A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind… Yes, I was a boy scout and later in life, an assistant boy scout leader. I was my mom’s idea to put me first in cub scouts. She was a smart lady. I think she was concerned that I had five sisters and no male or female friends or playmates. I remember a couple times overhearing her say, I not going to rase a sissy boy.” I also think mom hoped the activities would keep me out of trouble. I outgrew Cubs after a year, so mom put me into boy scouts.
I loved Scouts. For each meeting, we would work on things like knot- tying or fire building. I got to have my own jackknife, and we did a monthly outdoor activity. Oh, so much fun. Once a year we’d go to a weeklong summer camp at the Tomahawk Scout Reservation and campground. We slept in tents and got to shoot at the rifle range, scale the climbing wall, swim canoe and more.
Did you read on this website about my mom saying I was becoming the kind of boy she didn’t want me to play with? In scouts I was trying to behave. I loved scouts. I was thrilled with Tomahawk! But twice I got sent home from camp on the he Greyhound bus. Too bad they didn’t have a merit badge for that.
That first year at camp I was both the little guy and the new kid. A couple of the older scouts felt it was their duty to pick on us little people. Like I had overheard my mother say, she didn’t want to raise a sissy boy. I was little, but tough and resilient. At camp I got all the little guys together and laid my plan to stop the bully. That night we had watermelon after dinner as a snack. I told my ‘bullied kid’ crew we needed to save one trashcan of watermelon rinds. The rest could go in the dumpster. We would make our move after dark and after our leader had gone up to headquarters for a roundtable meeting. Jack was the youngest and smallest of our group. I told him to make sure the American and Troop flags were down after Taps. I said I’d bring a bandana for a gag and Paul could bring one for a blindfold. “Any questions?” I asked.
They all grinned and nodded. We broke up and waited for dinner, our watermelon snack, and darkness.
Denny the bully was not too tall but was stout and had big arms. Had a fowl mouth and would shove kids to the ground whenever he felt like it. Now it was dark and the campsite empty. The scouts were in their tents and our adult leader away at his staff meeting. I threw back the door-flap of Denny’s tent. “Hi, Porky,” I said. I pulled a blue bandana from my back pocket. “This is too small for a dress but I’ve got an idea how you could wear it. Follow me.” I headed toward the flagpole in the middle of the camp.
“Get back here, crap face,” he yelled and came after me.
At the flagpole, Danny doubled his fist and drew back his arm. At the same time, my crew of bullied scouts appeared from the darkness. They grabbed both Drnny’s arms and used a chunk of rope to bind his arms. Two other scouts tangled themselves in his legs. I gagged him. Paul blindfolded him.
“You guys get his shirt off and you two get the watermelon,” I shouted while helping to get Danny’s shirt off. “All right ready? Lift!” We lifted Denny off the ground as high as we could which was only a foot. But it was high enough.
I called more orders. “Jack, clip the lanyard to his belt, not his belt loops! Good, now tighten the rope and tie it off.”
When we stood back, we all had to laugh at Danny hanging a foot off the ground, wiggling, twisting and kicking his feet.
“Watermelon time,” I said, grabbed a rind and rubbed the pink sticky juice all over Danny’s bare back. Everyone else grabbed pieces of mellon and added more juice to Danny.”
“I grabbed Danny to stop him from twisting. “Hey Danney, we’re doing this because you’ve been a bully. That phase of your life is over. Bully anyone again and we’ll come up with a new ‘niceness’ lesson for you.”
Everyone ran to their tents. I hadn’t thought about the mosquitoes. They started feasting on Danny. I didn’t want to be mean. I just wanted to teach him a lesson without any fights. I untied Danny’s hands and pulled off his blindfold. “I grabbed the corner of his gag. “I’ll take this off. If you show me, you learned a lesson, it’s all done and we can even do something as FRIENDS, tomorrow. Try anything else and the bugs can have you.”
Danny nodded. I pulled off the gag, helped him down and handed him a towel. His lips twisted and he sucked in a big breath like he was going to yell something. He let the breath out and stuck out his hand to shake.
“That’s the wrong hand,” I said.
“I know,” Danny said. “Scout’s handshake. Friends?”
I grinned and shook his hand.
I never knew who told our leader, Mr. P,. The watermelon story had beeb making the rounds. Mr. P gave me a speech about what it meant to be a scout. That afternoon I didn’t get grounded or get detention. I sat on a bus seat. Greyhound took me home. Dad wasn’t ma. He said I should have ‘decked’ the kid. I was confused my mom didn’t scold me.
She said, “Good for you, for sticking up for yourself and helping those other kids. But maybe you could have found a better way?”
Year Two
The next year at camp, John was my friend and tent mate. We got our tent up and were unpacking. John had a shoebox full of firecrackers. Yikes, they were illeagle in camp even if legal in Wisconsin.
“you need to keep those hidden,” I said. “I don’t want to go home on the bus again and I don’t think my parents would be too understanding.”
“Maybe I should just toss them,” John said. With a devilish look he said, “I’ll hide them under some wood in the firepit. They’ll burn in tonight’s campfire.”
“Burn, right. Light more like it,” I said. “That gives me an idea.”
The tents were all ‘baker tents.’ Emagine a large rectangle. Stand at the long side and think of four walls. The top if the tent, in front where are would be about six feet high. The back wall would be about four feet high. The roof would slope down from you to the back. Two vertical wooden poles at the corners of the front, abd guy ropes would hold it all up. Cut the ropes and the whole thing collapses. So now that you can see one in your mind, what do you think we’re going to do?
I took a rope and cut off a piece about one inch long. Watch, I said and lit the end. The rope glowed and burnt like a cigarette. It took about five minutes to burn. The rope was a strand of twisted strings. I took a firecracker and slit it’s fuse into the strands. “See,” I said. “Lite the rope and you have about a five-minute fuse. When it’s close to dark we’ll go plant these all-around camp. When they go off, we can be somewhere we can use fir ab alibi.”
I’ve got another idea,” John said, “Come on outside.” He pointed to the knot that secured the guy rope. “Burn the knot and the tent falls down.”
I grinned and nodded. “Let’s cut some fuses and get ready for dark.”
After dark we planted and lit about twenty rope-fused firecrackers. Next we lit a bunch of tent rope before we headed for Mr.P’s. leader tent.
“Wait,” John said. He rant to our tent and pulled off a rope. He made sure the green canvas covered our cots and supplies. He ran back to me. “We can say ‘they’ got our tent too.”
We knocked then entered Mr. P’s tent. “We just wanted to check over the itinerary for tomorrow. What time do we get to use the beach?”
Mr. P. checked some papers. “Let’s see,” he said.
Pop. Pop. Pop, Pop. Firework explosions sounded from all around the camp. The three of us rushed outside. Scouts scurried everywhere, some with flashlights, most without. Five or six tents had collapsed.
Mr. P. was incredibly angry. He lined everyone up and went down the line, yelling at each scout, asking for a confession. He stepped back and looked left and right, surveying us all. “Ok,” he said. “Until I find out who has the fireworks, no beach privileges.”
“But what about us?” John asked. “We were in your tent.”
“Everyone except you two,” he said. “Now get those tents back up and restow your gear. Then lights out. We have a big day tomorrow that doesn’t include the lake.
Back in our own tent I looked at John. “I thought there’d be more laughing. I thought it would be funnier.”
“Ya. Me too.”
The Outhouse
Mr. P. Only kept everyone from the beach for just the first day. John and I didn’t go there. We both felt guilty.
Just after lunch we hiked back to our campsite. Tomahawk is a rustic campsite with tents, camp fires, sleeping bags and an outhouse. We all hated the outhouse. It always smelled one of two ways. You smelled poop or pinesol.
:Any fireworks left,” I asked. “If you have any we should get rid of them.”
We ducked into our tent. John checked under his sleeping bag. “Just these.” He held out three firecrackers with their wicks twisted together.
“Let’s get rid of them—safely” I said. “We’ll toss them down the outhouse. We headed for the stinky wooden shack.
“I hate going in there,” John said.
“Look,” I said and pointed to a small triangular hole at the bottom of a board in back. “Let’ s just toss them in that way. They’ll drop down the hole.” I took the firecracker bundle and began to stuff it in the hole.
“Let’s not waste them,” John said an lit the twisted fuses.
BAM! SPATTER, spatter, spatter.
“What the!”
Mr. P. came out, holding his arms out to his sides. He was covered in tiny brown spots. He glared at us with a face that looked like it was full of freckles.
I took the fall. Yes, I took the Greyhound.
Year Three
I’ll keep this year brief. We made miniature catapults, baited with tootsie rolls that flung chipmunks. (It didn’t hurt them). We had the camp’s biggest water fight. I’ll spare the fight details. It was one team of counselors against another. They held it up at the dining hall. John and I watched, then decided to join in even if uninvited. The counselors monopolized all the faucets to fill their buckets and had limited luck with a garden hose. John and I ducked the spray from the tiny hose and opened the big white cabinet that held the firehose on a big reel. I grabbed the brass nozzle. John worked the round red valve. Woosh! We were in business and quickly in command. That high pressure stream of water could knock over the biggest counselor.
Our error was getting too far away from the valve. The stream softened to a trickle. The college boys ran for us. We ran for the trees.
We escaped but at each meal we’d keep our heads down as one or two counselors would walk slowly along the rows of diners looking for something, someone… okay, for us. The second day they got us, took us behind the dining hall and put us in a dumpster. They dumped garbage on us and soaked us with the garden hose.
“I guess that means they wone,” I said when we climbed out of the dumpster.
“Not necessarily,” John added.
That night we worked our way down a path in the dark. We got to a spot where John turned on his light. He trained the dim yellow beam on a branch with what looked like a paper mâché football.”
“Why is that here and what are we doing?” I asked.
“A wasp nest,” John said. “Don’t make any noise. They’re asleep.” John climbed up and carefully slipped a brown paper shopping bag over the nest and broke it from the branch. Back on the ground he said, “It’s a gift for the counselors. Come on. Let’s deliver it to their barracks.
The counselor barracks were next to the dining hall. At the barracks, John shook the bag. I’m waking them up because I don’t want them to get hurt. He pulled open the barrack door, threw in the paper bag and ran. I was right behind.
Lucky for us and the counselors, that paper bag didn’t burst or open. Unlucky for us, the camp director had a visit with Mr. P. that morning.
Again, I took the blame. Lucky for the Greyhound Bus driver, he filled that empty seat.
