Welcome to Part Two of Two, the part of the Massawepie story
where I actually tell you about Massawepie!
Sunday morning, after Mass, we got to camp and unloaded.
While doing so, Choclo, who was wearing sandals, cut his foot
on a branch. We patched it up, thinking nothing of it, and went off to the
MedCheck & Swim Tests, which are always the first two things in any summer
camp.
But a surprise awaited us at MedCheck. They looked at Choclo’s
foot and decided that he couldn’t swim that week (swimming was in a lake, not a
pool). He was signed up for the swimming merit badge for his first two periods
out of six, so obviously, he would have to be reassigned.
We went down to the lake and did our swim tests (all but
him), finished unpacking, and had the
somewhat insubstantial meal the dining
hall served. It was by far the loudest dining hall any of us had ever been in.
They kept us busy all day long, but at the end of the day
was the “Drop/Add” session, where we tried to change Choclo’s Swimming badge. It
was then that we learned Choclo was not, in fact, signed up for swimming. In
fact, none of the boys were signed up for anything at all.
They had received
our order & sent a receipt, but hadn’t put any boys into
any actual merit
badge classes. We had to sign the boys up for whatever was still open, stuffing
them into already-overstuffed classes, whether they had requested them or not.
The situation was not ideal, but there it was, and we had no choice but accept
it.
Once it was there, though, it wasn’t so bad. Alex, our
Assistant SPL, was put into a class of Swimming & Water Rescue, which is a
certification rather than a merit badge, but that suited him just fine, as it
gives him an edge in lifeguarding or even working at another summer camp in the
future.
The other boys were given between four and six merit badge classes
each, ranging from canoeing and shotgun to white-border badges necessary for the
Eagle rank, such as cooking and First Aid. During their regular classes, our scouts
completed 33 merit badges and earned 11 partials.
One of the most exciting things about Massawepie was its “open
program,” which encouraged scouts to come during their free time and try to
earn extra merit badges. Our seven boys who participated in open program got 17
badges in chess, fingerprinting, scouting heritage, fishing, and collections,
as well as two partials (which will likely be finished by August 20) in plant
science.
Between the regular and open programs, then, the nine boys
in Troop 740 earned an astonishing 50 merit badges and 13 partials. Oob, earned nine badges and four partials on his own, while Choclo,
earned seven badges and three partials.
Now, there were two natural hazards to get around at
Massawepie. The first were the mosquitos. Here in Maryland, our mosquitos obey
the laws of chemistry and physics—if you wear DEET or burn a citronella candle,
the beasts generally stay away; if not, you get bit by the nigh-invisible
critters. Up north, it’s a bit reversed. No matter how much DEET, citronella,
or other chemical you used, these particular mosquitos went right on attacking.
And they were large. So large, in fact, that when they landed on you, you could
feel it, and believe me, you could see them, too. The advantage to this is that
their bulk made them so slow that you could hit them about 75-80% of the time.
The bad point was that there was just nothing you could do to get rid of them.
The second hazard was the night time. It got cold—much colder
than I was expecting, anyway. Here it was, July, yet one night it got down to
38 degrees Fahrenheit. I almost needed to put my sleeping bag in a sleeping
bag, that night. (It did warm up after that.)
There were a few other shining points here and there, like
Juan’s perfect model rocket flight on Friday morning, Ian’s painting of a troop
sign to hang in the dining hall, D.C.’s gathering a crowd for his accordion
performance, Alex’s eventual certification in Swimming & Water Rescue, and our
roaring rendition of “Going over the Sea” (complete with rocking canoe) for the
skit, but the week eventually came to an end, as all things must. We packed up
and returned to Tupper Lake for their special Woodsmans’ Day celebration.
There, we saw a parade I’d wager very few Marylanders have
seen the likes of. For an hour and fifteen minutes, trucks (many of them
logging trucks), cars, motorcycles, and even bagpipers came parading by, tossing
double-handfuls of candy by the roadside at any kids they saw, including our
scout troop. We ended up leaving piles strewn on the street; there was simply
too much to pick up! Each boy ended up with perhaps a pound of free candy in
his pocket, as well as a lot of laughter.
We then walked down to the Woodsman’s Day Festival itself, the
main attraction of which was chainsaw art: wood carvings, made by chainsaw,
everything from owls to bears to manta rays. Several people took selfies with Groot.
After getting back on the road, our final stop before Chenango
Valley State Park was a funny little hotel, at the back of which was a steep
slope of shale. But this shale was special: it was full of fossils from the
Denovian era. Each boy was able to pick out several rocks with fossils ranging
from ancient clams and snails to plant life. One even found a trilobite!
We basically collapsed at Chenango Valley State Park, then
drove a couple of hours to a nice little
church for Mass. Well, it was nicer
than we thought—they all insisted that we share breakfast with them, and we
shared quite a nice conversation about scouting.
We even turned out to know
some friends of one of them, and by coincidence, we had spent summer camp 2018
at their local summer camp, Bashore, a convenient conversation point. All told,
it served as an excellent break for the Sunday drive back home.
It was the longest campout many of the boys had ever gone on.
For some, it will be the longest campout they’ll ever go on. It was a multi-faceted
adventure. It was alternately exhilarating and exhausting. And it was an
unforgettable success.--
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