Simple America

Gong back to Camp Strake always causes a lot of reminiscing. I spent a week there for three summer camps and probably 4 or 5 weekends of camping on those grounds. I recall looking for alligators swimming in the lake. Shooting arrows and .22 rifles. First time I had a rifle pointed at my head. Still cannot believe they let that kid get up there without a safety briefing.

I remember riding in rowboats and canoes on the lake. My first year at camp I could not swim. So I could not canoe unless a counselor went out in the canoe with me. The counselor took me out early in the week. Then I hounded the guy to take me out again. I was persistent and irritating, of that I have no doubt. I was eager to do anything to get a canoe ride and one afternoon the counselor sent me to get a tool that he needed. He required a “left-handed monkey wrench”. Who better than I to fetch it for him? So I ran all the way to the camp headquarters, eager to complete my quest and go canoeing.

When I arrived at HQ the head of Camp Strake was there. We called this fellow Smokey the Bear, as he wore a campaign hat and he was as big as a bear too. He asked me what I wanted and I told him. Smokey looked a little pissed, but he was quick with his response. He got a piece of cardboard, a string and a crayon. He drew a picture of monkey wrench and even adorned it with a left hand. Then he tied the string on and told me to give it to the counselor and that he was to wear it until supper was over that evening.

So I walked back to the canoes. Really perturbed that there was no “left-handed monkey wrench” and trying to figure out why he would trick me in this manner. I gave him the drawing and left. Don’t think he would have given me a ride after that embarrassment and did not want to have him throw me overboard. Probably feed me to the alligators too. I do remember seeing him at supper that evening. He wore the picture though it was flipped backwards. At least until Smokey walked by and righted it.

Couple of years later we were there for a weekend canoeing outing. I could swim now and we were looking forward to earning our canoeing merit badge. It was a fun camp out. Me and this other boy wanted to mess with this one kid and flip over our canoe. Kid was a tattle tale and we were fed up with him. So we got in our canoe and we were paddling from one end of the lake to the other, a journey of a two miles maybe. We saw the canoe landing and my friend and I decided it was now or never.

We flipped the canoe over and splash, we’re in the lake. Here’s a couple of notes for future boys that might consider being this stupid. First off if you wear glasses, and I did, secure them. My glasses are still in the bottom of the lake, unless an alligator ate them. Second don’t wear hiking boots as they weigh a ton when wet. I was going down for the third time when my scoutmaster finally pulled me up onto the side of his canoe. He rowed me in to the landing and he gave me a well deserved kick in the ass. I assure you it was not the first nor was I the last. He would have got kicked out today. But I think those kicks made me a better man, cause I always deserved them.

These memories were fresh in my mind at wood badge. Especially since the campfire and Sunday service took place at the site we camped upon for the canoeing weekend. We also went there for fishing campouts. Those were always memorable. We were much too loud to ever catch a fish. Half the time we hooked ourselves our another boy. I remember that pain. I remember this stupid kid picking up a fish head, while the dads were cleaning the fish. The guts were hanging down and there were bulges in the intestines. He was like what this? So he pushed down on them all the way until they ended and out game the fish poop. All over his feet and socks. Glad he was not in my tent.

The campfire at wood badge was really beautiful. Not as big as when I was a boy, but we had a lot more people at those campfires. I looked up at the stars and thought about mistipurple and caracole. Those two are always looking at the stars so they can connect to each other. So Friday when the campfire burned I looked up into the heavens and sent my thoughts to the stars. I sought out friends in Kansas and in the north (Etchen which state do you reside, Ohio, Michigan or none of those mentioned, haha), and Philly. I looked for reflections to my buds in Belgium, England, and Spain. Definitely had to send a lot of light to Singapore and Malaysia and I must never forget Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. So if you felt something Friday, your ears burning, a blinding star, whatever it was just me thinking of you while I listened to the music of the wind blowing through the Texas Pine Trees.

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Last weekend I attended Wood Badge class at Camp Strake near Conroe, Texas. Before I proceed I want to state that this is my blog. It is about me and how I see things. This is not a Boy Scout blog, but I happen to be Boy Scout leader and I use this blog to talk about me. So if the Boy Scouts offend you skip this post. If I offend Boy Scouts with some of my other posts or links that is too bad also. You can skip this blog if offended. Everyone else please enjoy.

Wood Badge training is the highest accomplishment an adult leader can receive in Boy Scouts. It is the only world wide award offered in scouting. This weekend I had the honor of joining 48 other adult leaders in class SR-719 at Camp Strake or Camp Gilwell as the tradition renames any place that Wood Badge occurs. The leaders covered the spectrum of scouting from Tiger Cub Den Leaders all the way to District Chairmen. We had a staff of 19 leading us through this course and their experience was just as varied, and each of them had completed the Wood Badge course.

Just a brief history and a link. The first Wood Badge course took place at Gilwell Park in London, England and was overseen by Lord Robert Baden-Powel the founder of scouting. The day was September 8, 1919. To get more detailed information on Wood Badge follow this link:   http://www.woodbadge.org/

The group arrived by 7:30, I had to get up at 5 in order to be on time. Parked and checked in for my room assignment. We stayed in 8 man dorms for this session. They gave us our Sam Houston Area Council (SHAC) Wood Badge cap and took our pictures. We chatted a bit. They gave us a long colorful string and we worked on our woggles (see picture below). The weather was perfect then and it stayed that way for the entire weekend. After everyone had a chance to finish their woggle, we attended the opening flag ceremony. We were Webelos Scouts for this event and we would cross a bridge just like Webelos do when they advance from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. But first we had a flag ceremony. At each ceremony three flags are raised, the American flag, the unit flag, and a historic flag. Friday saw the Betsy Ross with its circle stars grace the flag pole.

After that was done we crossed the bridge when our name was called. We crossed the bridge and shook hands with the Scoutmaster for Gilwell Troop 1 and received out neckerchief and patrol assignment. The neckerchief is a beauty. It has the McLaren tartan ( you will see it at the wood badge site) and the wood badge totem is on the back along with the number one, as we are members of Troop 1. The wood badge totem is an axe that has bit into a log and it is also displayed at the wood badge site.

I was assigned to the owl patrol. This is one of eight patrols at wood badge. The others were beavers, bobwhite (a type of quail), eagle, fox, bear, buffalo, and antelope. There were six people in my patrol, five men and a woman. By the end of the weekend we would become quite a team and the best part is we have one more weekend together. We also have some unique experiences. Only one of the other men and I were native Texans. The woman came from Oregon and another man came from Colorado so they were quite the mountain lovers. We also had an international flavor with our English and Palestinian members.

You see this process takes adults and by putting them into patrols we are now set up exactly like the boys. We must now work together as a team. One of us becomes the Patrol Leader, who meets with the Senior Patrol Leader (she was one of the staff). We also had another staffer as Patrol Guide to assist us. In a Boy Scout troop all of these positions with exception of Patrol Guide are filled by the boys. We ate every meal together, sat through troop meetings together, worked on projects together and leaned on each other and supported each other. In short order we became a family.

The weekend was filled with leadership training. We learned about project management, service, and outdoor skills. We sang lots of songs, some serious and others quite silly, but fun. We poked fun at the other patrols and did a lot of cheers. Very scout-tie in how things were done. Serious but laced with fun. We also had goals for each day and learned things to be used in the future.

Our first project was designing our patrol totem. This patrol has some talented folks and I am impressed by the design. I will scan and post it when I have a chance. But the totem is centered on a fleur-de-lis (scouting symbol, which represents a compass pointing north). The head of the owl is completed around that and the body is standing on a log with an ax (wood badge totem, remember) We wrote SR719 on the log. There are six claws grasping the log, more like circles, and the first name initial of each patrol member are marked upon each toe in the order the person will act as patrol leader. Below the log 5 tail feathers extend, one for each of the five districts of the six members represented in the patrol.

We also started to think about our personal vision. Our classes for that day focused on developing a vision based on your values. The vision would be used in building your ticket. The ticked is a service project that you do for scouting. Something to help the scouting organization better function in the community.

After raising the Serapis flag, we really got a heavy dose of project management. We had training on this. We played games to work on these skills. And then we had our first team project. We built a bottle rocket. Each patrol was given the same kits and resources and from there we went to work. We put the rocket together and designed it, the whole nine yards. Then we got to fire them off. Ours must have gone 100 foot in the air, not the highest. And it came down pretty quickly too. In fact it almost landed in our laps, where most other rockets had cleared the firing patrols. Only one burst on the launch pad.

At the end of day two we were thinking heavily upon our next team project. An advertisement for all levels of scouting that would be taken and used by SHAC. We decided to base it on climbing events. We would depict Tigers standing on rocks, Cubs on horizontal walks, while Webelos scale a rock wall. Next Boy Scouts climb the side of a mountain, while Venture Scouts build a rope traverse to clear a small fissure. We call the theme Climbing Through Scouting.

I also completed my vision and had it approved. It is:

In 18 months, I see myself as a more knowledgeable and experienced leader, so that I can lead or coach Troop 80 scouts to perform meaningful community service for those in need.

The last day saw the Star Spangled Banner with its 15 stars and stripes run up the pole. We even sang the first verse of the song this flag inspired when Francis Scott Key watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry, Maryland. After that we had training on interfaith fellowship. How to conduct these gatherings without offending other faiths. Then we had one carried out for us by the staff.

It was a beautiful site I had visited as a boy scout. We had camped here before they built the conference center. That would have been late 60s early 70s. We used to fish here. Actually we were loud noisy boys and scared the fish. Fortunately, the dads set up a trout line and that fed us some catfish to go with the hushpuppies. It is also where we pushed off with canoes on the day I almost drowned. So a lot of memories intertwined with thoughts of God during this service. The patrols will be responsible for conducting a service at our next weekend together.

This day was busy for me as I was patrol leader on this day. In fact I am patrol leader until the next weekend we camp. We had a lot of leadership training. I had to go patrol corners. This is a meeting of all the patrol leaders, led by the senior patrol leader. At this time I presented our Climbing Through Scouting project and she approved it. Also discussed the next weekend, which will be a campout. We’ve been a little spoiled here, as all of our food is cooked in a dining hall. Next weekend we have to cook and clean the dishes.

After all the training was done we watched a movie, October Skies. This showed examples of things from out training. But it is a great story about boys with a passion and going after it despite the odds. I encourage others to watch it and I intend to get a hold of it for my family to watch. We had our final patrol meeting, completed out self assessment as we had done the two previous days and headed home.

The patrol will meet twice before our final weekend of training. The time will be used to complete our patrol project. I need to work on my ticket by defining the mission of my vision. This requires five goals that must be approved or very close to being approved before the campout. I have 18 months to complete the ticket. At the end we receive the wood badge beads that signify we have completed the program. But we have a lot of work to do before we get to that end.

Before I end this post I will leave you with two of our owl cheers. Yeah they are corny and cheesy. But this is scouts and that’s part of the fun.

Who are we? Who? Who? The Owls!

One for Owl. And Owl for fun!

We may have to work on these before the next weekend in November.

Well I have gone two days without crutches. Leg still hurts, especially if I hold it straight too long. But I got to get on with things.

I’m going to disappear for three days. I won’t have internet access, cell phones, TV, radios, DVDs all that kind of stuff. This is the first of two weekends for Wood Badge Training. Some of you might think, are you nuts? You hurt your leg. I should be okay. We’ll be staying in dorms this weekend and there is not a lot of walking. The program people said to come on, so I shall.

I missed the last Scout committee meeting for my troop. So now I have been volunteered as the Outreach Director. My job is to find Eagle Projects and other community service projects for the troop. Part of my Wood Badge requires that I work on my ticket. This is a service project which is akin to what the boys do on their Eagle projects. I’m considering taking the outreach and perhaps expanding the level for my ticket. Try to provide a match making service for organizations and scouts that are available to help in the Houston are. I’m still thinking about this. See what God provides and go with it.

Also a neat thing happened after the last troop meeting. I was talking with another dad. Found out he was in the Army around the same time as I. We even had the same job training for trouble shooting communication lines. Hell we even worked in the same building in Pyong Taek, Korea simultaneously for maybe a couple of weeks and ate in the same mess hall. It was fun talking with him. I know we’ll have some more interesting conversations in the future. Small World.

Of course some of you might wonder why I do not remember this person more definitely. I was in Pyong Taek for temporary duty on a special project, while he worked in a Top Secret area that I could not go in unless everything was sanitized. I would go in pull cables, solder and then rush out whenever they had to do something that I could not see or hear. So I was not focused on the people outside of the folks that traveled with me from Arizona.

I do remember one female soldier there. She was always trying to shock us. We were talking about drinking for some reason one day, and I asked her, “Don’t you drink water?”

She replied, “No I don’t. Fish fuck in it.”

And that’s all I remember of the people at that site in Pyong Taek.

I am going to miss you guys this weekend. Still have some more Ren Fest pics I want to post. The audit at the College sucks, but I think it is almost over. Really been stressing on this. Almost done. Phew!!!

Before I go my Houston Astros, a baseball team, won the National League pennant. So for the first time in their history they will go play the American League winner, Chicago White Sox, for the World Series Championship. Been waiting for this all my life. Won’t go to a game. The cheap seats won’t be cheap. But I’ll watch once I get back from the woods.

GO ASTROS!!!!!!!