Little m Long a

Regrets?  Maybe a few.  I suppose Eagle Scout would have looked good on a resume.  But I did learn a lot from scouting, lessons I find myself passing on to my kids today.  I’ll never forget the first merit badge I earned.  Camping.
  Look closely at the tent in the picture.  My first tent was exactly like that.  Standard Army issue green canvas, two halves that snapped together, wooden poles, no floor and it weighed about 15 pounds.  My uncle was a supply guy in the National Guard and got me outfitted. The sleeping bag was a classic.  Goose down mummy bag.  You could break a sweat in the bag if the temperatures even dared to rise above 10 or 15 degrees.  Problem was, I grew up in Louisiana and we camped in the summer, 95 degrees with 95 per cent humidity.  The sleeping bag was almost as worthless as the tent.  But I loved them both.

I still remember our first camp out.  Deep into the tick and misquito infested woods of the Kisatchie National Forest we set camp in what we felt was a perfect oasis, right on the side of a hill.  It rained.  Hard.  Really hard.  What we thought was a nice, clear trail was in all actuality the run-off path of every single drop of water that fell on the side of that hill.  In a matter of minutes a veritable river was flowing through our tent. 

Like any good scout, we tried to dig a moat around the tent to divert the water.  We, however, were not good scouts and our moat soon became a resevoir so that the flowing water would have a nice spot to pool, i.e. the bottom of our tent.  After what seemed hours of battling the elements we threw in the towels and trudged back up to the parking lot soaked to the bone, muddy, tired and starving (all of our food was soaked) we gave in to fatigue and caught a grand total of 25 minutes sleeping in the van.  God, I miss those days!!

Flash forward 30 some odd years.  Before school was even out, my kids were hitting me up to set up the tent and let’s have a campout.  I love camping, I really do. Sharing that joy with my kids only makes it better.  Camping out opens a well of memories that I hold very dear and I only hope that I am able to impart some of that love to my children.  

So we set up the tent.  It’s not a very expensive one, a Wal-Mart special, but it’s roomy, sleeps 8 and fairly weather resistant.  As the kids were scurrying all over the house gathering their sleeping bags and pillows, I spent a few minutes blowing up the air mattresses.  Yes, that was a plural.  Last year I used just one for the kids and I roughed it by sleeping on the ground.  Big mistake.  By morning I felt I had been run over by a truck.  My back was in knots for four days.  Never again.  Kids get an air mattress–Dad gets an air mattress.

The kids then set out to gather firewood as I had promised them we would make smores.  Surprisingly, they did very well and in a matter of minutes they had collected enough wood for a fire that would last easily about three hours. 
 
The sheer excitement of a kid roasting a marsh mellow over a campfire is truly something to behold.  They really could care less about eating them.  It was all about the process.  Throwing wood on the fire, selecting the perfect roasting stick, positioning their chairs in just the right spot so the smoke wouldn’t blow in their eyes.  In no time they were little marsh mellow roasting experts.

We finally made the move to the tent around midnight.  With the rain fly removed, the entire night sky is visible as the roof of the tent is total screen.  It could not have been a more perfect night for camping.  Not a cloud in the sky and the stars were out in full force.  I lay there gazing at the heavens above and muttered a little silent prayer of gratitude that I could be entrusted with such the responsibility and privilege of sharing such joy with such wonderful children.  No lie, no sooner had I finished than a shooting star split the sky above.

I can’t get my wife to go camping with us.  She has her reasons and they are all pretty valid.  However, I like my son’s argument, “Mom, you’re just not doing it properly.”

What do I think?  Sounds to me like the bees are gone.  I haven’t got a clue.  However, the article ended with several exit lines from various movies and the one from “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” made me smile as some of my earliest and best childhood memories came flooding back.  Man, I wanted to be the Sundance Kid.  Little did I know that the person I had chosen to be my very first idol was an outlaw bank/train robber.  Hell, I was just four and a half years old, my boy Zane’s age. To me, he was just about the coolest person I had ever seen.  He got to shoot guns and pistols, he got to ride horses and he had some really neat boots.

So, as is quite often the case, I took the mind journey from icon to icon, hero to hero reviving memories of what I now believe were some of the best days of my life.  I soon came to realize that I was never going to be a cowboy.  I lived well within the city limits and although we had what I felt was an enormous backyard, it would never be home to a trusty steed.  That, and my mom threw away my Sundance boots.  There were, as I recall, a few tears shed.  What am I saying? I’m not proud.  I cried like a school girl.  I had worn those boots every day for at least 2 years, they were a part of me and it hurt to see them go.  So I moved on.

“Steve Austin:  astronaut.  A man barely alive.  Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.  We have the technology…”—”The Six Million Dollar Man.”  Who didn’t want to be Steve?  He was fast, strong, could see for miles and he was tough.  A real he-man.  And he was an astronaut.  The guy reaked cool!  We would play out episodes of “The Six Million Dollar Man” in our yards for hours on end and if we weren’t done by dinner and bedtime, we’d pick right up where we left off the next morning.  My best friend’s older brother had the best imagination in the world.  He’s gone now and I think about him from time to time but no matter what triggers the memories, I always go back to our days saving the world as Steve Austin.

“Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”—”The Incredible Hulk.”  Two words:  Lou Ferrigno.  The guy was a monster! Huge!  I didn’t care so much for the tv show but couldn’t wait to see him rip his shirt and pants each week and then go on some superhuman rampage.  I guess at this point in my life I kind of moved from admiring the character to actually seeing the person behind the role, finding some emulatable quality in them and trying somehow to fit that quality into my own life.

I believe at this point in my life I also began to recognize the fallibility of just about every person I had chosen to place on a pedestal.  In one way or another, one after another, all of my heroes began to manifest flaws. Some were as insignificant as a minor physical imperfection while others were simply unimaginable lapses in character.  One by one they all fell and with them my faith in the whole hero system.  Seriously.  Ask me today who my heroes are.  I’ve got nothing.  I can not think of a single person I wish I was more like, no one I want to emulate.

Some would say, “Well, that’s a good thing.  Shows you’ve got a healthy self confidence.”  I’m not so sure.  Maybe I’m just too critical and need to lighten up.  I’m not looking for heroes anymore.  Really, I gave up. But, I’ve got kids now who are going to be moving through these exact processes of placing people with whom they come into contact on pedestals, trying to emulate them as they grow and mature.   That’s a struggle for me.  I fear for them when they come to realize, like me, that heroes are just ordinary people with warts and zits and uncontrolable problems with substance abuse and in the end, they’re going to let you down.

Should I expose my kids heroes before they have invested too much of their tiny, impressionable hearts preventing the inevitable breakdown or just let them figure it all out on their own?  I suppose until I get it figured out I’ll just keep plants on my pedestals.  Daisies are a whole lot easier to replace.