An Afternoon of Education

What is the one thing you don't want to give a group of rabid boys that are in the perfect setting for a re-creation of Lord of the Flies?

You guessed it, anonymity. That is apparently why our first craft after lunch was to make knight helmets out of cardboard paper. They offered the authentic look of an ancient knight of yore and even came with the eye slits that removed any chance of a clear field of vision with none of the durability of a real helmet. Add in an unlimited supply of sticks and it was the perfect craft. They finished off this lesson with leather working. The idea was to use a mold to create a decorative necklace or name tag. Once the boys got their hands on the hammers, that changed to using a mold to beat the heck out of an innocent piece of leather.

If five boys pee on a bush, even though the bathroom is a mere twenty feet away, and they are being supervised by four fathers who spent the night on cots that have no support, will anyone yell at them?

This is an easy one. No mothers were near were enough to interfere with nature. They made a perfectly straight line with their backs to us. I think the only problem was us fathers knew that we had to walk all the way to bathroom. So, the only protest was our envy. (We also followed the unwritten rule that what happens at camp stays at camp. There were a few mothers that took offense to boys being boys. One mother even went so far as to explain how one year, she woke up and a boy was peeing a mere “ten feet from her head.” This lead to several comments from the men about close only counting in hand grenades. I added, since BB guns and archery were already on the schedule for the afternoon, a section for hand grenades sounded like fun. All the kids would be pretty much guaranteed of getting a bull's eye. I even knew the counselor that could lead it. It was the same one that taught my son the song about announcements. (That song has been my constant companion for the past week. Added to the fact that he could not make a decent pot of coffee and I would volunteer to throw the first grenade at him...))

What year was the BB gun invented?

This was a real question the counselor at the BB gun range asked. “I'll give you a hint, it was a really long time ago,” he added.

“1993?” one of the kids in our group suggested.

“That was a year before I was born. The BB gun was invented long before that.

I don't know what was more aggravating, that the kids thought 1993 was a long, long, long time ago or that I'd graduated college, been married and had at least five jobs before the counselor teaching my son how to shoot a BB gun was even born.

It turns out, that the BB gun was invented and used for Lewis and Clark's trip. The fact that it was silent when it was shot impressed and scared the Indians. (The fact that they were teaching a bunch of wild, barely tamed kids how to use a silent weapon was not very calming, from a parental point of view.)

What is the square knot used for?

(To join two ropes together) This was more along the lines of a foolish question. I understand that knot tying has a long and celebrated history in the Boy Scouts. However, when you have a group of boys that outnumber the parents, and you give them helmets and teach them how to shoot guns, adding how to quickly tie up your potential victims is just not a good idea.

There was five hours until lights out. I'm pretty sure, the announcement, “Time to brush your teeth!” was going to have a much different result tonight. Luckily, I made a helmet too.