There were moments yesterday when I felt a sense of anticipation and even excitement about reaching the half-way point in our Camp Parsons adventure. But by the time lights were out last night and I drifted off to sleep with the sounds of the ebb-tide off in the distance, I began to wax a little sentimental about the close of the week bearing down upon us. It's been a great week!
Before the boys headed off to their bunks last night we had a "friendship fire" with Troop 448 from Renton down on Mystery Beach. After making a small bonfire with scraps of driftwood, we shared treats, played guitar and got to know the boys and leaders from 448. It's a nice way to keep the boys from becoming too insular in their own Troop and helps them to better conceptualize the larger community of scouting.
Our Troop Time activities yesterday were the Craft Lodge, Fingerprinting and round two of the Canoe Swamp. The boys improvised bailers from old milk-cartons, soda bottles and other, random pieces of trash...but to little avail in the dreaded Canoe Swamp. Most of us were swamped at least twice by other canoes but we all hardly seemed to notice that the temperatures had dropped by about 15 degrees since earlier in the week. The sunny skies and balmy waters of Hood Canal took our minds off the otherwise chilly day!
As I mentioned earlier in the week, a key focus of scouting is getting the boys to demonstrate leadership and help run the troop - teaching, leading and supporting one another (it's called the "Troop Method"). At a couple of our recent flag ceremonies before meals, several boys were more interested in goofing off than showing respect for a few minutes. Yesterday evening, we met as a troop and I posed the question to the boys "...how do you think we've been doing as a troop at flag ceremonies?" To their credit, they acknowledged that we weren't putting our best foot forward. We talked about how this didn't show respect for the flag, for the other boys, for our troop but most of all, for ourselves. With no prompting or discipline from Gerry or me, they were on their best behavior during the opening flag ceremony this morning. As I've said before, they're a good bunch of boys!
Tom
There were moments yesterday when I felt a sense of anticipation and even excitement about reaching the half-way point in our Camp Parsons adventure. But by the time lights were out last night and I drifted off to sleep with the sounds of the ebb-tide off in the distance, I began to wax a little sentimental about the close of the week bearing down upon us. It's been a great week!
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