Camp Wintaka 50 year reunion!!

Camp Wintaka is the residential camp for the Long Beach area council and was the first "sleep over" or "sleep away" camp i went to as a child. On my ceremonial gown (someday i will photograph this lovely creation) i have a "3 years" patch, so i must have gone there three years. i most likely went around 1976 or 1977 for three consecutive years... that was when i was around 9 or 10 through 11 or 12 years old (i am 39 now). i know for sure my first year at camp yallani (the Los Angeles council camp) was in 1981 when i was 13. i still don't know why i never became a C.I.T. (counselor in training) at camp wintaka or a counselor? i was a camp fire member through high school, but not as active during those years. maybe because camp yallani was an actual paying job and i fell head over heals in love with the place, i never went back to wintaka? not sure, but this july is the 50 year reunion and i am going for sure!

the pictures i have are pretty bad, i can't for the life of me find the camp photo taken at the end of every session with all the campers together. those photos hold up remarkably well. i have a stack an inch thick of camp wintaka and camp yallani weekly session photos that have been put somewhere "very safe", so safe i can't FIND THEM!!! hope they turn up before the reunion!

for anyone who likes weird coincidences (i for one LOVE them!)... last winter i was asked to cover an ultrasound account that was going to be a major challenge for me, something out of my comfort zone technically... but i just went for it and pushed myself. Needless to say i became close friends with the tech there (pat) and when i happened to mention i was the camp fire leader of my daughters group she said ruth, her partner, had been in camp fire and on and on we talked. pretty soon we realized that ruth had gone to wintaka around the same time i had, she had been a counselor. this started communication between ruth and i via pat... i brought my camp fire song book to work to share with her and pat told me ruth was moved to tears when reading the lyrics to some of the songs. very cool stuff! so here comes the 50 year reunion and guess what? pat and ruth will be attending with me so we can share in all the goofy camp memories together. who would have predicted this outcome when i so hesitantly took this account back in december? here is something else that's cool...camp wintaka is located on "green valley lake road", yes THE green valley lake road that goes directly to green valley lake and my cabin. gotta love coincidences!!!