After a few days in the woods doing manly manly things we were
starting to get a little ripe. The official camp policy was to wash
with canteen water and swab the decks the best we could to freshen
up. It was not good enough and my troop sought out the local stream
which was less than a foot deep and actually colder than ice. At
first we were just using it to wash our torsos and feet and then we
decided to go full monty and get really clean. The main problem with
that was that the Timberline scout camp was bordered on the west by a
family camp ground and when we got really loud playing naked in the
water it piqued the interest of the outdoorsy type families that we
our neighbors and they came for a little look-see. They evidently
were the type of puritanical folks who can be offended by a little
public nudity in the woods and an unofficial spokesman for the group
yelled at us to knock that off and put our clothes on. We ran back to
camp and got dressed and laid low but the good citizen of family camp
decided to report us to the camp leadership to make sure we were
disciplined. Well, his wish was granted and we were once again in big
trouble and had to clean up the whole camp area again and haul all of
the garbage up to the garbage truck. It was unjust we thought to
punish us for trying to get clean, a virtue supposedly enshrined in
the scout law.
