Home.7 July 2001
Greetings to All. Welcome to Summer.
Although I wasn't going to do so, several Troop parents insisted that I start off this "Minute" with personal news instead of one of my usual "Did You Know?" columns. On Tuesday, June 5th, I was presented with the "Silver Beaver Award" at the National Capital Area Council's Annual Dinner. The Silver Beaver is the highest Award given by the Council to volunteer Scouters, for sustained superior service at the Unit, District, and Council levels, plus for service to youth outside of Scouting. Only 1 out of every 1,000 Adult volunteers is so honored, so it's a pretty big deal in the World of Scouting. I was definitely surprised by my selection, and am well pleased.
Anyway, for those who wish to read my citation, please check the June 7th Chainemail.
A personal "speech" is also included at the end of that Chainemail, which you perhaps might find insightful - or maybe inciteful - or at least amusing....
Staford S., a Second Class Scout from Las Vegas, Nevada, joined us for summer camp; he'll be returning to Nevada later this summer.
On Friday, June 15th, we dodged the thunderstorms and held a small, private ceremony at the Creedon's house to induct John as the Troop's 69th Eagle Scout. Adam Smith performed the induction. Review John's summary on the Eagle Stuff page.
With the advent of Summer Camp dominating the last month, we did not hold a Board of Review in June - so there were no Rank Advancements to report in this "Minute."
On the Merit Badge Front, prior to summer camp, Todd G. and Will K. finished Wilderness Survival Merit Badge - the first to do so since the Wilderness Shepherd experience last March. Neal K. finished his last Eagle Required Merit Badge, Citizenship in the World. Dan McF. earned First Aid. Stefan N. and Eric W. finished Citizenship in the Nation. Steven S. polished off Swimming (in prep for Lifesaving at Summer Camp).
Post summer camp, Brad J. "stormed" through his last Eagle required Merit Badges, completing longstanding partials in Environmental Science and Personal Management; he has only Personal Fitness left to go. Brad also finished his Eagle Project just before summer camp, doing a major expansion of the hawk cage at Riverbend Regional Park.
Summer Camp Advancement and Awards (Note: This is a tentative list, and is not yet verified! Does NOT include Merit Badge Partials!)
Earning Totin' Chip (and simultaneously completing the S2c Module) were: Zachary A., Burton B., Will B., Jack B., Tom C., Peter C., Michael C., Patrick D., Drew D., Peter F., Brad G., Ryan K., Mickey M., Anthony M., Kevin M., James N., Patrick O'M., Brian R., and Patrick W. Probably the most comprehensive and rigorous Totin' Chip course we have ever run.
Earning the Paul Bunyan Award were: Luke B., Todd G., William L., Neil S., Steven S., JJ T., and yours truly.
Earning the Mile Swim Award were: Luke B., Todd G., Matt G., William L., Mickey M., Patrick O'M. (TWICE!), Brian and Frank R., Neil S., Steven S., and yours truly.
Earning the Polar Bear Swimmer's Award were: Luke and Will B., Jack B., Peter F., Todd G., Brad G., Mickey M., Kevin M., Patrick O'M., Brian and Frank R., Staford S., Steven S., JJ T., Mark T., and yours truly.
Completing the 2 mile run were: Luke and Will B., Peter C., Todd G., William L., Kevin M., Brian and Frank R., Neil S., Steven S., JJ T., Mark T., and yours truly.
Completing the Super Orienteering Course were: Luke B., Todd G., William L., Brian and Frank R., Neil S., and Steven S.
Completing the Tuckahoe Ironman Award were: Luke B., Todd G., William L., Brian and Frank R., Neil S., Steven S., and yours truly.
Congratulations to All of the above Scouts!
Other than Eagle Scout Boards of Review, there will be no Boards of Review in July or August.
With Camp Tuckahoe now (only) a memory, the Troop starts in on our Annual Summer of Fun Activities:
Monday, July 9th - Movie Night - Our first event of the summer, we will be taking the Troop to see the movie Cats&Dogs. We will gather in front of the theatre on the 3rd floor of the Ballson Common Mall at 6:45pm. Scouts, friends, siblings and parents are welcome. Tickets cost $5.25 for those under 12 and $8.25 12 and over. A limited number of discout tickets will be available for the first 15 people, 12 and over, that RSVP to ASM Rich Sheehey or Heidi Brennan by Monday morning, July 9th. Scouts should be picked up from the theatre following the show, approximately 8:45pm.
Monday, July 16th - Soccer/Ultimate Frisbee Night - Troop 111 has challenged our brother Troop 149 to a game of either soccer or ultimate frisbee. We will play at Oakgrove Field, located at the corner of Quincy and 15th Streets. The game will begin at 7pm sharp. A permission slip will be necessary.
Wednesday, July 25th - The National Jamboree - The National Jamboree is held once every four years at Fort A.P. Hill in Fredericksburg, VA. The Jamboree will run from July 22 through August 1st. Scouts and Scouters not registered for the entire 10 days are allowed a free limited one-day pass. This year, Mrs. Blunden will take the Troop to the Jamboree. Attendance is strongly encouraged. A Scout uniform is required. ASM Rich Sheehey will be working the Jamboree for the United States Geological Survey and will provide the Scouts with a personal tour of the Conservation Area. Read this months Boys Life for more information on the Jamboree or visit the Jamboree web site - http://www.scouting.org/jamboree/index.html.
Saturday, August 4th - Washington Redskins Training Camp - ASM Atom Shock will take the boys up to Carlisle, PA to see the Redskins in actions. This event is a first for the Troop. Bring money for lunch as well as items for the players to autograph since there will not be any Redskins paraphernalia for sale.
Wednesday, August 15th - DC United - ASM Glenn McGregor will take the Troop to DC's most successful Pro Sports franchise. The United have three championships in their five year history. The game begins at 8pm. Though a late start, this is a summer event that should not be missed. Details will be provided on the Summer of Fun page.
Monday, August 27th - Laser Tag! Our Troop's most popular Summer of Fun activity, the Troop will venture on down to Laser Quest in Woodbridge. ASM Brian Preloh will coordinate the activities. Pizza, soda and three games will keep us entertained. This event is limited to the first 27 Scouts that RSVP, so make your reservations early. Brian and I will begin accepting reservations, via email, on Monday, August 6th.
Permission Slips for these activities are available at: http://www.troop111.org/sof01.html
In addition to the Summer of Fun activities, on July 18th, 16 members of the Troop will head west for this year's Troop High Adventure in Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho. Highlights include 8 days of backpacking in the Wind River Range in Wyoming (Bridger and Shoshone Wilderness areas), plus half a week at the Teton High Adventure Base in Idaho. We will, of course, keep a diary!
"Munch!, Munch!, Munch!" That will be the over-riding memory of our final pre-Wyoming Shakedown. On June 9th and 10th, we headed out to Little Sluice Mountain, in the George Washington National Forest near Woodstock, VA, for a backpacking and training weekend. After a week of fairly nasty weather, it turned out to be an excellent weekend, with warm temperatures and mostly sunny skies. The highlight of the hike in was about a thousand foot climb up the side of Little Sluice, which we did without a single break, using the famous Caterpillar technique. Some nice views east, across to the Massanutten Range, spiced up the climb. Excellent training for the rigors of the Wind River Range in Wyoming later this month.
Stopping for lunch, however, we were appalled by the extensive Gypsy Moth damage along the upper ridge. All during the hike, we had seen increasing signs of damage, but most of the oak trees along the ridgeline itself are now either completely or very nearly completely defoliated. Some trees look like last January; others are attempting to re-bud. The caterpillar concentration has to be measured in hundreds of thousands per acre; they're everywhere. The sound of gypsy moth poop falling on the ground was like light rain. When the wind quieted, you could literally hear them chewing. A horror movie. Too bad we can't drag all the gypsy moth "activists" in Arlington who protest against spraying in their neighborhoods out to see this, so they could witness first-hand just what they're being protected against. Might open some eyes.
Well, after lunch we headed down to our "favorite" camping spot, which is less than 200 yards from what is usually the only reliable spring. (This year, due to all the rain, there were several other small springs flowing too, but we passed on them.) We were fortunate to have gotten an early start, as a surprising number of hikers, mountain bikers, and other backpackers showed up on the trails through the rest of the day. After a rather leisurely set-up, we split into three groups: Rick W. and Mike F. went back to retrieve Sam at a much closer road junction; he missed the early part of the hike due to a morning track meet. Mark S. kept a benevolent eye over Luke, Todd, and Neil, who whipped out some books to study for a Monday test at Swanson. And Charles, Ted G., Al M., Hugh S., Carl, and yours truly headed down to the White Rocks Overlook - a 6 mile round-trip - for a spectacular view. Both Rick and Mike, plus the White Rocks group, "enjoyed" sudden discoveries of impressive rattlesnakes during their secondary hikes. But they (the snakes) played nice, so no harm/no foul (other than dramatically increased adrenaline levels among the two groups of hikers). Nothing sounds like a rattlesnake, and that's a fact.
Once everyone was reassembled, we did the cooking and cleaning routine, which took us up to dusk. Everyone passed on a campfire in favor of additional sleep, so we hit the rack around 9:30, to the continuous light rain of gypsy moth poop plopping off the tent flies. Around 10:30, I was surprised to hear two large jeeps or SUV's drive by on the fire-road, with a fair amount of hootin' and hollerin' going on - surprising in that the fire-roads along the ridges are all blocked off from access, to prevent this very scenario. Fortunately, our nocturnal guests were not interested in our little piece of heaven, and kept on driving.
Our "crow-alarm" went off around 5am, but we let the heavier sleepers sleep in til 6:00, then did a reasonably quick breakdown. The rest of the day was filled with short hikes back towards our starting point spaced with "instructional info-bites" on such topics as "How to Poop in the Woods," to Bear Safety, to Map Triangulation, and many others, all important to know in Wyoming. Passing the access gate, one mystery was solved - the lock was cut off with bolt cutters, explaining our nocturnal visitors. [Note, when I reported it to the Lee District Ranger Station on Monday morning, they thought maybe our visitors were part of a Search and Rescue operation for a downed helicopter, which had gone down on Little Schloss Mountain (the next ridge over); maybe, but they sounded like a bunch of drunk rednecks when they passed us....]
Back at the vehicles, we did a last equipment shakedown, and headed back to Arlington, with a fast-food lunch in Woodstock on the way. A good weekend. [Participants were all listed above.]
On Sunday, June 24th, 39 Scouts and 6 Leaders headed north into Pennsylvania for our second summer camp at Camp Tuckahoe (which we last visited in 1998), located near the improbably named town of Dillsburg (about 10 miles north of Gettysburg, off U.S. Rt. 15). It was a nearly perfect day to start - absolutely clear and hot. After a "your-choice" fast food lunch in Thurmont, we pulled into camp about 1:40 - a bit early, but still behind 4 other 2:00 Troops. As it turned out, we were the largest Troop in camp, by about a dozen Scouts. To our surprise, this was the first week of camp - we had thought it was Week #2.
This year, we ended up with Nanticoke site - surprisingly well set up, and a pretty decent campsite overall. Also a bit closer to the heart of the camp than Delaware (our 1998 site), so Camp Walk-a-Lot was renamed Camp Walk-Not-Quite-As-Much. After a rather rushed change into swim-trunks, we hustled down to First Aid for our medical re-certs - only to sit for over an hour and a half as the line ahead of us proceeded snail-like. If Rob B. hadn't visited the Camp Director to spur some action, we'd probably still be there. This turned out to be pretty much the story for the rest of the day, as every Troop in camp was behind the 8-ball for swim-checks, dinner, the camp tour (which we missed altogether), and the opening campfire. Typical First Week snafus - but still very frustrating, especially since a more standard 9am start would have easily solved the time crunch. We compensated somewhat by sending only the first and second year campers and most of the Adults down for the campfire, while the Senior Scouts and a couple of Adults worked feverishly to set up the basics of our communal area in the campsite. Matt G. and I put in nearly 2 hours on our latrine bringing it up to mimimal Troop 111 standards. The heat of the day turned into a surprisingly chilly night (low 50's/upper 40's), with the best stars of the week, and we ended the day with a massive Troop meeting to discuss final tenting arrangements and the "real" start of camp the next day. Even with all our experience, a rather frantic start to this year's summer camp!
Monday started bright and early for about a dozen Scouts and Leaders, who headed down to the lake for the first Polar Bear Swim of the week. Well, more accurately, the Polar Bear Wade - but it was fun anyway, and about half-served as a shower. Then it was a quick hustle back to camp, and the first reveille of the week. Breakfast turned out to be pretty decent - in fact, all-in-all this camp served the best food of any camp I have attended in my entire Scouting career; it was really quite good, and more than enough for everyone. Once we finished up with that, we had a mass dispersal to Merit Badge classes - in all, 36 of our 39 Scouts had a 9am class, so our campsite calmed down considerably by 9:05. The few of us left in camp spent the rest of the morning continuing our site set-up, including another heavy duty latrine session and various other camp improvements.
After lunch, the Troop's traditional diversions - chess, cards, and the CD player - became increasingly popular as fewer and fewer Scouts had late afternoon classes. Fishing also became a big hit, and remained so all week. At 4pm, we had our first Mile Swim practice session of the week (1/4 mile); after dinner, we had our first Campwide Competition - an Obstacle Course - in which we took First Place. Once nightfall came, we held our first Troop campfire of the week (minus Patrick P. and I, who diverted to Hershey Medical Center to treat a minor spider bite on Patrick).
The rest of the week went pretty much according to the same routine. Polar Bear Swims were held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. On Tuesday through Thursday, we held an in-depth, Troop-run Totin Chip course; the last few Scouts finished this up on Friday. After practicing on Monday and Tuesday, we had a bunch of Scouts and Leaders knock off the Mile Swim on Wednesday and Thursday - with Patrick O'M. doing miles on both days; very impressive. We took two Seconds and another First in the evening Campwide competitions held the evenings of Tuesday (Swimming), Wednesday (Firebuilding, Pioneering, and Treasure Hunt), and Thursday (Gateway and Survival Shelters, plus an Archery Competition), plus completed a camp improvement project by blocking access to a closed trail. Troop campfires were held on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night, with yours truly scaring the bejeebers out of one and all with no less than 5 classic ghost stories. On Wednesday morning, I also stunned one and all at the Ironman competition by running 2 miles in my Rockports (ouch!), joining a dozen other members of 111 in the process; only one other non-Troop-111 runner attended (another Adult).
On Wednesday night, yours truly also did his biannual Gary Kasparov imitation, taking on 4 Scouts simultaneously in chess - the most I've challenged at one time in quite a few years. On Thursday night, 34 Scouts slept out under a mega-tarp on the main athletic field (another way to earn points in the Honor Troop competition), which was quite the night-time adventure for many of the Scouts. Finally, on Friday we enjoyed an outdoor chicken BBQ down near the parade field, then (Troop-wide) led 2 songs and a skit at the closing campfire program (On Top of Spaghetti and Ghost Riders in the Sky, plus "The Loser Scout" (featuring Thomas S. in the Title Role)); I was told afterwards that we stole the show. On Saturday, we headed back to Arlington, sporting the various trophies of another excellent camp. Minus a few sick Scouts (there was a 24-hour bug going around the camp), and a few Scouts who apparently forgot what they came to camp for, and having to listen to "Bombs Over Baghdad" and "Californication" ten thousand times, it was one of our better summer camps.
Scout participants were listed in the Advancement Section above; Thanks especially to the Senior Scouts, who did an excellent job assisting all week (especially Steven S. (SPL), Matt G. (aka the Latrine King), and Carl S., the Nanticoke Praetorian Guard). Thanks also to Matt B., Rob B., Victor B., Ed C., Tom D., Mike F., Frank R., and Mark S., who spent part or all of the week at camp. Thanks also to the extra drivers Puddy B., Fred S., Joy G., Mark and Terry N., Bill and Deb O'M., and also to Suzi B. and Regina C. for keeping the home fires burning (and anyone else I missed).
- Dr. Bob, Scoutmaster
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