I spent the weekend at Camp Workcoeman, a Boy Scout camp in New Hartford, CT.
Charlie and a handful of Scouts from his pack spent the weekend hiking, earning badges, and experiencing an overnight camping trip for the first time while their parents tagged along.
I spent hundreds of nights camping as a Boy Scout, but this was the first time I had attended an overnight Scouting event in more than 25 years.
I wasn’t sure what to expect.
At one point on Saturday afternoon, I found myself speaking to four young men who were members of the Order of the Arrow, an organization that recognizes Scouts who best exemplify the Scout Oath and Law in their daily lives. You’re nominated for the Order of the Arrow by Scoutmasters and voted on by members of your troop.
I was inducted into the Order of the Arrow back in 1987. In those days, Order of the Arrow nominees participated in something called an ordeal as a right of passage. It involved a weekend camping trip under the stars – rain or shine – where nominees were fed bread and water for all three meals, forbidden to speak, and required to do hard labor for a day. During my ordeal, I spent 12 hours on Saturday in September blazing new trails through a forest. About a dozen other OA nominees and I fell trees, removed boulders, leveled ground, and cleared brush.
It was exhausting.
Then we returned to camp for another meal of bread and water before sleeping once again under the stars.
On Sunday morning, we awoke to an enormous breakfast and permission, at last, to speak.
It was a difficult weekend, for sure. Friday night was cool and clear, but around midnight on Saturday, it rained for an hour or two, leaving us cold, wet, and shivering on the parade field. I was achingly hungry from Friday night through Sunday morning, and I was exhausted after my day of labor. I went home with scratches, blisters, and a throbbing headache.
But I also look back on the experience as an important one. A defining moment in my life. Proof positive that I can do hard things.
When I told Charlie about my ordeal, he asked if they still have ordeals today. I told him that they probably have bubble-wrapped versions of ordeals, complete with sundae stations and naptime, so when met the four young men who were also OA members, I asked them about their ordeal, and I was thrilled to learn that little has changed.
The only real difference between their ordeal and mine was that they were fed a meal on Saturday night after their day of hard labor rather than waiting until Sunday morning. Even that difference, we thought, could have been a difference between one Scout camp and another and not a generational difference.
Otherwise, our experiences were nearly identical.
I was thrilled. Some things don’t change.
In fact, the whole weekend represented that realization for me. I was amazed at how the simple raising of the Scout sign by a leader could bring 650 Scouts fooling around on a parade field to complete silence. This was absolutely the case when I was a Boy Scout, but I was once again thrilled to see it still working today. When the flag was lowered at the end of the day, the entire camp came to attention. Scouts saluted, and all remained silent for the five minutes it took to slowly lower two flags and watch a team of Scouts fold the American flag the proper way.
I have a hard time keeping 19 kids silent for the 45-second walk from the classroom to the gymnasium, but on Saturday, hundreds of young boys stood silently at attention, paying respect to the flag without a single reminder to remain silent.
It’s how I remember my days of Scouting, and it’s blessedly how Scouting remains today.
There were other moments like this. The procedures and sounds of the dining hall were exactly how I remembered them. I knew most of the songs and skits at the Saturday night campfire. Many of the skills that Charlie was learning were skills I had learned long ago.
There were some differences, too, of course.
Girls can now join Scouting, so a mother and daughter from the pack joined us on Saturday as we hiked through the various stations.
There was a disability awareness lesson, where a Scoutmaster with several physical disabilities as well as autism (which he, my daughter, and many others do not label as a disability) took the Scouts through several activities designed to simulate specific disabilities and increase awareness and empathy.
The lesson related to “duty to God” steered clear of endorsing any specific religion and make it clear that “duty to God” can also mean a duty to yourself and others for the atheists in the crowd.
But these changes were good. Welcomed and necessary.
But at its core, very little had changed when I was a Scout, and that pleased me so very much. Elysha has often said that she thinks I learned more in Boy Scouts than I learned in school, and she might be right. Scouting didn’t teach me to read or calculate or write, but it taught me discipline, leadership, tenacity, cooperation, tolerance, and grit. It helped me develop an enormous storehouse of self-confidence and optimism. I found ways to connect with others and make new friends. I learned to struggle and endure, both physically and mentally.
And Scouting taught me an immeasurable mountain of skills that I still use on a daily basis.
I’ve worried that Scouting might have changed since my days as a Boy Scout. I worried that Charlie might find himself engaged in a softer, easier, gentler version of the Scouting that I loved so much.
From all appearances, this isn’t the case. The Boy Scouts have held onto the traditions, expectations, and rigor that helped me become the person I am today.
I’m so happy that Charlie will experience the same, and with Clara now in Scouting, too, maybe she will, too.
