Salamander Fire Department

Willy Aractingi (Lebanese, 1930-2003) was a self-taught artist born in New York in 1930 who lived in France since 1975. He is best known for painting all of Jean de la Fontaine’s fables with oil on canvas, a six-year endeavour culminating in 244 works in 1995.

Aractingi’s colours are carefully chosen, producing works that are both exciting and showing harmony.

Happy pride!

But what I want to talk about is the fact that every session at camp includes a festival that involves decorating and then setting upright a massive wooden pole--probably about 20 feet tall. Obviously, it's tall enough to be really unwieldy, even though it's not especially heavy. One person can't move it from horizontal to vertical by themself.

So there's always a call for strong campers to help set the pole upright. Again, it's not actually that heavy; height and coordination are more important to this task than strength. But either way, the people who tend to be most helpful for this task are most often tall boys in their late teens; the elementary schoolers aren't much help regardless of gender.

But when I was a camper, the call was usually "Are there any strong boys who want to help?" (Making the question gender-neutral came later.) And one of my friends remembers me raising my hand when that question was asked, even though I wasn't a boy, and going over in my dress to help raise the pole. She apparently found it pretty inspiring that I volunteered even though the request had been for boys. I don't remember doing this, but I've spent 16 summers at camp, and a lot of the specifics have blurred together; it does seem like something I would do.

SHABBOS IS COMING! WE'RE SO HAPPY! WE'RE GONNA SING AND SHOUT OUT LOUD. SIX DAYS A WEEK WE WAIT FOR SHABBOS A GIFT FROM HASHEM AND WE'RE SO PROUD. SING IT TOGETHER: SHABBOS.

whisper it together: shabbos.

SHOUT IT TOGETHER: SHABBOS.

The 1860 Store House was commissioned by the Jarvis Educational Foundation as an ancillary building to the neighboring boarding school. The charity was named after George Jarvis, a London businessman. 

The Staunton on Wye, Herefordshire, UK build was home to the clerk of the charity & also used as meeting rooms and storage of clothes, blankets, etc. for the poor. Tudor Gothic style, 5bds, 2.5ba, £960k / $1,291,439.92 approx. USD.

how it ended: