Troop 1106 Embedded Civilian Report
Day Two – July 8, 2008
Our day got off to a very eventful start today at 2 a.m. when a powerful thunderstorm rolled over us. We had a couple very close encounters with lightning strikes. It wasn’t close enough that it made my hair stand up, but as Jacob said, “If I can hear lightning, it must be close.” There were two strikes so close that the tents shook as the ground rumbled. You could then hear the wall of water coming towards us. Bro. Nichols looked out and said there was pea gravel size hail coming down pretty good. I will say I was quite impressed that even though most of them woke up, I didn’t hear a single scream from any of our tents – what manly boys we have. Of course, the strike was so loud, it might have drowned it out, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
As I sat there and listened to the rain, glad for the noise to drown out the snoring, I was taken back two years to when it rained and half the tents leaked and left the boys with wet sleeping bags. I wondered what the damage would be when we arose. Fortunately, while it was powerful, it was also short lived.
When I arose in the morning it looked like it had rained. And that was all. Not a single scout even reported any leaks. Sorry, I wish there was something more dramatic to report to the folks back home, but sometimes there isn’t. Actually, since many doing the reading are mothers, maybe that is exactly what they wanted to hear.
The first full day of camp was underway. We rousted them out of bed at 7:15 to go pick up breakfast. Between then and 8:45 they were busy with eating, cleaning the camp, cleaning the latrines, washing dishes, fireman duties, and “camp beautification.”
Our first day score was a 33 out of 50 for camp inspection (we lost big time for not having our fireman sign posted and for not having camp improvements). Brett, Matt and Jalen ended up with dish duty and trooped through till the end even though they were a little late for class. As a general observation, this group of young men seem to move a little slower. They seem to get the job done, just not quite as efficiently as one would think possible.
Day Two – July 8, 2008
Our day got off to a very eventful start today at 2 a.m. when a powerful thunderstorm rolled over us. We had a couple very close encounters with lightning strikes. It wasn’t close enough that it made my hair stand up, but as Jacob said, “If I can hear lightning, it must be close.” There were two strikes so close that the tents shook as the ground rumbled. You could then hear the wall of water coming towards us. Bro. Nichols looked out and said there was pea gravel size hail coming down pretty good. I will say I was quite impressed that even though most of them woke up, I didn’t hear a single scream from any of our tents – what manly boys we have. Of course, the strike was so loud, it might have drowned it out, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
As I sat there and listened to the rain, glad for the noise to drown out the snoring, I was taken back two years to when it rained and half the tents leaked and left the boys with wet sleeping bags. I wondered what the damage would be when we arose. Fortunately, while it was powerful, it was also short lived.
When I arose in the morning it looked like it had rained. And that was all. Not a single scout even reported any leaks. Sorry, I wish there was something more dramatic to report to the folks back home, but sometimes there isn’t. Actually, since many doing the reading are mothers, maybe that is exactly what they wanted to hear.
The first full day of camp was underway. We rousted them out of bed at 7:15 to go pick up breakfast. Between then and 8:45 they were busy with eating, cleaning the camp, cleaning the latrines, washing dishes, fireman duties, and “camp beautification.”
Our first day score was a 33 out of 50 for camp inspection (we lost big time for not having our fireman sign posted and for not having camp improvements). Brett, Matt and Jalen ended up with dish duty and trooped through till the end even though they were a little late for class. As a general observation, this group of young men seem to move a little slower. They seem to get the job done, just not quite as efficiently as one would think possible. 
Once again luck was with us and the boys didn’t have any trouble getting into their classes.
The 9 a.m. archery class has about half our troop while the others are in first aid, canoeing, and others. Archery staff loves to shout so you can hear the archery class over much of the camp yelling the rules back at the instructor.We have a couple of boys who need some extra time working on their swimming and who are in a class to learn more.
The class was only marginally better staffed than the personal fitness class and fortunately, Bro. N agrees to get in the water and work with the two boys from our troop. I’m not sure they will finish the week knowing how to swim, but they were making improvement and Bro. N got to get into the lake when it wasn’t free swim so everyone benefited….Brother C. continued with his BSA training. Trust me, most the time they were in the water,
but it was a lot easier to get a picture of his class before they got back into the water after lunch. Instructor was the lady on the left who was in charge of the waterfront. She had a nice 15 lb weight instead of the 10 lb weight in the requirements to use in pulling up from the bottom of the lake. The other two gentlemen are classmates/victims/rescuers. Upon returning at then end of the day, Bro. C informed us that the lake was about a foot lower than the previous day – he had swallowed that much lake water!Tonight was going to be foil dinner night. It meant that even us heater stack troops had to cook dinner. Because there were 13 of us, we determined that we would need two fires. Bro. Ramsey worked on the adult fire and the fireman worked on the scout’s fire. In order to eat and get down to classes after dinner the firemen needed to get the fire started around 4-4:30 so it would be ready to cook at 5-5:30. Bro. Ramsey worked during the day to gather firewood. He had turned over a log and a copperback snake was sitting there and started striking at him. He managed to avoid the snake, the same could not be said for the snake avoiding him….
When the food arrived one fire was nearly ready and the other was – um, not really burning. The cooks were having a discussion that at times included how to proceed but at no time actually involved proceeding. The rest of the boys were debating the best structure for a rope swing camp improvement. The leaders took their food and prepared their dinners and got them cooking. The boys followed along, somewhat later. The timing actually worked out ok for most of them because when the leaders finished they were there able to cook on our fire since theirs had never really gotten going…. Giant thanks to Bro. Ramsey for all his work on the fire – we had amazing coals to cook on. Giant thanks to Bro. N for providing a secret ingredient that made my foil dinner one of the best I have ever tasted. I would tell you what it was, but it wouldn’t be a secret then.
At 7:00 the lifesaving merit badge had their clothes strip. They have to take off a button up long sleeve shirt, pants with a belt, shoes and socks and get about 10 feet into the water within 20 seconds. Having watched this a couple times, I must say, it is a little disturbing how quickly some of those boys can get out of their clothes…. I think the kids who go to church have a definite advantage because they are use to coming home right after and changing clothes in mere seconds! Jacob was a respectable 15 seconds. Robert also did well at 17 seconds. Record for the night 
was 7 seconds. Those parents might ought to worry…Some of the boys took off to go fishing. I think that almost all of them caught at least one fish. Bro. R is apparently quite adept at scout camp fishing as a carry over from his days as a scout when he spent the majority of his time doing just that at camp….
We returned to camp and Bro N was making his famous cherry/pineapple dump cake. The coals were still burning bright and while it wasn’t his fuel of choice, it turned out quite tasty. I had
to have 3 servings to be sure it that all sections of the desert were equally fine. I am truly a selfless servant. They were.We concluded our day with scoutmaster minute from Bro. N who told us about when he was young and how he was prompted to put on his helmet just before he had an amazing motorcycling accident which he lived to tell about because it was on. As we set around the final dying embers reminding the scouts that it was quiet time (remember just last night how they went right to bed….), I reflected back on my last full day at beautiful camp Marriott and was glad to have had the chance to visit again.
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