Summer Camp
June 2002

by B.J.

Summer camp was a very fun experience. Besides the everyday tasks of working towards completing your merit badges, each night had something to do. These things varied from open camp to… well you’ll see.

Sunday: on the day that we got to Summer camp after registering and having the camp explained to the younger scouts and the older scouts memories’ refreshed, we took our swim tests -which is swimming three lengths of the pool using a strong forward stroke (butterfly, front crawl etc.) and then using the elementary backstroke for one length of the pool and then floating on your back for a while- and then signed up for our merit badges. Then after a while we went to the opening campfire.

Monday there was a Catholic church service and afterwards there was “open camp” which is when each scout can go to any area and participate, such as canoe or shoot a bow and arrow.

Tuesday offered a Vespers trail which required a scout to be honest with himself and only put down a pebble out of the twelve he had, on the areas where he thought he had actually followed the scout law.

Wednesday night brought families up to the camp. Each Scout showed his parents around the camp during open camp and afterwards there was a big, outside meal. The evening ended with a ceremony called “The Order of the Arrow” ceremony. First there was traditional Native American dancing accompanied by a drum circle. After several dances were performed, everyone got quiet as the most recent members of the order of the Arrow were revealed. Out of our troop, Kip Moustoukis, Mark Warren, Phil Garrett, Patrick Schroeder, Gerry Schroeder and BJ Ullom were “tapped out”. If we had been “in council”, we would have had to complete a day of working for others with little food, no talking, and with sleeping out under the stars with no tarp on the previous evening.

Thursday was another open camp.

Friday we finished our merit badges that we’d been working on all week. In the evening we had “Scout Competition” which is a series of events dealing with various scouting skills. Some of these were rope toss, knots, archery, canoeing, firebuilding and swimming. And, as a “freebie” event, “the big splash contest”. At night we had our closing campfire.

Saturday our week at camp came to a close. After a court of honor where all merit badges and awards were presented, we went home with a side trip stop in Galena, IL.