The Best Scout Trip Ever - Conclusion

Here's a picture from that famous scout trip. I think it was taken on the 2nd day (it was cold and rainy):


I'm the one on the left. I was the same age (11) as the kids next to me (but obviously a bit bigger). You may also notice that Lederhosen are being worn...

OK - this is kind of funny - there's actually a hidden story in this picture:
If you look closely you'll notice that the left side of my face is a bit puffy. (No - it wasn't that wasp.) And if you look closely at that unhappy kid in the middle of the group you'll notice that the right side of his face is a bit puffy. There's a perfectly simple explanation for that... I punch with my left hand and he punched with his right :-)

I felt kind of bad about it. I don't think he realized I was getting mad. Heck - I don't think I realized I was getting mad until my fist was enroute to his face ... stupid adrenaline rush :-) At least he fought back (and did some damage) so we got along fine afterward. (That's one of those guy things...) But I digress...

The camping trip was actually a bit longer than a week - maybe 10 days. I've covered most of the significant events. There was also the typical horseplay - and practical jokes - and exploring - and swimming in the river - and flirting with the cute teenage girl that worked at the store in Tintesmuhle :-) Then there was peeling potatoes and cleaning pots and pans... And riding around on the back of the scoutmaster's motorcycle (with no helmets)... The usual stuff :-)

There's just one more story to tell:

It is "potty related" so I've been debating whether I should tell it or not. I've decided to go ahead because it's still one of the weirdest things I've ever seen... So to clean it up a bit I will henceforth refer to the object in question as the "Object in Question". And I swear I am not making it up... Here goes:

A couple of posts ago I described the "facility" we had constructed so it should come as no surprise that I used it as infrequently as humanly possible :-) And as we neared the end of the campout I thought I was "good to go" for the trip home. But as we were packing up I realized I was mistaken. The "facility" had already been decommissioned so I grabbed a small shovel and some TP, headed up into the woods and squatted over a short drop-off next to the trail.
But when I went to bury the expected "Object in Question" it wasn't there... I was a bit freaked out... I was pretty darn certain that I hadn't imagined having done what I had just done, so it should have been there... (the TP was there...)

Then I spotted it... There was a slender branch - almost invisibly thin - about 2 feet off the ground between two bushes... And the "Object in Question" was sitting perfectly aligned and perfectly balanced on that branch.
I burst out laughing - it was just too wierd! The thing was literally suspended in mid-air... I almost expected to hear angels singing :-) I mean - you could spend your entire life dropping an "Object in Question" nose first onto a spindly branch and never have it end up like that... If that's not miraculous I don't know what is :-) Heck! That almost deserves a shrine... (The Shrine of the Balancing "Object in Question" - bus tours daily - no flash photography???)

But I didn't show it to anyone - they would have accused me of "staging" it anyway (ewww) - so I just knocked it down and buried it... But although it has long since returned to the earth from whence it came I have never forgotten it and it has now been immortalized in this blog post :-)

Yes... I'm in my mid 50's - and my sense of humor is still that juvenile... I would apologize but I'm not the least bit ashamed :-)

And here's the conclusion:
Everything was all packed up and loaded onto the hay wagon - we were minutes from leaving... A few of the scouts ran over to the store in Tintesmuhle to get some munchies for the trip - and when they came back they informed me that a man claiming to be my dad was looking for me...

I was not exactly thrilled - I'd been looking forward to the trip home with the rest of the scouts... I remember wishing that we'd left 10 minutes earlier so dad would have missed us :-) Heck - I couldn't believe he actually managed to find the place - but there he was... Leave it to dad to add an imperfect ending to a perfect occasion :-)

Since my stuff was already in the hay wagon (across the river) we all headed up the hill to the "staging area" in Dahnen. I retrieved my gear and said goodbye to the rest of the scouts while dad was BS'ing with the scoutmasters - he was a smooth talker and spoke fluent German - everyone liked him... And dad and I got into his rental car and headed off. We talked a bit about the camping trip and then I slept the rest of the way back to Bonn.

Epilogue: At the end of the summer I transferred to a boarding school out of town... I never saw the scout troop again...