Friday couldn’t come fast enough. All day I wasn’t paying attention in any of my classes. I was reviewing every little detail in my head. Every oath, motto, knot tying method, steps to start a fire. This weekend had to be perfect. We had to win this competition.
As soon as the last bell rang, I grabbed my bag and headed down to the boys locker room. We had ten minutes to change into our uniforms and meet the rest of the troop in the meeting hall. The other guys were already there and changing into their informs.
But Sawyer and Alex were, as usual, goofing off. Every meeting we had this week, they found an excuse to start some sort of punch-up rough-house match. One of them was always putting the other in a headlock making the other beg for mercy. Here they were, both shirtless, trying to grab the other and get them in a headlock.
“Come on guys! Get dressed. We need to be formed up in line in 5 minutes. I don’t want to take the chance on anybody docking us any points for any lame-ass reason.”
We all finished getting our uniforms on and bolted upstairs to the meeting hall. We found our assigned patrol line and fell into formation. Kyle and his kiss-ass cronies were standing at the front of the hall. I was waiting for Burnside to arrive. I kept looking around the hall, but he wasn’t there. The other parents were already gathering and reviewing the route to the camp site and reviewing the safety regulations. I was getting nervous. But then I reminded myself, Burnside is always late. He’ll make his own entrance when he’s ready.
“Form up and keep quiet!” Kyle bellowed in his whiny little voice.
We all snapped to attention.
“Tonight we are starting to train for the upcoming competition for the top prize, the All District Champion Trophy! I expect us to be perfect in everything we do. To make sure we are perfect, we are going to start the weekend with a uniform inspection! “
“OK, we got this. ” I said to myself. We spent two days making sure our uniforms were perfect. We sewed on every patch ourselves. We double checked exactly where they were supposed to go. But something felt off. I noticed people were looking at us. For some reason I felt like people were looking at us and laughing.
Kyle and Scoutmaster Miltner started walking up and down each row inspecting our uniforms. The room was dead silent. And you guessed, it, that was the perfect time for Burnside to make his grand entrance. The door swung wide open and slammed against the wall. Burnside just stood there..posing. What a ham. You knew he loved it. I have to admit it was funny. But it made the tension even more intense. Burnside strolled over to our row and stood behind us in formation.
Kyle and Scoutmaster Miltner finally reached our patrol. Kyle looked at us and started laughing. That caused the others around us to start laughing also. What the hell was so funny?
“Are you serious?” Kyle asked. “Are you seriously saying that uniforms is worth passing inspection?”
“You got a problem? Did you piss your pants again? Just like in 2nd grade?” Sawyer quipped.
“You got a mirror?” Kyle snapped back. Just look at your patches. Not one patch is sewed on straight. Not one patch is in alignment with the other. This is just sloppy patchwork.”
I looked around and pure dread came over me. Kyle was right. I now saw what the others were laughing at. Every scout had their uniform patches in perfect lines and perfect placement. They were perfect. And I looked at all of our uniforms. Everything was crooked, out of line and just …messy.
“I should ban you from going right now. You can not represent our troop looking like that.”
“But you won’t.” Burnside snarled at Kyle. I loved when Burnside did that. It scared the crap out of Kyle. “Scoutmaster Miltner, can I talk to the troop?”
“Go ahead.” Miltner agreed. Burnside walked to the front of the room.
“Boys, excuse me, …gentlemen. Now is the time I want you to tell me the truth. When you were preparing for this trip, how many of you asked your parents to press your uniform? Did they take it to the cleaner to sew on any badges for you? Raise your hand.”
Almost every hand in the room went up.
“So what?” Kyle objected. “That’s how it’s done.”
“Put your hands down gentlemen.” Burnside continued. “Now raise your hand if you sewed on your patches yourself, cleaned your own uniform and ironed your own clothes.”
Every hand in our patrol went up.
Burnside walked back to Kyle and Scoutmaster Miltner. “These boys are self-reliant. I say that’s just as important as being trustworthy, helpful, kind obedient and thrifty. Sure, they’re slobs.” (Burnside winked at me). “But they are independent go-getters. I’ll take that any day.”
Miltner looked at Burnside side-eyed. “In situations like this, Scoutmasters can award small points to any patrol or individual scout. They do this when they witness something worth acknowledging. I want to recognize the patrol The Magnificent 7’s effort. They took the initiative to care for their own uniforms. They obviously worked together to prepare and attempted to be self-reliant. I am awarding one point to The Magnificent 7 patrol!”
Our troop exploded into high fives and yelling. I saw that every other troop was pissed at us. But I didn’t care. We did it ourselves and now we have one extra point advantage. I was positive we are going to win the entire thing.
“Form up!” Kyle snapped. “We will now fall out and drive to the camp site at Olympic State Park. As a reminder, it is a privilege that our adult supervisors are driving us. There will be no fooling around, eating or drinking in any of the vehicles on the way. FALL OUT!”
We picked up our gear, our assigned patrol box and followed Burnside out of the hall. On the way to the door, it hit me, what exactly was Burnside driving? I only saw him driving his motorcycle. I can’t imagine him driving anything else. But as we walked out the door, the entire patrol, no the entire troop was blown away! While the rest of the patrols were loading into their parent’s mini vans, Burnside led us to his van.
It was a fully restored, fully customized 1963 VW Van. Burnside clearly spent a ton of time and money restoring and customizing this thing from the ground up. New tires, new bumpers, headlights.
New tires, new bumpers, headlights. And new paint job. But this wasn’t an ordinary two-tone paint job. The base coat was a robin’s egg baby blue. But over that the entire van was bathed in paisley prints.
It also had images of tons of art pieces, comic book art, and even album covers. I recognized a few of these like Warhol’s Marylin Monroe, Van Gough’s Starry Night and, Keith Haring drawings. He even had small illustrations of Bowie’s Aladdin Sane album cover and Elvis Costello’s My Aim is True. It really was a rolling version of the Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover! Typical Burnside, always making an impression. And I loved it. Someday I hope I am this brave. Laughing, we bolted to the van, opened the back hatch and loaded our gear.
As I looked at the art on the the van, I noticed a word painted between two paisley cells. I saw it written in cursive in thin black paint.
Rumspringa.
What the hell did that mean? Sawyer came up to me and saw me starting at this strange word.
“Recognize that?” He asked.
“Not really.” I had this weird feeling. I knew this word. But at the same time I was clueless. I couldn’t figure it out.
“That’s the band.” Sawyer said.
“What?”
“That was their band, your dad and Burnside. Everything on here must be something important to him. He put this here as a way to honor that memory.”
We opened the side sliding door and piled in. The interior was just as customized as the exterior. Wild fabric seats, shag carpeting on the ceiling and even a disco ball hanging from the sunroof handle. We piled in and I started to pull the sliding side door shut. I saw the other patrols loading into their parent’s cars.
“Be sure to get any dirt off your shoes before you get in.” Parents reprimanded.
“NO food or drinks!”
“Spit out that gum.”
“No personal headphones!”
I pulled the door shut. Burnside hopped into the driver’s seat and turned around to look at us.
“Like the ride? Good. First order of business, SEAT BELTS on now please. We’re not moving without them.”
With Burnside’s renovations, we all had up-to-date seat belts. We all buckled in.
“Good.” Burnside said. “2nd order of business..” He lifted the lid of the center console that was between the driver seat and the front passenger seat.
“Snacks! Only if you didn’t bring your own. None of it is healthy but it makes the ride more fun. The center console was stuffed with individual bags of potato chips, popcorn, peanuts, candy. We all dove in and grabbed a bag or two.
“And lastly….” Burnside reached up to a center console hanging from the roof of the van. As the console popped down, we discovered it was filled with CDs. All of our favorite bands were in here. It was just like the box of albums I had in my room. The Ramones, The Clash, The New York Dolls, even new wave stuff like Elvis Costello and Squeeze they were all here.” Music!” Burnside grabbed one of the CDs and popped it into the player. He turned up the music and our magical mystery bus was off! Every one of us in our crazy bus was singing at the top of our lungs. Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones now became our anthem!
Hey ho, let’s go! Hey ho, let’s go!
Hey ho, let’s go! Hey ho, let’s go!
They’re forming in straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The blitzkrieg bop
They’re piling in the back seat
They’re generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The blitzkrieg bop
Hey ho, let’s go
Shoot ’em in the back now
What they want, I don’t know
They’re all revved up and ready to go
They’re forming in straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The blitzkrieg bop
They’re piling in the back seat
They’re generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The blitzkrieg bop
Hey ho, let’s go
Shoot ’em in the back now
What they want, I don’t know
They’re all revved up and ready to go
They’re forming in straight line
They’re going through a tight wind
The kids are losing their minds
The blitzkrieg bopThey’re piling in the back seat
They’re generating steam heat
Pulsating to the back beat
The blitzkrieg bopHey ho, let’s go! Hey ho, let’s go!
Hey ho, let’s go! Hey ho, let’s go!
________________________________________ 2 ______________________________________
We arrived at the camp site at Olympic State Park just before sunset. As soon as we all got out of our cars, Kyle immediately started yelling.
“Form up! In your lines by patrol!” He snapped. “This is a competition! I expect perfection at every moment! Our first challenge begins now! Each patrol will take their patrol box and set up their own camp site. This includes setting up your tent and cooking area. You have 20 minutes. I will walk from site to site and judge the best.”
“Actually” Miltner interjected. “I will be judging this event.”
Kyle turned red with fury. Immediately his mom started walking toward Miltner to complain. I knew he was going to get an earful from her.
“Ready.” Miltner shouted. “Start! You have 20 minutes.”
We were stunned. Where do we start? We looked to Burnside for help.
“Don’t look at me.” He said. “You know what to do.” Burnside turned and started reclining the seats in his van. When fully reclined they made a double bed. “Always travel in style boys.” He laughed that hyena laugh.
“OK, let’s get to work.” I told the others.
We opened the patrol box. It was perfect. It was exactly how we left it. Tent, mess kits, cooking gear, everything was in its place.
“Adam, Arnaub, you set up the tents back at the last meeting. Do you remember how to set these up?” Sawyer asked.
“We got this!” Adam exclaimed. He reached into the patrol box and pulled out the tent and rain fly. We’ll also need those poles” He pointed in the box. Alex grabbed the poles. “We need a good flat space.” Adam started walking around the area looking for the perfect space. “Here.” he pointed to the ground.
“First down goes our tarp.”
Sawyer grabbed the tarp from the patrol box and spread it out on the ground.
“Perfect” Adan said. Now we roll out the tent. Alex and Sawyer grabbed the other corners of the tent and spread it out on the tarp. “Now remember, just like we did it at home. Poles cross in the middle and through the sleeves.”
We all pitched in and got the pole inserted. Our tent was up within five minutes!
“Now for the cooking area.” Arnaub told us. We grabbed a picnic bench and brought it into our site. There we pulled out of the patrol box the camp stove, gas canister and mess kits. Arnaub remembered how it all went together. We put that camp stove together in less than two minutes! We were done!
Burnside noticed us being done. “Get the Scoutmaster’s attention. Tell him you’re done.” He prodded us.
We raised our hands and yelled “Done!” But he didn’t hear us. We tried again. But as I was trying to get Scoutmaster Miltner’s attention, I looked around and noticed something. The other patrols were way behind us in getting their sites ready. Nobody even had their tents set up yet. Patrol 10 was still trying to figure out how to properly lay out their tent. Patrol 5 wasn’t even trying. They were running around and trying to hit each other with sticks. And the most amazing sight was Patrol #1, Kyle’s patrol. They were standing around arguing. As usual Kyle was just standing there yelling at his team. His goon squad was getting angry at Kyle for yelling. They were snapping back at him to shut up. How are these guys even friends?
“Why don’t you set up the freaking tent?” They barked back at him.
“I don’t have to. I’m the leader. I lead, you work.”
It was clear their entire patrol has broken down. And because of that, the entire troop was breaking into chaos. Just then, Burnside stepped up and broke the chaos with the loudest two finger whistle anybody has heard. Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked right at us.
Scoutmaster Miltner saw our site and walked over.
“We’re set up.” I told him. MIltner looked stunned.
“How did you do this so fast?” He asked
“We had a lot of practice.” I told him. I also realized that learning how to do this when we were assigned the crappy job of cleaning out the patrol boxes taught us how to do this quickly. I looked over at Burnside. I realized he was right. We were given a tough job. Burnside made us do it and do it well. And now it paid off. I looked at him and gave him a nod of thanks. He nodded back.
“Well, you guys are on a roll.” Miltner announced. “One point for The Magnificent 7 patrol!”
We exploded in celebration and gave each other high fives and hugs all around! I also looked over at Kyle’s patrol. He was throwing an absolute tantrum yelling at his patrol. In anger, he threw the tent poles he was holding to the ground, bending them.
“OK, guys,” Arnaub rounded us up ” We can get our sleeping bags and packs into our tent. Let’s get that set up.”
I looked around at the chaos that was happening in the troop.
“Wait.” I said. There’s one more thing we need to do.
“What’s that?” Sawyer asked.
I just turned and walked over to Patrol 10. They were first year Tenderfoot rank, just like us. They were clearly struggling to get their site set up. I rounded them up and started to show them how to lay out the tent and how the poles should be set up.
Sawyer saw what I was doing.
“WTF?”
Then he sighed and came over to join me. He looked back at Arnaub, Alex and Adam. He pointed to Patrol 5.
“Do you guys want to help them out?”
The other 3 guys went over to Patrol 5 and started showing them how to get things set up. But with everybody working together, we got the rest of the patrol’s sites set up. All, except of course, Kyle’s patrol. We went to his site and offered to help. But he told us to piss off. So, they had to deal with it on their own.
I started to walk back to our group. Just before I reached our site, I passed Burnside.
“Nice job McDonald.” He said as I passed.
I looked at him right in those crazy eye of his.
“Thanks. For everything.”
I turned to my group.
“OK guys, now need to get our sleeping bags and packs into the tent. All 5 of us started throwing our gear into the tent and fighting for space. And that’s when I realized we have a major problem. There are five of us trying to squeeze into a standard scout-issued four man tent. Sawyer, being the hyper active tornado he always is, was climbing over the other kids, just so he could have an end. Adam, being the smallest was getting bumped around like a pinball. And Alex being the freakish tall Frankenstein that he is, couldn’t even fit in the tent laying down! If he lay flat with his head at one end, his feet still stuck out the door!
It was pure chaos as we all tried to roll out our sleeping bags, dig into our packs to find our sleeping clothes, change, and get into our bags. We were like a den of snakes reaching and crawling over each other to find our stuff.
And right on cue, Sawyer and Alex decided to get into a wrestling match in the middle of the tent. It was loud chaotic. It was what I imagine being in the middle of a tornado would be like with everything flying around you from Alex’s smelly socks to someone’s sweaty underwear. But I never laughed so hard in my entire life.
I finally had to settle-in between Sawyer and Alex to keep them separated. But that was a mistake as they constantly reached across me to take one last punch at each other. But I didn’t mind. Our patrol was up by two points. Tomorrow is going to be a great day.
