After about an hour, one of their Scoutmasters came over and tapped his watch. "Time to get back and make dinner, guys."
I looked around and nodded. "Our guys are getting back, too. Listen, I gave you my address, so feel free to write me. If I can help you out, let me know. The most important thing isn't that there's a right or wrong to this stuff. The important thing is that you care enough to ask the questions and think about the answers. You'll be voting in a few more years, so keep thinking about this stuff."
The boys popped up, and I shook their hands and they shuffled out of camp. Their leaders also shook my hand and thanked me. "You're welcome. Do you need me to sign off on something?", I asked.
"Nah! I'll sign off on it. I'm the merit badge counselor on this for the troop, so this is good enough for me.", said one of the men.
"Well, feel free to let your boys know I'm good for this sort of thing. In fact, let the word out, if any Scouts in the Council need to speak to a Congressman or want me to do something for the Scouts, for any reason, they can dig me up. In most ways, teaching these kids is more important than any other stuff I do."
"And you go camping with these guys?
I laughed at that. "My boy's a Webelo. Why else would I be sleeping in a tent?! There's a reason we started building houses, you know!"
They laughed at that, and then thanked me again and left. I repeated my comment to the Cubmaster, and told him to get the word to the Council. I probably wouldn't have the time to teach merit badges, but I could still help out. Then the Webelos came back, loudly talking about how they had all started fires. Pack 116, building pyromaniacs one boy at a time!
Part of the secret to running a good camping trip is to have too much for the boys to do. Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, and that sort of thing. Keep them busy all day long learning things, then have a few contests and games, followed by dinner. After dinner we made them do the cleanup, and led them off to the giant bonfire, for singing and skits.
The funniest part was at the end of the night, after the bonfire, when we were back at our campsite around our own fire. One of the boys looked out into the darkness and asked, "Are there any bears around here?"
Most of the adults chuckled, but I leaned forward and said, "Absolutely! In fact, when I was a Scout, I was up here at this very campsite, and a bear found me, right here!"
I could see a few of the other adults trying to stifle their grins, but the boys were all wide-eyed and looking at me. The first boy asked breathlessly, "What'd you do?"
"Well, I climbed up a tree, right over there.", I answered, pointing to the forest.
"And the bear left you alone?"
"Well, pretty much. He tried to push the tree over but it wouldn't fall, so he left and came back with a second bear, an even bigger bear! That was really scary, let me tell you!"
"So, what'd you do then?", I was asked.
"Well, I stayed in the tree, and both bears tried to push it over. They couldn't though, so they went away, and then they came back with a third bear, an even bigger bear! I really thought I was in trouble then!"
"But they couldn't push it over, right, Dad?", asked Charlie. He was as rapt as the other boys.
"Nope, they pushed and pushed and pushed some more, but it wouldn't tumble over, so all three bears left. I just stayed up there for awhile, so they could all leave."
"Did they bring back another bear?"
"Worse!" I leaned closer and looked around the campfire at the other boys, all staring at me. "They all came back carrying beavers!"
At that point the adults exploded in laughter. "Oh, jeez, I haven't heard that one in years!", commented Bill Baker.
"Beavers!", laughed Al Parker, "Oh, that's a good one!"
"DAD!", complained Charlie. A few of the other boys complained too, now that they realized they'd been had. We shooed them off to bed and finished off the coffee and tea, swapping other tall tales we'd heard over the years, mostly going back to when we had been boys.
Sunday morning we were out of there as soon as we could rouse the boys and feed them. Since a Scout is Reverent, when we got back to St. James, we hauled their butts inside the church and made them sit through the last half of the service before sending them home. (Marilyn wasn't too pleased with that, since it wasn't a Catholic service, but I told her to lump it.) We cleaned up and took naps, or at least I did. Charlie had a lot more energy than his father did!
It was a big difference camping with the Scouts in the Nineties versus camping with the Scouts in the Sixties. Back when I was that age, nobody gave a shit about being sensitive or politically correct. Leaders would sit around the campfire smoking and passing a flask, while sending the kids off into the wilderness to hunt for left-handed monkey wrenches and snipe. Now we had to be nurturing and supportive. We couldn't allow hazing, booze was forbidden (admittedly, that was probably a good rule), and if you had to smoke, you had to leave the camp area. That led to some silly stuff. I remembered one trip when I still smoked. The Scoutmaster, and all three of us Assistant Scoutmasters left the campfire area one cold winter night to smoke and chat; so half the boys followed us, so they could chat, too. Everybody ended up standing around in the dark snow.
We were lucky on this trip, with no WIAs or KIAs in Pack 116. Nobody got lost, nobody got homesick, nobody cried, nobody got hurt more than scrapes and splinters and bruises. Nobody got eaten by bears. Everybody got filthy. That pretty much made it a good trip for a bunch of nine and ten year old boys! Life is pretty simple at that age.
Chapter 108: Settling In
I was sworn in as a Congressman on January 3rd, 1991, as the 102nd Congress convened.
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."
Everybody in Congress, all the Representatives and the new third of the Senate, has to take this oath. It dates back to 1884.
Both Brewster and Chuck, my new Chief of Staff, insisted I had to have Marilyn and the kids there for my swearing in. That meant we had to take them out of school for the day. I argued against it, but was told this was not optional. They had to be there!
In most ways, it really is optional. It is nothing but a gigantic photo op. For one thing, all 435 of us are sworn in at one go, in the House. Since no photos are allowed, nobody can see us. So instead they have a bunch of empty rooms with flags and backdrops set up, and photographers. You get called into one of the rooms, with your family and whoever else you want in the photo, and it all gets faked! You could bring in the cast of Sesame Street and be photoed with your right hand raised and your left hand on Grover's head and it would be totally legit. In fact, donate enough money to the campaign and you can be in the background, smiling as Congressman Needsdough gets sworn in. You don't even have to be sworn in with your hand on a Bible. There are no laws saying you have to. It can be on a Koran or the Book of Mormon or a set of car keys. I settled for the small King James Version bible I had received as a gift from my godmother after my confirmation. That was back in the days when I still lived at home and Hamilton hadn't totally gone crazy yet.