The summer after ninth grade I went to scout camp twice.
I actually wasn’t a good boy scout. I liked camping and playing
sports but I was not into filling out forms and wearing uniforms. The
first camp I went to that summer was just for any run of the mill
scout in our troop. It was a week long affair held at a purpose built
camp at a local lake. I had never been to a real camp with scheduled
events and rules and singing and crafts and whatnot. I liked that
they had kayaks and guns and plenty of water chocked full of fish. I
didn't like all the bossiness about telling us when and where to be
and how to be dressed and all that nonsense. My scout battalions
penchant for anarchism was set on a collision course with Johnny
Scout Law and it was just a matter of time before the fit hit the
shan. I may not have got that salty phrase exactly right, I will look
it up. We started out fine on the first day before we had any
obligatory pageantry. We set up camp, got our food out, and got our
tents assembled. Then we went fishing and everything was glorious.
That too did pass and the schedule started bossing us around we were
required to eat dinner at 5, too early by a ways in my opinion
because we were burning daylight that could be better served fishing.
As we were cooking dinner it started to rain and kept right on doing
that for the rest of the night. We stayed under our pavilion joking
and playing around until 11 and then we retired to our sleeping bags
in our tents. The rain got worse and worse until between that and the
rain our tent had fallen down in the middle of the night. A kid named
Abe woke up confused and trying to sort out where and when he was and
why there was green mildewy ripstop nylon pressing against his face
in the dark, trying to loll him. A puddle of rain had formed in a
depression between him and I and when he lifted up the tent that was
holding the water it flowed right into my open sleeping bag. I was
sopping wet and miserable and I had a lot of night left to go when
this minor tragedy transpired. I shivered in my wet bag until there
was enough pre-dawn to see by and then I got up and changed. That is
when I realized that the cold and wet slumber had caused me to lose
my voice which was my super power and my curse. I sounded like a
smart-ass little raspy frog who had lost his normal projection and
volume. This made all of the funny sass that I provided for the rest
of the week more funny and less audible which had the effect of
having everyone ask what was said and getting to repeat my joke.
