It was a long bus ride from Grostenquin to Pirmasens. Then more of a bus ride - another hour anyway - from Pirmasens east to the little town of Hinterweidenthal ("Far Meadowdale") to the still smaller town of Dahn. Then off on a dirt road into the Black Forest, to a clearing with a mess hall on one side, and about fifteen ancient pyramidal tents on wooden platforms on the other side, across a flat grassy meadow about the size of a football field. A stream (probably called the Kranzwoog or "Garland Branch"), mostly culverted, ran through the middle of the meadow. Woods and hillsides on all four sides of the clearing. On the hillside back of the tents were the old Army eight seat latrines. A craft shop. That was Camp WACAYA.
The official Camp WACAYA patch.

Girls' tents at Camp WACAYA. Hey, guys, you're supposed to look at the TENTS! (Diane Beitzel-Marsh '59)


Three counselors at Camp WACAYA, 1954: Peggy Delesdernier, unidentified, Bob Ahlstrom. Down in the next clearing beyond the tent area, at a campfire by the Totem Pole. Bob Ahlstrom was the chief senior counselor, active duty military, about 25 years old. We had awesome campfires, lit from afar with an incendiary mixture of glycerol and potassium permanganate, and scary ghost stories, sometimes bilingual. And at the end of the evening, we always sang "Tell Me Why".



The Totem Pole. Touch the Totem Pole and it rains. Don't touch the Totem Pole, and it rains anyway. I don't even wanna THINK about what happened when somebody CLIMBED the Totem Pole.
The Totem Pole was in place during the 1954 season,and may have been made by Bob Ahlstrom. The color photo (by Diane Beitzel-Marsh '59) is from about 1958.


The area abounded in wild animals. We used to go out at night and look for owls in the trees, illuminating their reflecting eyes with flashlights. Wild boar were more talked about than seen, except by the camp perimeter guard. Sgt. Oscielowski ("Ossie" - I wish I remembered his first name), a Polish immigrant stationed in Germany, used to go out with a 60 lb bow (much admired by the counselors, though none of us could draw it) in addition to the requisite carbine. One night he encountered a mama boar with two shoats. He scooped up the piggies and headed up the nearest pine tree and sat there, a piggie under each arm, until mama boar gave up and went home. We had the two shoats in a pen in the camp for the rest of the summer.


This lovely outdoor swimming pool, the Pirmasenser Stadtbad, was photographed by Diane Beitzel-Marsh around 1958, and must have been built after 1954. In 1954 we rode buses into Pirmasens to an indoor Schwimmbad every weekday morning, about an hour each way. On the bus we sang at the top of our lungs for most of the trip - "Alouette", "The Deacon Went Down", "Ham and Eggs", "Old King Cole"...to say nothing of the songs the counselors sang at the BACK of the bus...and of course "Oompah WACAYA".

WACAYA actually was an acronym for Western Area Command American Youth Association.

But in the Camp WACAYA song it went:

Willingness, Alertness, Cleanliness, Ambition, Youth, Athletics

OOMP! WACAYA!

Willingness, Alertness, Cleanliness, Ambition, Youth, Athletics

OOMP! WACAYA!

Oompah WACAYA! Oompah WACAYA! Oompah WACAYA!

WACAYA oompah oompah oompah oompah!