Friday, July1, 2011
so close and yet so far from done…

As we are winding down the week there is still considerable work that must be done for the boys to finish up their badges. Having reached Friday I find that generally all in camp have a diminished fuse length leading to an increased level of snippiness. They indicated that they were cancelling the Friday carnival to allow boys more time to finish merit badges. That means that the whole camp could be full of boys with “nothing to do” all afternoon. That could be an unpleasant combination. Acting SM returns from his meeting indicating that many of the scouts are going to have classes Friday afternoon to finish off requirements. Crisis averted.

Alfred “Captain Ahab” Wilhelm went fishing and caught a 6lb catfish. He is very excited. That night before dinner he filets it and fries it up and lets everyone who wants to sample his catch. It is very tasty and many of the scouts enjoy not only a taste but seconds on tastes and the catfish, similar to a chicken bone in a pool of piranhas, is quickly consumed leaving nothing but bones and scales. It was apparently a good day to fish as Carter went also went fishing and caught 2 fish. He also told us “but my Dad didn’t catch any.”

The drivers determined that while they are in their own tents or scattered among the hundreds of acres that are Marriott Scout Camp, the boys are free to smell as they wish. However, hauling said extremely stinky scouts home for 3+ hours is not something we desire and have “strongly encouraged” the scouts to shower today (or find an alternative means of transportation). Since all scouts must be accompanied by an adult to the shower building, David, using the full power of the yellow wrist band, is designated accompanier. He makes 3 trips that day - the return trip being far more olfactory pleasing each time – and earning him the extra cookies from dinner.
We attempted to take a group picture in front of the Camp Marriott sign before dinner. As you can see, we were about 2/3rds of the way there. Right after dinner, the SM headed down to collect the blue cards. We were to meet him at flag retreat. Assistant SM Wilhelm did yeoman’s work cajoling the troops into packing up their tents. Before we left camp, I was able to get this group picture of the Troop and I think we had everyone there! And they were extremely happy to help me by removing their ninja hoods, their bandanas, and tucking in their shirts I can assure you.

We met SM at the flags and he indicated to me that we were missing about 20 cards meaning that he would have an interesting evening attempting to track down whatever was going on with them. When we lined up for flag we lined up towards the right side, towards the campfire location. Rookie mistake. When we headed to the campfire, they started on the left side and led us on a long walk nearly silent walk prior to getting to the campfire meaning we were one of the last troops to enter. To our pleasant surprise, they had added more benches since Monday and everyone was able to sit down. Campfire was a few songs, a few skits (the one making fun of the staff – or more specifically the various areas in camp – aquatics, range, handicraft, and ecology – was pretty good I thought) and with a closing prayer we were back to camp.

Bro. Neuffer was back down again and he provided devotional and then took his grandsons and left. That fortunately allowed us to avoid having to have 3 scouts across any van back seat! That made car assignments much easier as we divided them up as best we could geographically so they could be dropped off at home rather than having to be picked up. We loaded up all the gear except their sleeping bags and pillows so that we could make a fast get away. We also told the scouts checking us out that we would be ready at 5:30am.

SM returned to camp a little after 11 with general success in resolving our prior issues and it appears to have been a pretty successful camp in terms of progress of the scouts. One last time to hit the cots…

David “yellow wristband of power” Mangum told to me that tonight feels a little like Christmas eve he is so excited. I think we are all looking forward to being home.

Heard around camp: Camper one with eye’s wide with excitement “…and after he cut it open, we saw the poop sack and we got to touch it!”