By Gary Bloom – Back in the day Camp Playland enrolled campers through “Junior High School”, this was before there was “Middle School”.  I was a camper as long as I could be one.

We had a great group of fellows who attended camp summer after summer; my friends Eddie Spitzberg, Mike Rome, Bobby Stiskin, Larry Levine, Robert Shulman and Alan Levy, as well as many others.  We went water skiing at Cove Beach, shot rifles at the Armory, played lots of softball and had great sleep outs.

In the early 1960’s the swimming pools were much smaller, we had trampolines and there were no play areas.

Our senior counselor was Uncle Frank.  Frank Greco was a math teacher at Dolan Junior High School, where I attended.  During the summers he was Uncle Frank and in the winter it was Mr. Greco.  Watch out for a kick in the bottom if you called him Uncle Frank at school.

Uncle Frank was a wonderful athlete.  He was a star softball pitcher and you never wanted to get in the way of his windmill, under handed pitch.

We enjoyed many great summers in those early years at Camp Playland.