Chaos! …followed by calm (and mosquitoes, biscuits, goofiness, etc.)…ok, maybe not so much calm

What a great week at camp!  Honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever been to or heard of a bad week of summer camp…of course, I may be biased as an admitted Scouting believer, but while every camp is different – they’re all more or less the same.  Good/wholesome learning, fun, adventure, sweating, and bugs.  I suppose that sums this week up pretty accurately!

I could wax poetic about a lot of things from this week, some of which you’ve seen photos of on our Facebook page.  There was some Scouts’ desire (without any prompting) to wake up at 5am (!) to go fishing, the realization that kids can snore just as loud as adults, the wide-eyed looks as many of our scouts discovered creamed/chipped beef for the first time, the claim that one of our Scouts chipped a bone from hitting the water so hard when he fell off a tube on the river (don’t worry – did not occur), the great biscuit controversy, the general tomfoolery and consistent laughter, the epic card games that occurred during “siesta” (an hour break after lunch before afternoon classes begin), the quadruple-decker hammock that our senior Scouts built, or – probably the thing that will turn into Troop 58’s summer camp 2018 legend – the persistent raccoon(s) that regularly stole clothing, sandwiches, flashlights, chairs, and even someone’s toothpaste.  I’ll leave it to you to decide whether a raccoon truly stole all of these items, let alone a tube of toothpaste, but we’ve all had many laughs each morning swapping stories of the latest piece of gear that was there last night, but is suspiciously not there in the morning.

But the more exciting and rewarding parts of the week have been centered around the learning and growth our scouts have experienced.  Watching our Scouts shaping bare metal into a usable object, learning how to safely ride an all-terrain vehicle (ATV), exploring different ecosystems while cataloging various animals/plants/insects, building robots, learning new knots/lashings, flying drones, safely shooting rifles and bows/arrows, cooking GREAT meals (with plenty of bacon for the Scoutmaster), learning lifesaving skills, or handcrafting a leather pocketknife pouch – I could literally go on and on – has made me quite proud.  The really rewarding part, however, has been watching the Scouts pair up automatically via the buddy system to explore the camp’s activities or travel to class – without us telling them to do so.  Seeing the senior Scouts take a block of free time and go to the Eagle merit badge preparation center to do research for future merit badges.  Seeing the troop work like a team to help their fellow Scouts through a few bouts of homesickness (no calls home so far!)  Establishing a schedule on their own to raise and lower the American and Troop 58 flags first thing in the morning and before sunset in the evening.

Again, I could go on and on…but I’d rather just have you join me for summer camp in 2019 and see all of this for yourself!  It has been a hot, dirty, mosquito-heavy, tiring week – but there are great experiences and smiles all around…that’s what its all about!

Hearty thanks go out to all of our drivers to/from camp, and particularly to Dan Van Hulle (ASM, summer camp coordinator, and leader of the adult summer camp biker gang), Rich “Doc” Goodwin (ASM, med manager, and the guy who never says no to anything I ask for help with), Eric Anderson (our newest ASM, new scout/Brownsea liaison for the week, and man who endured countless hours of adult training during camp), and Mike Croissant (ASM, my role model for cool/calm action, and our firehouse lawnmowing guru) – without all of these parents supporting us, we wouldn’t have gotten to, let alone through, summer camp.