Week Four: Welcome back to the Boy Scouts

This has certainly been an interesting week. I was almost tempted to title this post ‘the talented Mr. Clarke’, but I felt that that was too egotistical. As you know, I am the camp’s Sailing Director, and I’m also a Commissioner (basically a one man customer services department). But at the beginning of this week, I took on another role: replacement Archery Director.

I didn’t really mind taking over at the Archery range (after all, I am qualified in archery, and it will look cool in my logbook). Having said that, I didn’t realise that I would need to run the range for a day and a half, including running the range whilst the camp’s national inspection went on. So basically, I needed to run the camp’s archery range, that I had only ever seen once before, during the camp’s BIG national inspection. No worries there then…

Well, we did pass the inspection with flying colours, so the three departments that I was responsible for didn’t fail. I can’t say that it was all hard work though. The shooting sports director, an older guy who tells blue jokes and is affectionately known as Mr. A, let me drive up and down from the range. He has a broken ankle, so that makes driving difficult. As you all know, I love driving, so you would think that that would make me excited enough. Add to this, that the shooting sports range is only accessible by a very sketchy road that traverses the side of a mountain. Heck, one side of part of the road is a near sheer drop down to the creek. One wrong turn there, and it would be good night Vienna.

Furthermore, the guess what sort of car it is? That’s right – my favourite American vehicle, a mk VIII (8) Suburban (still the only car technically large enough to eat another car – whole). This is the ‘shooting sports ‘burban’, and dates back to 1974. I love cars of the 1970’s, and I especially love mk VIII Suburbans. This particular Suburban is not road legal any more, and some, what some will call… quirks? Mr. A has told me that he’s afraid that he’ll stamp on the brakes one day, and the cabin will slide off of the rusty chassis. Also, the exhaust pipe is split halfway, so it sounds like an absolute beast. The exhaust fumes also get filtered through the cabin. So the passengers may get some fine filtered fumes (I guess it’s like a petrol head’s drug or something). Because of the filtering effect, I guess it’s also the most harmless American car to the planet…

So after all the fun of driving a huge American off road fortress on wheels, down the smallest, most dangerous road on the face of the planet, the rest of the week couldn’t really get better. Well, it didn’t, but some other fun stuff happened to. Last week, my fellow commissioner, Nick, received a comment that there aren’t enough clocks around camp. Now, after a sustained period of laughter, my response, and just about every other sane person’s response was: ‘Just buy a watch!’ Well, many people heard about this, and the thought escalated to: ‘a clock on every tree’, ‘every clock should be a cuckoo clock’, ‘there should be some of those freaky cat eye clocks too’.

Following this, we have made fun off, taken the mickey out, and just generally annoyed Nick all week. Until this week, on Thursday we had our leaders meeting. Our boss, Bill, asked the camp if there were enough clocks around camp. The answer from the Scoutmasters was unanimously yes. Everyone that knew about the situation, except Nick who vehemently supports the idea, was gob smacked. JUST BUY A FRIGGIN’ WATCH!

But hey ho, one of our Asst. Camp Directors, Nick (different from previous commissioner Nick) has now bought commish Nick a ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants’ clock. He will now be receiving radio calls asking for the time. He must reply with ‘Sponge Bob says…’. Oh we are going to have some fun!

I spent this weekend at someone’s home! For the first time in 27 days, I actually slept in a bed. A real bed, not a dodgy camp cot. But most interestingly, the family were really nice, and helped me out immensely. Including lending me some shoes when the soles peeled off of mine (they also epoxied my soles back on). Moreover, I had my first real ‘Philly Cheese Steak’ (basically sliced beef steak in a small baguette with cheese sause), and a Slurpee (icy flavoured drink?). How American I have been this week. Also, despite the boss banning me from wearing my cowboy hat (as seen in ‘Andiana Jones’), I wore it Friday afternoon while he was off site. Yeehaw!

If only I had gone hand gun shooting this week, I couldn’t have been much more American! Yet despite this, Friday was still the 4th July. Although that doesn’t mean much to most people (other than it’s no longer 3rd July), apparently it’s a big day in the states. Despite all of my Americanism this week, the boss said ‘I don’t want Andy involved [with the Independence Day celebrations]’. I’m not sure if I should be insulted or not.

Finally, and I suppose there’s almost a segway there, the reason for the title of this post. Welcome back to the Boy Scouts. I have had to put up with so much administrative bull this week it’s untrue. I was almost ready to kill someone Thursday night, so it’s a good job Asst. Camp Director Nick offered some of us virgin piña colada (basically no alcohol) when he did. Mind you, someone did tell me once that 2 thirds of the BSA is BS. Ain’t that the truth…

If you thought this post was just thrown together with no particular order (and you’d be right), why not leave a comment telling me to practice more.

If you thought that this post was perfectly coherent, you don’t read right!

Quote of the Week: ‘So, with that accent, which state do you come from?’ I was asked of a young Scout, before replying with ‘Alabama’. Idiot.

Tune of the Month: Mistress Mabel. The Fratellis (in support of someone over here actually hearing of a UK band – thank you Zach!)