This past week I spent a couple of days at 11 yr. old scout camp. Twenty-three boys and 10 leaders--not bad odds. There were a couple of "You know you're in the south" moments. The first being the rocking chairs. We had 2 on the porch of our cabin and 25 in the pavilion. It just gave us that down-home feeling.The next was when I heard some digging in the pine needles in the middle of the night. I was half asleep trying to process what critter it could be. When it came around to my end of our open cabin I shined my flashlight on it. There was the silhouette of...ugh...an armadillo.
Later, I smiled when my born-and-raised Georgia friend said, "I said to those boys come pick up the trash. Your mama don't work here." The next day after breakfast she looked at the left-over breakfast foods and said, "We'd better hold stingy to those apples. We can feed them later to the boys." I'm definitely going to start saying "Your mama don't work here" and "Hold stingy."
If anyone has spent time in scouting you know they're big into "The buddy system." This is an important safety procedure, but it's always a little painful when they say, "Choose a buddy and hold up their hand." Some boys quickly grab their best buddy's hand. All are in agreement. Then there are the boys that are the third in a group of friends or don't know anyone very well or just don't have a buddy. That's when my heart starts to break. The mom in me says, "Do we have to have a buddy system?" The scouters look at me incredulously, "Safety first Ma'am." After about 15 awkward moments we were all set. We did have one group of 3, but that's just math.
Next we went to the swimming test. If you're a swimmer you get to swim anywhere. The best of anywhere includes the iceberg. It's the coveted floating device with a climbing wall on one side and a slide on the other. Beginners can swim out to the red buoys and non-swimmers have to stay this side of the blue buoys next to the lifeguard. We had 4 boys who didn't take the test, 2 non swimmers, 4 beginners and the rest swimmers. There were some disappointed boys, but none so sad as a little boy with special needs. It took him a while to get over being classified as a non-swimmer. When we returned that afternoon for our swimming fun we tried to rearrange some buddies so the swimmers didn't need to swim down a level. This little boy was crying loudly because he didn't have a buddy. I was getting the other boys situated and planning to take care of him in a minute. I looked over as a super-de-duper 11 yr. old scout came up to him and said, "I'll be your buddy." Bless your heart little man.
In church I serve in the Primary Organization. Our outline says, "Each child is precious to God. They should be welcomed, loved, nurtured and included. " In other words, we all need a buddy. This scout was looking to see who needed him and was willing to take on a buddy that had more challenges than others. I know how thankful I feel to the people who are buddies to my children. I think that's how God felt when he saw this scout.
Our last camp activity was canoeing in the Flint River. Each canoe had 1 adult and 2 scouts. My scouts were trying to decide if they should jump into the water. We discussed the difficulty of getting them back into the canoe. They decided they would wait til we were closer to take-out. We were nearing our finish when one boy said, "You wanna go in?" "I don't know do you?" asked the other. They hemmed and hawed until another canoe approached. One of those boys called out "Let's jump." The time had come,and both of my boys shouted, "We're going in!" They jumped, the canoe overturned, and we were all swimming. I got to our canoe and turned it aright, but it was filled with water and barely floating. It looked like I would be towing the canoe to shore with my mighty sidestroke. It was a dismal prospect, but the gentleman in the other canoe saw that I was in trouble, tied my canoe to his and rowed them both ashore. Thanks buddy.
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