More Than an Award

(Makeup for 23 December)

                A few days ago a friend of mine asked me a few questions because she was worried about her teenage son, who can be quite a moron at times, especially for his parents.  She said, “I know he’s a good kid, but sometimes that isn't going to cut it. When will he ‘get it’ that he has to put forth effort if he wants to get anywhere in life?”  I hope I was able to assuage her fears that he will become a listless leech on society.  (He really is a good kid.)

                That conversation reminded me of a certain someone else (betcha can’t guess) who as a teenager didn't like to be nagged by his parents.  But in retrospect, it took that nagging to reach a point where I finally “got it.”

                Living in England, I was fairly active in my Boy Scout troop, but I had lost the drive to move on.  I was a Life Scout, I had 21 merit badges, including all the required ones for Eagle; all I had left to do was my Eagle Scout project, and I would belong to that prestigious group who had attained this high honor.  However, like my one of my friends says, I was overcome by the fumes: car fumes and perfumes.  My interests changed.  I was more into music, my friends (especially the female variety), writing, and video games.  Scouts began to take a back seat.

                And that’s where I was when this story happened: the back seat of my dad’s car.  I believe it was a Thursday afternoon.  We were driving around RAF Mildenhall on a few errands.  I had just retrieved the mail and was immersing myself in my new Baseball Cards magazine when he started in again. “When are you going to start planning a project?”

In my mind, this was about the seventy-second or seventy-third time Dad had asked a similar question within the past week.  I ignored the query, trying to stay calm.

“You know, you’ll have to you’ll need to get permissions and equipment and manpower and….”

I tuned out, staring out the window.

When I came back around to hearing him, we had pulled up to a four-way stop.  He was back to “When are you going to get started?”

And I, in all my teenage self-centered “wisdom,” had had enough.  I opened the door and slammed it.  “Right now.  Pick me up in an hour at the Exchange.”  I stormed across the street without waiting for a reply.

I didn't really know where I was going or what to do, but in that flash of anger I had headed toward the Base Maintenance building.  And as I looked at the directory inside the front doors, I realized that it was up to me.  Everything I wanted to accomplish in life had to be done by me.  I couldn't rely on Dad or Mom or anyone else to make my life for me.

I ducked into a restroom and straightened up my appearance before I asked the receptionist to see the commanding officer.  I sat on a green fake leather couch and listened to the click-clack of typewriters and computers.  The smell of tobacco hung in the air.  Within ten minutes I was ushered into a small, cramped office where a heavy-set man with a military crew cut and black standard issue glasses sat poring over tomes.

He looked up, beyond his spectacles, snubbed out his cigarette, and grumbled, “What can I do for you, son?”

“My name is Joseph Anson, and I’m an Eagle Scout candidate looking for a large service project to benefit the community, sir.”

He smiled, shook my hand, and turned his huge green binder toward me.  “Take your pick, son.”  And that began the conversation that ended the next Friday after (180+) hours of planning, scheduling, coordinating, pestering (on my part), laboring, and sweating.  I don’t remember Dad being around—I think he was on a deployment somewhere. Mom only helped with the shuttling of workers (the friends I had drafted) and supplies.  Everything else was me.  I even went in to Dad’s work while he was away to use the satellite phone to have a teleconference with the Scouting officials stationed in Germany to accelerate the paperwork process.

Sure, it sounds cheesy, but this experience was a figurative smack upside the head, one that no one else’s lecture or prodding or anything could provide.  It was one moment in life where I “got it.”  The future didn't seem too intimidating or scary.  I just needed to take one step at a time.  Most importantly, though, I had to be the one to take the step.  That happened in April or May.  Then we moved in June, so I wasn't awarded the Eagle until October when all the paperwork caught up to us in Illinois.  But it didn't matter anymore.  I had accomplished something worthwhile on my own.

Looking back, the pressures and influences and everything else my parents, relatives, teachers, religious leaders, and other influential adults in my life may have bothered me at the time, but they were a necessary ingredient in my seasoning as a human being who looks to contribute to this world.  I hope I will be the same type of pain in the butt for my own kids.

Summer Camp Horror Story

                I just read “Boys, Beer, Barf, and Bonding” by Bruce Hale to my seventh graders, and it reminded me of a Scout Camp experience that needs to be shared.  No, it’s not the one about how we convinced one leader to believe that a pair of Sasquatches was roaming the pastures.  It’s not the time we ditched the campfire activities during the Klondike Derby to help the military security police to locate a perpetrating trespasser either.  This isn't even the low-brow account of when Patrick sleepwalked and attempted to take a dump in front of my, Russ, and Jerry’s tent.

                This is one episode of the legendary eight day excursion to Hadrian’s Wall (English-Scottish border), where we had an epic battle with midges, where it rained at least eighteen hours each day, where we discovered the nuances of glow-stick war paint, where we cooked Dutch oven cobblers around the clock, won first prize for best troop campsite, earned more merit badges than any other troop, and successfully defended our site against raiders using pine cones and nylon parachute cord.

                One night, after our taste buds had given up on a nondescript, several-hundred-person dinner, and our sodium intake exceeded the saturation point, the staff thought they would tell a ghost story.  Usually, this was pretty hokey and I would skip out, but it was raining, and we were already in the massive lodge.  Sure, it smelled like body odor, corn chip toe jam, and chili, but it beat getting soaked.

                They told a story about the camp we were at, and a staff of counselors who started the camp forty years before.  They were a tight-knit bunch—brothers in everything they did.  Camp was a wonderful place until the next summer when a new counselor showed up who was extremely strict and didn’t tolerate any rule-breaking.  Shower times were monitored to the second, portions in the mess hall were appropriately measured, and schedules were followed without fail.  Camp was more of a chore with him aboard.  It didn’t take long before everyone—campers and staff members—grew to detest him.

                One night the staff decided to play a prank on him while he was alone in his tent.  It involved a hoax lynch mob, complete with torches and sheets and mud-painted faces.  The counselor came out to see what was happening, had the crap scared out of him (some say literally), and sought refuge in the lodge.  In a Lord of the Flies frenzy, the lodge caught on fire, and the disliked counselor was trapped inside.  Some said that just before the roof collapsed a flaming figure burst from the inferno and ran screaming into the lake.  He was never seen or heard from again.  The body was never recovered.  The camp closed, and wasn’t re-opened for ten years.  The fire was ruled an accident.  The counselor’s disappearance was never mentioned again.

                When it re-opened, the original staff came to hold a passing-of-the-torch (pun intended) ceremony.  The camp continued without interruption, and the original staff decided to hold their own reunion out on the island in the middle of the lake.

To make this story shorter and not too creepy, I’ll quickly blur through the rest of the details.  They’re sort of Friday the 13^th–esque.  Use your gruesome imagination.  While the former counselors were partying it up on the island, they start disappearing by ones and twos.  Finally a flaming dude attacks the remaining campers with a torch and an ax.  Several days later, one survivor is found drifting in a canoe without any paddles, without any arms.  All he can do is mumble the name of the missing counselor.  His wounds are bandaged and he is admitted into a psych ward at a nearby asylum.  He mysteriously vanishes without a trace. (Cue supposedly-creepy-but-really-cheesy music).

That was the story.

When we got back to camp, a few of us older scouts and one of the leaders decided to pull a prank on some of the younger guys, especially Thomas, because we were sick of all the whining and high-pitched nasally bellyaching.  Despite all the rain, bugs, and less-than-desirable conditions, the only thing keeping us from really enjoying ourselves had been the incessant complaining on the part of a handful of newer scouts.

The plan had been to down their tents or just sneak up and spook them, but then Russ suggested we use the staff’s story to create some real panic.  We decided that we would light one of us on fire and terrorize them.  Being well-versed in flammable materials, we covered a fire-resistant rubber military grade rain poncho with bug spray (a couple cans’ worth).  Russ put it on, and we lit him.  Soon he was chasing the young'uns through the campsite with a torch and (sheathed) hatchet, calling for their souls.

The flames lasted for about three minutes before all the repellent burned up; however, the howling lasted the rest of the night.  One kid wet himself.  The rest didn't sleep for the rest of the week.  Needless to say, the leaders weren't too happy (outwardly).  Inside, though we knew that a few of them applauded the hoax to keep the Tenderfoots in check.  Word got around the camp, and our patrol’s status was elevated to legendary.  Now, when “The Flaming Camper of the Lake” is told, it involves an epilogue involving us.

A Rare Breed

So for Scouts tonight, we had a white elephant exchange, pizza, drinks, and video games on the big screen. I am thankful that I don't have six ravenous, odoriferous, pyromaniac teenagers to look after every night of the week. Love the boys, but I'm glad I can send them home at the end of the activity.

P.S. For those of you keeping score at home, this is twenty-one days on a row.