Anecdotes from Scouting - Yesteryear

    Spencer Olsen and a bunch of us went on a very long hike in the Hoosier National Forest near Camp Maumee. Spencer was undersized and a cute kid; the oldest child of his family. At the end of this very tiring march across hill and dale, a bunch of us sat and rested or climbed up the tall remote fire tower in the forest. Perhaps it was the genius idea of a Scout like Spencer to drop a sock from the top of the tower, but it got hung up in a branch, maybe 20 to 25 feet off the ground. So, many of us spent a good deal of time throwing all sorts of objects high to the branch trying to dislodge it, including a spear-like wooden stick. Well, little Spencer (a diminutive kid) chucked the spear, and it proceeded to arc beautifully high and straightforwardly into the hood of a nicely painted vehicle, pushing a well rounded dent into its metal frame.

    Spencer was distraught! Aghhh! No grief audibly uttered by Charlie Brown had ever been as gut wrenching. "Noooooooooooo!". We were trying to retrieve his sock, not partially disfigure a perfectly fine motor car. That was a tough blow for little Spencer. I think it was his fault the sock was originally caught, and then the blow to the car was also his blame. He was quite bamboozled. 

    Hours later, we forlorn or well bushed young men laid our well-worn back packs and rucks in the shelter of the front walk way of our church on Second Street, that much closer to the relative safety and calm of our homes and parents, but also a further guilty and remorseful reckoning for poor Spencer and his wayward mishaps of the end of our campout.

    

    I was not too worse for the wear, having not gotten my sock stuck in a tree, which was probably the brainchild of another boogey nosed Scouter, and the not-so-smart hurling of the spear. I had also the genius to save a robust Twix candy bar, which had survived till the end of the strenuous adventures of our troop. I probably should not have revealed it there in the last hour, awaiting our parents to pick us up, but when Spencer saw it he could not resist. "Oh, if I could have that, [my friend], (he likely called me by name), that would mean so much..."

    I thought about things like what would be the right thing, what would make me a hero, what it is to not be selfish, what would Jesus do, go the extra or second mile.

    I gave it to him. The whole thing? I think so. Not even splitsies. Really?

    Wow.

    Miracles can happen. 

    I am not sure what happened in fixing that car hood. But we had a time.