Part of the saga that is “Steve - Assistant Scoutmaster” was the week long adventure of summer camp. I had no idea what to expect. I never made it to boy scouts; when I was a cub scout moms weren’t allowed to participate from second year weblos on up. I was told this policy was changed in 1982. From what I can tell Boy Scouts as an organization, still have problems with the three “G”s. Girls, Gays, and God. I digress though. Back in the late 70s when I was told my mom couldn’t participate anymore; I was like that’s not fair. If she can’t do it, I’m not going to either. Though neither of my parents said anything I found out much later that my Mom was really proud of me. My Dad, to this day, has never said anything, but he and I did lots of camping and fishing anyway so I always assumed he was less than thrilled.
Now, I’ve had my official BSA adult leader training and I know that Hazing amongst the scouts is not tolerated. Apparently it doesn’t work that way for the adults. I felt like I was driving the party wagon to summer camp as I had all 6 of the 1st-years that were going with me. I don’t know which level of Dante’s Hell 90-minutes in a minivan full of excited, adrenaline pumped, 11-year olds is, but it was right up there with daycare “McTeacher night” that we attended once.
We made a quick stop on the way down for lunch and our last chance at porcelain for the week. Thankfully whatever colored the Patrol Leader's tongue got wasn’t contagious or fatal.
Now, the last time we stopped for lunch on the way to camping at S-F one of the 1st-years managed to drink two and a half 44oz sodas, and ended up doing the potty dance in the back of the minivan. On talking with his Mom this seems to be his modus operandi. Thankfully we didn’t have that problem this time.
So we got to our campsite within Camp Famous Eagle on Sunday. Now as I understand it campsites are normally drawn via a lottery system; Random week, random campsite. We avoided that as our Scoutmaster volunteered to be the camp doctor for the week. The trade off was that we got the best campsite, Stark, right down on the lake.
The thought had been that the boys could do a bunch of fishing. The lake is loaded, and catching a fish can be the hardest part of earning the fishing merit badge. So of course, no good deed goes unpunished. None of the kids were interested in fishing.
We had planned that the 1st-years could go from Woodcarving, to Fishing, to Swimming. It seems though that they are more of an arts and crafts than fishing kind of kids. Half of them stuck with the plan and went to fishing, and the other half instead headed to leatherworking.
The morning of the first day it poured. No its not blurry, just raining really hard.
This was of course the day I followed the first years from merit badge class to class to make sure that they stayed focused. Before we left that morning I asked them all of they had everything. You know, like raingear. Of course even with the reminder none of them took any, and being 11 they didn’t seem to care that they got soaked. The rain cleared out by noon.
It’s a beautiful picture of what stormwater erosion can do to water quality.
It was fun watching the 1st-years try to figure everything out. They managed to feed themselves, though they needed a morning wakeup call.
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Sometimes though it was hard to tell what the food was. This is a “ham steak”. I’m sorry but I’ve never seen any part of a pig that cooks and looks like this. Parts are parts I guess, and at least no pigs were hurt in the production of this “ham steak”
I even have proof now that mine can in fact clean things.
Thursday night was parents’ night. So it was time to bust out the Class “A” uniforms – or at least the parts of it they could still find.
We also got to import food of our choosing for the special occasion.
Look Ma! A pizza wagon! Really…
Butterfly break
Service projects are also required. There is a power cut that runs through camp and along the edge of the cut there is some significant erosion. Somehow it was decided that using local materials to help control erosion would make a great service project. Local material, like you know; dead trees.
That’s our scoutmaster, beloved by all, on the right showing us the lumberjacking skills he learnt in medical school.
The adults got to live just like the scouts did, mostly.
Except that if we wanted to walk about half a mile we had access to shower stalls and flush toilets. Honestly, I think that the adults were probably more difficult to deal with than the kids. Myself included, or maybe especially. Hopefully Barbara will forgive me pushing her over (that’s her story and she is sticking to it), and the “moo-moo” jokes.
Now for something completely different; random pictures of Matthew.
Stuck in the middle of a canoe.
First time shooting a rifle
Matthew had a hard time coming to terms with being right handed and left eyed. I have to admit that it looked awkward to shoot that way.
And finally moments before the “dry fire” incident.
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A dry fire is when you pull the bowstring without an arrow and release. It does really bad things to this type of bow. Matthew knew he messed up the second it happened. Normally when he is embarrassed and you jump him for messing up he reacts very, very badly. He deserved to be chewed on, which he was, and it was done perfectly. He got the point without going postal, managed to file it as a lesson learned, and moved on to having fun the rest of the day.
Late Friday night we had a campfire that was planned by the 4th-years. I must say that the four of them put on a campfire program of truly EPIC proportions. The top 25 list of dumbest things they heard that week at camp was good, and yes I was on it. The real star though was the campfire song. They managed to poke fun at everyone there, including themselves. 18 people. The song took about 35 minutes. It was… Well I can’t say enough good things about it. I will say though that if the 4th-years put as much effort into their scouting as that song they’d all be eagle scouts by now.
Matthew had a lot fun, because remember, scouting is fun with “U” in the middle! Oh, he also earned 2+ merit badges; Swimming, Woodcarving, and all he has left for Fishing is to actually catch, clean, and eat one.
As for me, I was reminded why I hate ticks (especially between the toes). Oh, and you don’t mess with Dad!
I haven’t shot in 20 years, and managed a quarter sized grouping at 50-feet.
