Adventures in Boy Scouting (eBook)

Tales Told by the Old Scoutmaster

Robert Kellogg (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022 | 1. Auflage
272 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-4171-7 (ISBN)

Infos

It's the third weekend of the month. Where did everyone go? Start reading and find out. Maybe we're kayaking of Point Lobos, or we could be scuba diving off Big Sur, camping on Case Mountain is a possibility, or maybe we are at Kirks Creek searching for our inner self in the seven pools of enlightenment. You know wherever it is Troop 323 is, another adventure is sure to follow. What is so glorious about sleeping on the ground in a sleeping bag during a thunderstorm or a blizzard? You got to be there to know, or read this book. And bring the adventure to life.

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Have you ever sat around a campfire late at night with the stars shining high above and listened to young men, aged ten to eighteen, tell you about their hopes and dreams? It would amaze you. For twelve years I was privileged to have that 0pportunity. As a Scoutmaster, I had the best of both worlds, that of a leader and at the same time, a kid again. The stories told in this collection are all based on real events. It is possible there might be some slight embellishment to these tales, because more than a few years have passed since they took place. In retelling these stories, my goal is to rekindle the memories for the scouts who were there, memories of lessons learned and of the fun we had. It was the fun that provided the best learning opportunities. The scouts who played the parts in these stories will recognize themselves; I have, of course, changed all the names. And for those of you who have never been in Troop 323, here is the opportunity to imagine you were. I'm sure these stories will rekindle your own memories that mirror our adventures, although some of ours truly were outrageous. As to the leaders, Buck LaFoote is a compilation of many assistants, fathers, and committee members that worked tirelessly to help the troop succeed. Buck LaFoote, as Assistant Scoutmaster, represents the qualities that give the troop its spark, motivation, and sometimes comic relief. Troop 323 was fortunate to have several Buck LaFootes. The third weekend of the month was our weekend to go camping. I usually dreaded this time as it approached because it meant I had to put away any thoughts of work and get ready to spend a weekend away from the comforts and conveniences of home. It was a time BC-before cellphones. So once we got out into the woods or wherever we were going, we really were cut off from civilization. But on returning home, I couldn't wait until next month to get back out to our next adventure. So put down your cell phone or TV remote and join Troop 323, and let's go camping.

Textauszug

Puddle Duck

It was my first official campout as Scoutmaster of Troop 323. I was a brand-new Scoutmaster, and I had no idea what I was getting into. As the first order of business, I made what was to be the first of many trips over the years to the council office in Visalia to get the “Tour Permit”. A tour permit is required by the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) for any official troop outing. When a “Tour Permit” is issued by the Boy Scout council, the troop has medical and liability insurance coverage. Fortunately, in the face of all our escapades over the years, we had to rely on the medical insurance only a couple of times, the worst being a broken wrist. (That story comes later.)

With more luck than I deserved, I had talked one of my friends, Buck LaFoote, into helping me on this outing. Neither one of us knew anything about scouting, but misery loves company. Figuring we should keep this first campout as easy as possible; we planned the campout to be in Sequoia National Park in a developed campground called Potwisha. This was just several miles out of Three Rivers. We would camp Saturday night, then Sunday morning, hike the Marble Fork trail to Marble Falls, come back and go home. We had eight new scouts, one new Scoutmaster and his friend, and we were camping in a developed campsite and hiking on a well-traveled hiking trail. What could be safer, easier, or simpler?

The troop had no equipment at this point so we would use my old canvas Sears and Roebuck family tent circa 1959. This would easily hold our eight tenderfoot scouts. It took a bit of looking, but we finally dug this beautiful relic out of the back of my garage. We did have to fight off a bunch of mud daubers that felt they owned the tent. But in the end, we got it without too much trouble. I managed to avoid the wasps completely and Buck only got stung three times. I figured it a successful recovery, because we leaders would use Buck’s three-man nylon tent that was only ten years old, practically cutting edge compared to my family-size tent. As ignorance is bliss, we headed out Saturday afternoon on a beautiful spring day. Did we check the weather forecast? No, we did not.

Arriving at Potwisha in the early afternoon, we set up camp. It was a bit of a struggle as we had to knock all the mud dauber wasp nests out of the tent and then straighten some of the aluminum tent poles. Duct tape to the rescue. Once the tent was up, the scouts laid out their sleeping bags. Most of the boys had cotton fiber bags, not anything like the lightweight nylon and Gore-Tex waterproof ones we have today. No one thought to bring cots either.

Buck and I set up our tent under a very old and sturdy looking sycamore tree. Obviously, the park service felt this tree was special as it had an orange ribbon tied around the trunk, right above a painted blue X.

There were clouds gathering around Alta Peak far off to the east in the upper ranges of the Sierra Nevada mountains. But those clouds were real far away, no problem.

Dinner was basic and good. We had not gotten into gourmet dinners yet; that would come gradually in the next few years. Tonight, it was hot dogs roasted on sticks, marshmallows for dessert, then hot chocolate and coffee. Those clouds were building up, no worries. But it was strange that the campsite was as empty as it was: only a few campers and motor homes, and no one else had a tent set up.

The campfire after dinner was warm and enjoyable that evening. I had brought several books about the early adventures of settlers in the Three Rivers area to read to the scouts. The most popular story was out of the book The Dauntless Dillons. This book chronicles the great flood of 1867 on the South Fork of the Kaweah River. During this dynamic storm, the grove of giant sequoias known as the Dillonwood Grove was practically wiped out in an ensuing landslide and flood. Remnants of the sequoia logs are still found to this day, up and down the South Fork. After the last hot chocolate was finished and the last story told, the scouts moved off to the tent and their sleeping bags. Buck noticed that the breeze was picking up. But I assured him all would be fine. After all, we were in a tent protected by that special sycamore tree.

About midnight, the storm hit! The wind was blowing gale force and the rain was coming down so hard I couldn’t see my old Sears family tent from the one Buck and I were using. But I could hear some yelling and screaming coming from that direction. We figured we better check this out. So off we went from the warm dry sleeping bags in Buck’s tent out into the driving rain. Just as we made it to the half-collapsed Sears family tent, a bolt of lightning hit the old sturdy sycamore tree where we were camped. With a blast of thunder that nearly deafened us, the tree blew apart, and limbs, trunk, and debris rained down on us and our tent. The Sears family tent might be half collapsed from the rain, but our tent was flattened and shredded from the lightning. Maybe I should have checked the weather forecast before we left.

Not wanting to deal with our destroyed tent, we forged on to see what was happening to the scouts. Unzipping the tent door, we found eight scouts huddled on the upstream side of the tent. I say upstream because the collapsed side of the tent was a pool of water about six inches deep with four soggy sleeping bags half floating in the canvas pond. Further inspection of the structural integrity of the tent revealed a rip in the top of the tent that was acting like a funnel to fill the lower end of the tent. Buck hit upon a quick solution. He whipped out his pocket knife and sliced a six inch long hole in the bottom wall of the deep end. The water was now running out of the tent faster than it was coming in. Slowly the water drained out. This was good but we still had to find a warm dry spot for four of the scouts. Oh yes, Buck and I would like the same thing, since the exploding sycamore tree did our tent in.

Refuge from the storm was found in the back of my wife’s van, which I had borrowed for this campout. Folding all the seats down, we put the scouts in the back with packs and folded clothes for pillows and a couple of blankets to keep warm; they would make it through the night. Buck and I reclined the two front seats back and tried to sleep there. As a temporary fix, I had propped up the collapsed side of the Sears tent with some of the limbs from the “exploding sycamore tree” and my walking stick. Hopefully it would make it until morning. Before we took refuge in the van, now covered with sycamore leaves, we inspected the remnants of our tent. It was a sad state of affairs, but we did salvage our backpacks. It was a small victory. Morning dawned clear and as beautiful as could be, except the campsite looked like a tornado had gone through it.

As we were surveying the disaster, a park ranger came by. “Boy howdy,” he said, “I can’t believe you guys camped out in that storm last night. We had over two inches of rain. And from the looks of that sycamore stump and the smashed tent, you guys lucked out. Didn’t you see the marking on that tree? It was scheduled to be removed as a hazard tree. Well, now all we have to do is clean it up.” I couldn’t argue with him.

About that time, I spotted my pickup truck driving into Potwisha campgrounds. Right behind my truck was Buck’s wife in her car. Seems like our wives had a pretty good idea of our camping skills and figured the scouts shouldn’t have to suffer for our shortcomings. They brought bacon, eggs, sausages, hot chocolate, and best of all, several thermoses of coffee. This was a definite improvement over the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches I had planned. Besides, the bread was now mush since it was stored in the downstream side of the tent. We got the scouts preparing breakfast. While they were doing that, we loaded up the pieces of our tent and the collapsing Sears tent in the back of my pickup.

We, at least Buck and I, were determined to finish out the campout. I mean, all we had to do was hike a little way up to Marble Falls and back. Then load the scouts back up and drive back to Three Rivers. How hard could that be? Dumb question! As we headed out, our wives took the folding camp chairs out of the trunk of the car and set them up around the campfire. “You boys go on,” my wife said, “We’ll wait here for you and make sure you make it back. If not, at least there will be someone to tell the rangers to send out a search party.” With that they took out some books and crocheting and sat down to wait for our hopeful return. Their faith in us left us feeling less than confident.

The Marble Fork trail starts at the back side of the Potwisha campground. So off we marched. The trail, at this point, was smooth, wide, and covered with decomposed granite. No problem, we should be up and back by noon. But as the trail wore on, it got narrower, steeper, and much less decomposed granite. In fact, it turned to mud—sticky mud, the kind of mud that sticks to the bottom of your boots and makes it harder and harder to walk. About a mile and a half up the trail, we made it out of the quagmire. Normally, getting out of mud is a good thing. Getting out of mud and onto a rockslide with massive boulders blocking the trail is not a good thing. The scouts were sure that they could climb up and over the blocked trail, so we tried. Much to my surprise we were able to safely do this. We continued onward. We did not, however, meet anyone else on this well-traveled trail. Might there be a reason for this?

About an hour later, we had the answer to the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 5.5.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Comic / Humor / Manga
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-4171-8 / 1667841718
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-4171-7 / 9781667841717