Summer Camp

[skeptic]

This was a short piece I wrote ages ago for the local newspaper when they were doing a series on summer youth activities and asked me to do one on Scouts.  Ironically, not much has changed in the couple of decades or so since.  

Summer Camp

 

            It's 6:30 on a Sunday morning.  An assistant scoutmaster and I have been at our scoutroom since 6:00, getting troop equipment prepared for a week's stay at summer camp in the chaparral and pinion hinterlands of northern San Diego county.

            Now, as the scouts begin to arrive, organized confusion begins.  One hour to check, verify, and load equipment and boys.

            The father who is the extra leader and driver is late.  When he arrives, ten minutes late, his two sons are missing.  Before he can explain, his wife roars up and the brothers burst out of opposite sides of the car, snarling at each other.  Half of the scouts are inside, and the tardy father hopefully asks if we still need him to go; but then he sees the senior patrol leader emerge from the scoutroom directing six boys carrying the troop boxes and flags.  He smiles sheepishly and sighs.

            By 7:45, only 15 minutes late, we're ready to leave.  The older brother of the feuding pair has commandeered his father's car for himself and his buddies, relegating the younger to the van.  The father seems oddly relieved.  As I settle behind the steering wheel of the van, one of the fathers tells me how brave I am to take his son, and 12 like him, to camp for a week; and all of the other parents laugh in agreement.  Then a mother asks what time we expect to come back the following Saturday.  When I tell her sometime after 4:00 PM, she's pleased because they will not have to fly out of Las Vegas on Friday night.  As we finally pull out, all the parents are smiling broadly, and wave with almost too much exuberance. 

            Four to five hours on the road with a group of adolescent boys is a challenge.  You'll learn some pretty sick jokes and songs, yell at them to be quiet at least once per hour, break up several push-shove-slap fights, and stop for one or more unscheduled bathroom, (or side of the road), breaks.  This trip is no

exception.  Ironically, I've come to realize that once I wind down, it's pretty enjoyable.  More importantly, I learn alot about my passengers; and they learn my limits. 

            Check-in at scout camp is by necessity a tightly scheduled routine.  Imagine trying to corral 13 boys who've been cooped up for five hours into this type of regimen.  With experienced scouts it's only mildly maddening; but when they're mostly new you'll be ready for the asylum by the time taps is sounded.  Fortunately we have only one first year scout, the younger son of our gallant volunteer.  Unfortunately, this novice leader has not yet grasped the idea of boy leadership; and his older son is one of these junior leaders.  It is a difficult adjustment, but he soon has the good sense to let me worry about it.

            Our next day is only slightly less chaotic.  Yet by evening assembly our campsite is almost livable, and most of the boys are already excited about their activities.  By Tuesday even our first year father has found it is fun to do leatherwork with his younger son and that there is a certain peacefulness in late afternoon as you sit alone in the campsite.

             At week's end the boys have completed 30 merit badges, mostly crafts and aquatic, but also cooking and wilderness survival.  They also have garnered two mile swims and five snorkeling patches.  And at the closing campfire on Friday night they are awarded two camp wide games firsts and one of four honor troop ribbons.  But the award that brings the most troop applause is the second place totem to a beaming first year father for a painful belly flop earlier that afternoon.

            Saturday morning is anticlimactic.  There is less urgency to our packing; though tired we are more relaxed.  All of us look forward to a return to "civilization"; but most of us would stay longer if we could.

            When we arrive home late that afternoon there are no expectant parents waiting; but a phone call is all that is needed in most cases, though there seems to always be one who is not home and for whom alternate arrangements have to be made.  When they get there the parents seem less tense than they were the previous Sunday, seem more receptive to their sons' excitement.  And every one sincerely thanks us for taking their son to camp for a week.