News From Elizaville

January 19, 2024 8:00 AM Checking the weather in the 1-2-5-2-3. Snow! A quick call to caretaker **Teddy Lydon** for photos for the Newsletter. We especially love the one above. That’s the lake in the foreground (snow-covered and starting to fully freeze) and the boys’ lower hill cabins and social hall (far right) in the background. During the summer, the bare trees along the rise grow so thickly that you can’t see the cabins from this perspective.

A new year. Always a good time to acknowledge habits proving difficult to break. Nearly every off-season day begins with a quick visit to weather.com to check on conditions at camp. For years I’ve type in 1-2-5-2-3— and what come’s up? Livingston, NY (the village of Elizaville is in the Town of Livingston); Koptevo, Russia; Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi, South Korea; and Guaratingueta, Sao Paulo, Brazil. It’s always a little perplexing, but I embrace the randomness and world “coverage” (two locations in each hemisphere; impressive global coverage in all compass directions...).

While at camp during the summer, we often reflect on and embrace our connections with the world around us, meaning the physical world of sunsets, star-filled night skies, mud puddles (awaiting mudslides), bald eagles soaring overhead… But there are also those connections with the geo-political world, campers and staff who travel from around the globe to share their life perspectives and enrich the Scatico community. Though we are excited to have more than 65 former campers returning as counselors and program staff (over two-thirds of the total), we’re equally grateful to have so many staff (and about 15 campers) traveling to Scatico from across the globe, connecting us to the “world” in a different way. Most are returning to camp for second, third, fourth,… and twenty-third summers (unabashed shout-out for boys’ tennis director Vinod Dogra from India).

At last count, we have staff returning to camp from (in no particular order) Argentina, Mexico, India, the Dominican Republic, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Hungary, Spain, Colombia, Ecuador, Sweden, and Hong Kong. And returning campers from Austria, Spain, France, Hong Kong, Kenya, Ecuador, Israel, and Ghana. Plus, first-time Scaticonians from South Africa and Poland (in addition to other “rookies” from countries previously listed). If you’re scoring at home, that’s 18 countries and five continents.

At the end of each camp season, we can reflect not only on how campers and counselors bring a little bit of the 12523 to their homes throughout the United States, but to communities more distant. As summer approaches, let’s all look forward to connections with the world and the world. With nature and people.

Now to check the weather in Elizaville… and in Koptevo, Yangpyeong, and Guaratingueta….

SCATINEWS

As always, we’ll start with RSSes (Random Scatico Sightings)…. We’re checking the record books, but perhaps the greatest distance ever covered in a single RSS! Head counselor Mark Gretenstein was home in Brooklyn watching a Boston Celtics versus Detroit Pistons game on television, when he spotted Charlie Curreri a few rows behind the Boston bench (just over Jayson Tatum’s shoulder in the photo)…. Staying on a basketball theme, four reported RSSes on NY/NJ-area courts, with campers thrilled to find a fellow Scaticonian on the team they were playing: Asher Kazi and Miles Senior; Eden Lederman and Annabelle Noe; Dylan Truman and Jesse Gorin; and Ezra Elkin and Leo Krakowsky; …. Also a baseball rec league RSS for Ezra (with Mason Florin and joined by Asher Kazi living near the field in Ardsley, NY, and running over to the game when he heard that his bunkmate Mason was nearby)…. Heading south for a few warm weather RSSes…. 2023 Inters Ryan Thaler, Sylvie Eichel, and cousins Eva and Rosie Marcus planned a get-together in Florida when they learned that they’d all be there visiting grandparents during winter break, and then spotted 2023 Junior Charley Ecker…. 2023 Sub-Senior Jed Greer and former head counselor Cory Schwartz met poolside in the Bahamas… 2023 Sub-Senior Henry Berlach and 2023 Inter Jacob Hirschl on a ski slope in Vermont…. And, finally (and you’ll need to focus just a bit), camp nurse Marie Serina was on vacation in Aruba (with her sons Anthony and Ray— both former campers and counselors), when she met Greg and Jamie Radwan, the parents of first-year camper Logan. It seems that they’re related to good friends of Anthony and Ray, and so when talk turned (naturally) to summer camp…. You know where this conversation ended….

In non-RSS news (and non news)…. Positively the first offseason visit in 2024! Cousins Charley and Brooke Ecker and Max and Josh Rappaport (dressed in everything from winter coats to shorts) and moms Caryn and Alison (bunkmates in the 1980s-90s) …. From the Scatico docks in December to a beach in Ecuador— Ben Bochner worked this fall at a school run by Waterfront Director Ishai Eshed and Art Director Laura Gold in the town of Olon. Ben’s siblings Emma and Charlie visited over winter break (all three Bochners were on staff last summer!) and spent time on the sand with Bar and Eden Eshed…. Eight one-week SITs from 2023 got together to celebrate Lainey Tunick’s December birthday. (Maybe their first-ever off-season reunion as division mates?)…. When Performing Arts Director (and ukulele instructor supreme) Jamie Segal visited her former bunkmate (and 2023 SIT counselor) Maggie Brown at the University of Michigan (where she’s in law school), they connected with 2023 staff members and former campers who are now UMich undergraduates: Lainie Greissman, Kate Metzendorf, Chloe Cardello, and Mason Lava. Other Scatico staff also attending UMich as undergraduates are Josue Lora and former bunkmates Tyler Winderman, Jordan Klein, and Ethan Rotko.