read "Forstmann Wool Company"!!!! Yup, we were working in the very factory that Mr. Forstmann founded when he moved the family business to the States from Germany! Unbelievable!! The only year I didn't have an "association" with FV since I was five and I wind up working at the old factory... So, when people ask me why I spend so much time doing things for FV, whether for the alumni Association, the Board or a volunteer weekend I can honestlly say that I feel that I was meant to!! As an epilogue, I told Jerry H. when I joined the Board that I would only reluctantly sleep in the Castle because I still got creeped out by that portrait. But I had to one Retreat weekend because all the other spaces at camp were full. The next morning I had to admit that I got a very good night's sleep even though Jerry had put me int he Old Man's Master bed room! And then he told a story to the Board later that morning. He told us that Ted Forstmann had called and asked for only two things; he wanted the falcon/osprey (?) from the mantle of the big fireplace in the Castle "foyer" and....the original portrait of his grandfather!! Yup, and now I don't get the hee-be-gee-bees when I visit the Castle anymore!!

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Eric Colton (October 2007)

Dear Friends,

It is will sadness to report that I will not be returning to Frost Valley this summer. Unfortunately, Drexel only gives freshman their first summer off, and therefore I no longer have the summer to work in the Valley. Let me first say that I have had nine magical summers at Frost Valley, and could not ever have achieved some of the things I have done. My mother used to talk about the amazing place that was Frost Valley and I quickly learned how amazing it was. I can remember from an early age learning “The Order of the Oar,” and “The Canoe Song.” I now know that the things my Mother passed on to me, I can pass on to my children, and they can experience Frost Valley in the future.

There are so many people who have touched my life. My first counselors Chris Lane and John Blum, Maureen Guiney who gave me the nickname “Bubbie.” I experienced Matt Buzcek teach “The Froggie Cheer” and saw him grow as the crazy English village chief to the director of camp. My years a camper only got better, having such great counselors as Ryan Petch, Noah O’Connor, Mike Gadarian, Zach Ipolito, and Mike Chibursky.

During my CIT summer I hiked the Catskills (in 10 days of rain) with Noah and Sylvie and made friends I will always keep (Lindsay Witt, Meredith Muzik, and Eli Gordon). My years as a staff member were the most enjoyable though. I have connected with so many amazing people from so many different backgrounds. My two summers in Pokey/ Totem could only be described as unreal. Joanna was an amazing VC. Working with Jay and Harry, and all the other great staff, was a shear pleasure. It was an honor being the first male to work in Iscusfa, and unless you have worked there, you will not know how much fun the village is. I rounded out my final summer on Program staff. Working under Steve (my Mexican cousin), Melissa, and Kam was a joy. I looked forward to waking up in the morning and seeing what insane things would happen in the office that day. No one really knows just how magical Frost Valley is, until they experience it first hand. So although I will not be there physically this summer, just remember me when the first lip-sync happens in summer ’08. I am always hear to tell a story, sing high school musical, make the newest Target commercial, do an illusion, or sing the “Joke But Serious” Theme Song. I plan to visit at some point during the summer so be on the lookout for me. One again thank you to all of the directors, staff, and campers who I have had to opportunity to work with. It has truly been the most amazing nine summers of my life.

Stay in Touch!

Eric “Bubbie” Colton

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John Giannotti (July 2000)

Al, Martin Magid asks about recollections of 1969. Man, what a question. Of all the years at FV, that year (my first) was the most important and most pivotal, for three reasons: the flood, the moon landing, and woodstock. Of the three the flood was the most memorable. For more than a week, heavy rains fell and the streams and rivers swelled to 10' above normal. "Worst flood since '46" the locals would later say. The waters barrelling down Pigeon and Biscuit, the waterfalls cascading down the stone walls near the castle, and the playing fields between the two camps that turned into lakes became forever etched in my mind. Bridges to town were washed out and Halbe began to think seriously about food supplies, emergencies, etc. (We had to move all outdoor activities indoors! I faintly remember two counselors from Lebanon who knew forty or fifty games one could play with just a soccer ball. They saved the day.) I was so moved by the whole experience that it affected my art work for a lifetime. I was in between two years of graduate school at the time. I had been working on sculptures the first year but, after the flood, I talked my advisors into allowing me to abandon the sculptures and paint that water. And so I did. For a whole year. In fact, my graduate thesis show consisted of six huge canvases of the flood. In July, I remember 500 or so campers and staff sitting on the hill in front of the castle watching the only tv in camp. The tv was set up in a location that received a faint ghost image of the moon landing. Does anyone else recall that day or is it a dream? And then there was Woodstock. Sadly, I missed the whole thing, including the firings. My only association I have of FV and Woodstock came not in '69 but the following summer. One of my favorite guys, Carl Hess, the Maintenance director, had a friend who was involved with the cleanup of Yasger's farm just after the event. He brought in a home movie consisting of scantilly clad post-concert hangers-on as well as what seemed like hours of footage of bulldozers cleaning up the place. He kept saying, "Never seen nothin' like it in my life". The same could be said of that whole summer.

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Marguerite "Peggy" Rub (January 2008)

I was in the deepest possible sleep of my life when the call came.  The horses were out and they had run all the way through the valley to Little John's house.  The barn had been understaffed all summer, so I knew that I had to get up and try to help, even though I knew nothing of horses. 

I pulled sweat pants over my pajamas and donned a wool jacket, because this August in the Catskills had been particularly cold; the northern lights visible at night, and fog on every breath.  I felt as if becoming the camp director at age 25 may have been a mistake. I wanted a job that had sleep connected with it: sleep and no problems.  Mammals, I had discovered, human and otherwise, give problems. So I headed down the hill past the waterfront, the lake giving off the last misty warmth of summer.  A could be scene of a sleepy hollow horror story. I hurried to the barn (which was falling down in disrepair) to find Leslie, our expert horsewoman riding director overwhelmed with concern, but still there.  She looked at me without sympathy.  If I were any good at camp directing I would have hired more helpers at the barn by now.  Late summer is when counselors get sick, tired and quit.    I smiled enthusiastically and promised to fix the problem.  It was always easy to SAY I'd fix something, and, God knows, I always tried, even though by now I had definitely lost much of my pre-summer steam myself.  Leslie handed me a bucket with some grain in the bottom.  "Find the lead horse and they'll all follow you back".    Little John's house was a cottage where cook staff lived.  Eight people stuffed into a space big enough for two behind an old apple orchard at the edge of camp.  I had stayed there during a frigid winter week one year and slept upstairs where there is no heat.  It was at least half a mile from the barn.   I was fully awake now, and cold, so I set out at a good pace, jogging then walking through the night, my nose dripping and my fingers frozen around the bail on the bucket.   At some point I realized how clear the night was, how crisp.  The stars were bigger and more beautiful than I had ever known them to be, some shooting.   I started to try and identify all the constellations I had know as a child, before I became too busy to enjoy just sitting around and looking at things.  I didn't remember many: Orion's belt, The Big and Little Dipper, The Swan, Sagittarius.  I felt like flying up and becoming a star, timeless and eternal.  Still.  Shining.  I pretended that each star was a unique counselor, happily shining and doing it's best.  They were selfless and happy to be with others, uncomplaining, alone in the beautiful heavens.    I kept going down the road, suddenly feeling some warm connection to the cosmos, arriving at Little John's in about 15 minutes.   It looked like all 32 horses were there, although I didn't feel like counting, and I didn't count.  I looked around for the lead horse, although I have to say they all looked the same to me, just as they did during the daytime when I walked to the Ad office for our daily program meetings.  They looked big, and a little scary.  I thought I would find the biggest one and offer him the bait.  I remembered that it isn't a good idea to stand behind a horse.      I determined the biggest horse was leaning over eating fallen apples by the porch, so I walked slowly around to his front, my sneakers and sock less ankles wet with freezing dewfall.  I gingerly lowered the pail to ground level hoping to transfer his interest quietly from apple to oats. And he took the bait shoving his strong muzzle into the pail, signaling to his comrades who also pushed to get in.  I dropped the bucket and took several steps backward to prevent myself from getting crushed by their shoulders.  I realized that this was something else I might not be good at.   Somehow I kept my eye on the big horse and took his halter in my hand when the oats were gone and the crowd of horses dispersed, the bucket now pushed under Little John's front porch.  I patted his nose and warmed my hand on the moist heat coming from his nostrils.  This is going to be ok, I thought, I'm helping. I started walking slowly, imagining I would be up all night walking the horses one by one the half a mile back to the barn.  I was so glad that I hadn't signed up to teach horseback riding.  It now seemed so much harder than my assignment.  I kept walking and the horse walked with me, obedient and warm.      One by one, miraculously, the other horses started to follow slowly until we were a large group headed through the night to safety.  I was feeling proud, the director, the problem solver.  I was a leader of horses even though I had rarely ridden a horse.  I was in charge.

   The feeling was so euphoric, I decided to walk with a springier step, then race walk.   I jogged, now warm anticipating the hero's welcome I would receive in the dining hall at breakfast.  The horses followed my lead.  They jogged faster.  Then they ran.  They ran and ran all the way to the other end of the valley.  I had to let go of the halter.  I could not run fast enough to keep up.

As I watched, my mind began to run away, too.  Sparks flew up from the horseshoes hitting asphalt, like stars now flying up from the ground.   I watched in utter amazement the most beautiful sight I have ever seen or will see.  Stars were in the heavens, stars falling and stars rising up from the ground.   It was worth all the failure in the world, I thought, as I followed them through the night.

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Andrew Karp (March 2008)

Reading John Gianntti’s post on the Frost Valley YMCA’s “Alumni” page brought back   memories of watching America’s first moon landing in July 1969 while attending summer camp at Wawayanda.  I distinctly recall sitting on the grass in front of the Castle watching this historic event via a small black and white television set that camp staff placed in an open window. 

I often recall spending part of the evening of July 21, 1969 sitting on the camp lawn watching the somewhat blurry and fuzzy images of the first moon walk.  In fact, I think about it just about every time I change planes at Denver International Airport, for reasons I will explain below.

I was keenly interested in the “space race” as a boy, and therefore disappointed that my time at Wawayanda coincided with the Apollo 11 mission dates.  I would have preferred to be at home watching every minute of it, from liftoff to splashdown, on the television in our family living room.  Instead, I was “stuck” at camp playing ball, swimming, and doing other “camp things.”  
 
News travelled slowly in those pre-internet days.  I recall a few announcements to campers by staff about the mission’s status: uneventful liftoff and travel by the spacecraft in to lunar orbit, followed by a successful landing of the “Lunar Excursion Module,” on the surface of the Moon.  All that remained was for the two astronauts inside, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, to climb down a ladder from the “LEM” on to the lunar surface.

Younger Wawayanda alumni may have a hard time understanding the significance of America’s space program of the 1960’s and early 1970’s has for my generation.  It was both a technological achievement and a core part of our “Cold War” with what is now the former Soviet Union.  We were in a race with the USSR for strategic superiority, not only on the ground, but in outer space as well. That is one reason why President John F. Kennedy famously committed the US to a manned lunar excursion before the end of the 1960s and why what was previously “Cape Canaveral” became “Cape Kennedy” after his assassination in November 1963.

While the USSR had won the first two rounds of the “space race” by successfully launching the first artificial satellite and then the first man in to space in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, by the time Wawayanda’s campers assembled on the Castle’s lawn the night of July 21, 1969 the United States was far ahead in the competition.  

At the time, of course, the larger political and strategic significance of the moon landing was not as apparent to me as it is now.  I just remember straining to see and make sense of the grainy black and white images broadcast from the Moon to that TV perched in the window.  After perhaps an hour’s worth of watching the TV we were lead back to our cabins for the night. 
There were several more “moon shots” following Apollo 11, including the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission, about which a movie was made a few years ago.  En route to another moon landing, the Apollo 13 spacecraft was seriously damaged and for many days it looked like the three-man crew would perish in outer space.  As the movie (starring Tom Hanks and others) accurately relates, NASA engineers and the three astronauts on board that flight were able to bring the spacecraft and all aboard back to earth safely. 

During the summer of 1976, between my freshman and sophomore years in college, I worked as a summer intern in the Washington, DC offices of a now-defunct Midwestern chemical conglomerate.  Part of my job was to attend congressional committee hearings on topics of interest to my boss, and report back on the status of bills moving through the legislative process.  Most committee hearings were dull, and the rooms in which they were held were not all that interesting either.

Someone told me that the House of Representatives’ Science and Technology Committee hearing room had an extensive collection of space-related artifacts and photos that made it an interesting place to visit if a hearing wasn't in progress. For a 19-year old who had grown up on a steady diet of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo “space shots,” this sounded like my kind of place to visit, and it was.

An open door separated the hearing room from the adjacent staff offices.  Through the door I could see an orange spacesuit hanging on the coat rack.  Curious, I walked from the hearing room to the staff reception area to examine this object more thoroughly.  Yes, it was a real, honest to goodness spacesuit.  “Swigert,” read the nametag on it. Was this really a suit worn by Jack Swigert, Apollo 13 astronaut, I asked the receptionist?

Yes, it was, said this kindly lady.  From her reaction to my question I am guessing that I wasn’t the first “tourist” to wander in to see the committee hearing room and/or this unique artifact hanging from the coat rack.  After leaving the astronaut corps Jack Swigert had become the committee’s staff director.  Would I like to meet him, she asked?  Of course, I replied…the chance to meet a real live hero of America’s space program was too good an offer for me to refuse.  After all, I was the kid who wanted to sit at home and watch the Apollo 11 mission from beginning to end rather than go to “sleep away camp”!

Within minutes, I was seated in his office, stunned that to be in the presence of a great American space hero.  I can't now recall all of our brief conversation, but I do recall telling him how I watched the first moon walk while at summer camp.  Looking back on it now, I imagine he wished I was talking about HIS mission on the moon, which never happened because of the damage to the Apollo 13 spacecraft, but he was very cordial and happy to spend a few minutes with me. 

Jack Swigert never returned to space after the Apollo 13 mission.  He won election to Congress from his native Colorado on his second try, in 1982.  Sadly, he died of bone cancer at age 51 (my age now) before he could take office.  His statute represents Colorado in the National Statuary Hall collection in the US Capitol, and a replica of that statue has a prominent spot on Concourse B (United Terminal) at Denver International Airport, where I frequently change planes on my business trips.  (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Swigert <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Swigert> )

Every time I see Jack Swigert's statue at DIA I remember sitting on the lawn in front of the Castle that July night in 1969, watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin change history, and how I had a chance many years later to share my experiences of that night at Camp Wawayanda with another one of America's great space heroes.

Andrew Karp
Sonoma, CA
Sfbay0001@aol.com
(Wawayanda camper, 1969 and 1970)

>>  A little about me:  I graduated from Westfield (NJ) high school in 1975, and moved to Washington, DC, where I lived until 1986.  While In DC I completed undergraduate and graduate degrees from The George Washington University and worked in various political jobs.  To finance my graduate studies I worked as a courier for Federal Express Corporation, which subsequently promoted me to a professional staff position.  In 1986 I accepted a promotion and transfer by FedEx to Northern CA, where I continue to live.  I left FedEx in 1987 and held jobs with several companies before starting my own computer software consulting and training firm, Sierra Information Services (www.SierraInformatiom.com <http://www.sierrainformatiom.com/> ) in 1994.  Since then I have flown over one million miles on United Airlines and changed planes at Denver International Airport more times than I care to remember. 

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Marguerite "Peggy" Rub (June 2008)

HBHBHB.  Those letters always elicit the same response from me.  Thoughts of Halbe.   Halbe David Brown.  HB.   Halbe Dalbe to Everett Lake, the head chef  at Frost Valley for many years.  A navy man, Everett never gave a fig about what other people thought.  So how did Halbe get so much work and loyalty from Everett?  I always wondered about that. I still think about it.

  I met Halbe in 1967 when he became the new director of  Frost Valley.  My older brother, Peter, was a counselor that summer.  I used to watch Peter and the other boy counselors play basketball with Halbe and other ad staff on the courts every night at canteen.   I was in Tacoma then, cabin 17, and we would dress up and put on makeup from London to go over to boys camp after dinner.  We would stand on line with a canteen tag around our neck (our name in Jane Brown’s handwriting on it),  pulverized dirt clouding up around our feet.   Someone at the snack window would give us Sugar Daddies and a soda or candy.   Then we would go and watch the basket ball game and flirt with the boys from Hemlock.  It was heaven.That summer Halbe and the boys played so rough that his knee was injured.  Of course nothing could stop Halbe from walking, advancing, sailing, flying through life.  He had an aura of success about him and a way of always saying the right thing.  Maybe he had an invisible halo.  Halbe didn’t stop playing basketball or walking around camp.  He was an everywhere 24 hour-a-day type of guy. Always role modeling himself- picking up garbage, straightening things in the dining hall and somehow getting staff members  to improve Frost Valley by living their work.I got a little older and decided to apply for C.I.T. (Linda Kelly was my CIT director).  Then L.I.T (dishwasher), J.C., Counselor, V.C., Bike Trips (North of Boston, Cape Cod), Western Adventures, Transcotland Expedition (we kayaked the Caledonian Canal with teens from England, Brazil and the U.S.), Girl’s Camp Director.  Then I directed family camp and led the toddler group when my own children were babies.

 I kept coming back and taking all of those assignments because of HB. Halbe David Brown.  Halbe Dalbe.   During college and after I graduated and landed my first teaching job in NYC, I used the ride the Short Line bus to Liberty every weekend.  Everett would pick me up at the station.  I stayed at his house on the little pond behind Lake Cole and led hikes for the Indian Guides.

It was self-evident that Halbe counted me among the people he trusted to make the world a better place.  I had been deputized.  Anointed.  Chosen. Signer of a new unwritten declaration. 

When my children come home from college, I realize that, despite myself, I have done just that. I have helped a child, two children, my own children.   And the children I teach.    I have made the world a better place. I may sound like a crazy modern disciple, a religious fanatic, or someone who’s been born again.  But it is nothing like that.   Halbe lifted me up.  He gave me something that I didn’t have before. Trust.  Confidence.  Integrity.   A better sense of wrong and a better desire to do right.

   Everett also must have been enlisted to improve the world.  Everett whom I loved so much.  Everett who insisted I could not tell the difference between butter and margarine and who fooled me by spreading two slices of toast both with margarine.  

I was Everett when I was a child…. slow learner and frequently in trouble at school.   Sent to camp so that I wouldn’t hear my parents fighting all summer, so that I wouldn’t be idle and get into more trouble.  My parents couldn’t really handle four children and after three challenging boys, they didn’t even have one stroke of energy left for a girl who was talented but into everything.  I don’t know what would have happened without Frost Valley, without Halbe.

Last summer I visited Halbe and Jane for two days    I’ve never stayed in touch, but also never stop loving.  (Jane has been the glue.  Always a Christmas card and picture of their big beautiful family) I felt some kind of urgency to thank them for their love and support.  For all the kind words.  The promotions.  The trips.  The speeches I had made at board meetings.  The unconditional stuff.     I drove to Vermont with tears in my eyes composing conversational gratitudes. 

We had a great visit.  Halbe and I played horse.  Jane told me the story of the kids and her broken leg.   I saw pictures of the grandchildren.  We googled Halbe and Jane Brown for the first time.  Finally, before I left to go home, we went out for lunch to the local diner.   I asked a stranger to take our picture together.    Halbe and Jane looked great, almost the same as I remembered them, but I looked my full fat 54. After several more pictures were taken, I expressed flat out disgust.