Camping out with the Boy Scouts

It was about this time each year when the matter of Camp Rotary came up.  This wonderful Boy Scout Camp (girls used it, too) was located in the boon docks at the edge of Bal Hinch.  It ran from the entry gate all the way down to Sugar Creek.  I have no idea how many acres it contained but when I was a lad, it seemed like hundreds of acres.  I would guess, maybe 60 or so.  After we attained our full tenderfoot scout rank --we were no longer "Cub Scouts" -- If we had the small fee, we could go to Camp Rotary for a week or maybe even two weeks in the Summer.  There we were awakened by a real bugle call from a real player.  I remember John Marshall was the bugler.  I don't know who woke him up.  Anyway --  let me tell you a little about this wonderful camp, in case you never got the experience of going there.

There was a swimming pool of sorts.  It was a dammed up creek supplied by a spring which filled it with water about 30 degrees cold -- well, not quite that cold but it felt like it.  There were wooden flat floors over which were pitched old army tents which housed eight boys each with four bunk beds.  If it rained, we got wet!  Yes, a few boys cried the first night or two from homesickness but we got them over that pretty fast.  Each tent had a name -- mine was Pine Tree Patrol.  We were in competition with the other tents (patrols) for various events.  We had string burning contests and fire building contests and water boiling contests and all sorts of dangerous events (sarcasm intended).  We made up skits and learned to march in step and had a flag.  Sounds like my basic training in the USAF.  No wonder I got through that so well.

That bugle call meant get your butt out of bed and go to the mess hall -- but first -- get your wash pan off the nail hung on the back of the building -- and wash your hands and face in cold water.  Then, what a breakfast!  Oatmeal and eggs and toast and hot chocolate. (My grandmother was the cook).  

Then it was the teaching of skills.  Make a fire with only two matches or with no matches and friction or flint -- Identify various trees and plants (poison ivy? and poison oak?)  -- learn how to use a knife properly  -- how to pitch a tent and ditch a tent .  We learned to tool leather and make lanyards. There were so many things I learned that I still use today.   

Each meal was eaten in the chow hall and was wrought with tradition with younger scouts catering to the older scouts with more rank.  We could look to the day we were the older scouts and so it went as the years passed.

There was an outside chapel with logs for seats.  No special religion  -- no preacher -- just a nice peaceful interlude on Sunday morning. 

We learned to swim and save lives in that freezing pool.  We learned to canoe in Sugar Creek.  And then there was that night I went out to earn a special camping badge.  All alone with a few bits of food an my knife and shovel and little pup tent and a blanket -- I stayed out in the woods. You can't imagine how many sounds there are in the woods until you are all alone. That's right -- at the ripe old age of 12 or 13, we learned how to make it on our own for one long day and night.  I thought the sun would NEVER come up!

Well so much for reminiscing about Camp Rotary.  I just wonder how it is now.  I'll bet they have a nice warm pool and stay in a shelter and don't worry about the rain.  You think they really go out and camp all night alone?  I hope so -- but I doubt it!

That's it from Olaf Hart