The hostess led us around a corner to our table which added to the shock value of suddenly
coming face to face with several Kingswood legends I had not seen for quite some time.
Honestly, it took a moment to regain proper focus and poise as everybody seemed to be talking
at once and words were of no consequence until the flood of emotions subsided, which
thankfully they did soon enough.

There before me were Steve Pokorny, Doug Crowe, Amin Khadduri, Victor Kats, Lloyd Smith, and Bob Weiman. “This is overwhelming,” I kept repeating. Crowe gets the credit for organizing
this gathering of 1980’s camp counselors. Yes, the same Crowe who discovered nature calling
whilst sixty feet up a pine tree on “find the counselor” night.

Victor was a camper in 1985, our first season of operation. I credit him and a couple other boys
for “saving Kingswood” that year. The First Session had thoroughly drained me and I was not
that confident regarding the quality of the campers slated to arrive for the second part of the
summer. Then,along came Vic, a friend of Austin Berglas, and things improved dramatically.
Victor’s three sons are currently at camp and are every bit as wholesome as their dad.

I had taught Bob Weiman at Landon and he was a terrific student. So I ended the disastrous
policy of hiring counselors through ads in the Washington Post and brought Bob into the fray.
He did clinics in just about everything, including magic, and earned the distinction be being top
staff. He returned the compliment by pulling in Amin, Steve, and Lloyd in a subsequent
summer.

They were all very good counselors, too, but I have to single out Amin as Hall of Fame material.
He was an enormously successful coach both in Watermelon League and Bow & Arrow
competition. His Watermelon team was always the Cincinnati Reds and one year his uncle gave
him a bright red Chevy convertible which he drove onto the field on several occasions. He was
not only a repeat B&A champion head but bragged that he had drafted his squad so well that
he would not even need to coach them. Assumption correct.

With Steve and Lloyd at that dinner table, we gabbed until the service staff dimmed all the
lights to chase us out of there. Not to worry, this was a two-day event. Early the next morning,
Mike and Liam Wipfler joined with Crowe, Khadduri and Kats at the Laurel Hills golf course,
famous for its views of the old Lorton Penitentiary on the back nine. Yes, that is a fivesome and
with Mr. Wiff on hand to observe, it was six of us on the tee. We all promised to play fast and
the course manager let us go. No one caught up to us!

That done, I was deemed to be the most tired so it was back to Crowe’s house for a long nap
before dinner number two at a wonderful restaurant in Northern Virginia. The three non-
golfers Bob, Steve and Lloyd showed up again along with the celebrity of the day, one Charlie
von Simson, who flew in from Massachusetts just for this occasion.

Another reason I needed that nap: Charlie was my very first hire in 1985 and I simply could not
have taken that risk of purchasing an empty summer camp without him there to hold my hand.
I do not exaggerate here.

I met Charlie at the camp I helped run before getting Kingswood. One time, we were baking a
pizza in the camp kitchen late at night. When pulling the pie out of the oven, the cook dropped
it and it landed upside down in a muddy puddle of water. We were devastated. Then Charlie
spoke up: “If you pay me five dollars, I will eat that pizza out of my sneaker.” We did and he
did, jamming the filthy debris all the way to the toe of his shoe and plucking out bite by bite
with his dirty fingers.

After that nice dinner, we all retired to Crowe’s spacious back yard for a huge “council fire.”
Crowe had even set up chairs in a ring around the blaze. Everyone was there and we regaled
until 2:30 am, some seven hours after my normal bed time.