Prologue:
"I had many adventures when I was young. Running from the police, wild women, egging houses, breaking windows, getting away, getting caught, winning fights, losing fights, making out with girls, skipping school, sneaking out at night, discovering the joys of gunpowder, friends dying, friends moving away, getting stabbed, getting shot, summer camp for New York City troubled youths, more gunpowder, leeches, outhouses, falling in love, falling out of love, seeing tits for the first time, first striptease show at the fair, wilder women, getting thrown out of the Boy Scouts, being a kid alone in New York City, driving cars, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer, making money, going to night clubs and then I turned thirteen."
The Flaming marshmallow
It was the night before my very first Boy Scout camping trip and I was so excited that I could hardly sleep. I had been camping for years now, but not on an official Boy Scout camping trip. I went over and over all of my official Boy Scout camping equipment, making sure for the one hundredth time that all was in order. Everything from my official Boy Scout eating utensil pack to my official Boy Scout poncho was packed perfectly in my official Boy Scout knapsack. I had even drawn a diagram of how things should be packed.
I had to mow a lot of lawns to earn enough money to buy my uniform and camping gear.
I had been a member of Boy Scout Troop #468 for over two months and although still classified as a tender foot, I knew I would progress through the ranks rapidly to become perhaps even an Eagle Scout one day. I had spent many hours studying my official Boy Scout handbook and I had memorized the Boy Scout oath, the Boy Scout Law, motto and slogan. I had studied how to camp, make a shelter out of tree limbs and how to build a camp fire. I was the perfect example of the Boy Scout Motto, “be prepared”; I knew I was totally prepared!
One of the two assistant scout leaders picked me up at 9 am the next morning. I was the last one on his pick up list and the station wagon was crowded with five other boys. We drove for three hours to the deep woods at Baden Lake, where we were going to pitch our camp.
I was prepared for everything, well except for a small fear that seemed to keep popping out of the recesses of my mind as we got closer to the woods. Way back when I was five or six years old, my mom and some of her unusual friends had taken us to these very same woods on a day trip and picnic by the lake. You must understand that no one ever watched out for me even when I was a little kid. They just had grownup things to think about and they were having too much fun to watch after a five year old kid. Everyone was having a great time laughing and talking loudly. I had never really seen a forest before except in black and white on the T.V. set. I was awestruck by all the green bushes and trees and decided to explore a bit. I wandered off into the woods and soon realized that I was lost. I remember panicking and crying when I discovered that I did not know which way led back to the others. I had never been lost before and the woods seemed so large and scary. I wandered aimlessly in the wilderness for what seemed to me like a very long time. I cried and called out for my mother as I walked and ran through the great forest of doom, first I went in one direction and then I would go in another. No one heard my shouting and no one came to my rescue. I guess all my actions in those woods so long ago were just general panic kind of stuff.
I finally stumbled upon a paved two lane road and to me it was like Columbus discovering America only on a smaller scale. I figured that I had a fifty/fifty chance to reach civilization now that I had discovered the paved road. I decided to go to the right so I turned and followed the winding little deserted road. I walked down the shoulder of the road, facing traffic as I had been trained to do in safety class at school, but no cars came by. It wasn’t very long before I thought that I could hear people laughing and talking. As the voices got lauder I came to the very picnic area where my family was having their picnic lunch. I was amazed that I had survived my ordeal in the wilderness and actually found my way back to what I thought was civilization. I wiped the tears from my eyes, stood up as tall as I could and walked into the joyous group of picnickers expecting to be welcomed back with sighs of relief that I had been found.
It was sort of a letdown to find out that no one had even known that I had been lost or missing. Everyone was having such a good time laughing and drinking that I decided to just keep the experience to myself and file the information away for future use. Looking back this was when I first discovered that it was almost like I was invisible, except when someone wanted me to do some menial task for them.
Evidently that past experience of fear and panic in the woods had made an indelible impression on my little mind. I told myself that I was just a kid back then, not a ten year old boy scout like I was now. I was not going to get lost in these woods this weekend. I was prepared just like it said in the Boy Scout manual. I now carried in my official Boy Scout uniform pants pocket a map of the entire area where we were going camping and two compasses. I thought it prudent to have a backup compass in case one stopped working. I knew that I was prepared, but some childhood fear kept gnawing at the back of my brain and my palms started sweating...
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