Our father was the Committee Chairman for the troop and he sent out feelers looking for interested men who would be willing to take on the not insignificant risk of trying to control 50 odd (and I do mean “odd”) teenage boys.
Not one of the fathers associated with the troop were foolish enough to offer themselves up for the position. It seems that none of them were suicidal by nature.
As it turned out, the troop was sponsored by the First Presbyterian Church in town and John Finan and his wife were recently arrived members of the congregation. John heard of the Scoutmaster opening and although he didn’t think he would qualify as Scoutmaster since he had only progressed as far as second class scout himself and didn’t have any children, he wanted to help in some way and hoped that the troop activities would allow him to spend more time outdoors. So John contacted my father.
Little did John know that there are three characteristics that Committee Chairmen look for in adult volunteers. Characteristics that I myself have used time and again in recruiting Scoutmasters, Committee Members, Cub Den Leaders, and other youth group adult leaders. Those three requirements have to do with vocabulary, complex sentence structure recognition, and religion.
More specifically to identify an imminently suitable youth group adult leader, one must look for those with an inability to clearly follow complex sentence structure and a vocabulary that ends somewhere shy of a Master’s degree in English combined with a rather deep seated psychosis that leads them to believe that they should be punished (what for is irrelevant).
In two words; gullibility and guilty.
After a simple interview process (one to confirm gullibility and general masochistic compulsions) John was signed on as the Scoutmaster.
The troop committee felt that an outdoor trip with John and the older boys would be a good teambuilding experience and Roman Bystroff offered to come along and act as mediator. My father came up with a plan to use the family motorhome, pile John, Roman and the 5 boys of the senior patrol into it, drive up to Lake Tahoe, and while Dad and Mom would idle around a campground and relax, John would risk his life in the wilds with us boys.
John thought it was a good idea; confirming once more that he had the right characteristics to be an effective adult leader.
All in all most of the trip was pretty uneventful. We boys were a pretty tight group consisting of myself, Brian McFann, Kevin Fagan, Carl Holiday, and Eric Gadd. Roman and John didn’t push the issue of teambuilding, but allowed us to do our normal activities while they hovered around the edges in constant contact.
All went well until about noon on Sunday. We boys had gotten up early, had breakfast and been swimming for a while. We had all been idling around afterward and someone broke out a deck of cards.
Poker ensued.
John joined us boys, Roman wisely did not.
Now the thing you have to understand is that when backpacking every ounce counts. So poker chips just naturally weren’t hauled along on trips. And while we played for keeps, we didn’t play for money but only because none of us had any to lose.
So, naturally, we used rocks as chips.
Games started with all players having the same number of rocks. You bet rocks on hands and whoever had the most rocks at the end was the winner. Kinda brings a whole new meaning to “your losing your rocks, boy”, now don’t it.
Unlike conventional poker that you might play with friends or at the local casino, in our games along with having to concentrate on your cards and odds, you had to watch the dealer’s attempts to stack the deck and the other players attempts to hide out high cards for later use, as well as keeping an eye on the other players to make sure they weren’t “augmenting” their “winnings” by reaching around behind themselves and bringing additional chips into play.
The other players often thought that I should be forced to wear an eye patch during the games. Not because seeing my eyes point two directions unnerved them, but because they felt it gave me a decided advantage. Both at catching unscrupulous opponents, and at knowing when it was safe to augment my own winnings.
As the time neared that we had to hit the trail to hike out and meet my parents at the proper time and place to catch our ride back home, I called for one last hand then a quick swim and shoved all my rocks into the middle. Everyone around the circle followed along. As luck would have it I won. Sort of.
On winning the hand I made some derisive comment or other directed at the rest of the players, grabbed my insulite pad had raced out into the lake for that last swim. It almost was.
Kevin, either feeling frustrated from losing or just out of mean-spirited foolishness, picked up a rock and chucked it after me. The second to last time he ever did something like that.
I held my pad up like a shield to block the rock.
The rest of the guys must have thought it was a target.
Roman later told me that he watched the rock throwing begin and watched John wrestle with whether he should or shouldn’t. He chuckled as he described John weighting the “do the wrong thing, throw a rock and be part of the group” or “do the right thing, not throw the rock and be the ‘boring adult‘”.
Of course I saw none of that. Because I was holding that pad up as high as I could between me and the shoreline rock throwers. And that pad was taking an awful lot of hits from rocks.
John finally made his decision, picked up a rock and threw it.
The rocks pelting the pad stopped and I began lowering the pad.
My first impression was of the new Scoutmaster, weight on his forward leg, arm extended in my direction, fingers splayed wide, look of intense horror on his face.
My second impression was of being hit by a truck. Follow closely by my third, the world turning red as blood from my new scalp wound flooded down across my eyes. I don’t know what it is about scalp wounds. But everyone of them I have had has bled like a cut throat.
John was very concerned that he had really injured me, and probably given me a concussion.
Likely doubly concerned since he had just beaned the most senior youth leader in the head with a rock.
And then triply concerned because the kid he clocked was the son of the Troop Committee Chairman.
And finally, quadruplely concerned because that same Committee Chairman was his ride home.
John didn’t know Vandermolen’s very well yet.
Cause first off, my head had been hit by things a whole lot worse than a little ol’rock by then. Things like cliff faces, rock rakes, and cars to name the more common. And so not only was it pre-toughened, but there was little evidence that there was anything up there to injure.
And secondly because as we approached the RV with my head in a large white wrapping looking every inch of the fife player you see on Patriotic 4th of July posters, and John tried to get far enough ahead of me to explain; Dad simply waved him off, took one look at me said “I fully expect you deserved it”.
© Copyright 2016 Marty Vandermolen
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