Boy Scout Hike
After spending nearly a month hiding from the world under a grapefruit tree, I decided I wanted to experience the great outdoors. The only way I knew of doing this was by joining a group that would take me there. For a twelve-year-old boy in those days that meant a good Boy Scout troop. In my area there were two: Troop 107 and Troop 329. I joined them both because that meant twice as many opportunities to get out of town. A year later I joined a third troop.
Troop 329 met at Madison Meadows. The 107 Troop met at the church next to Meadows. There were two different personality types in the two troops. Troop 107 seemed more dedicated to furthering Scout ideals and working within the Scout Handbook. Troop 329 saw Scouts as a good way of extending their worldview and that could be best accomplished by dragging along adult supervision to oversee the whole affair, but bringing with them the vehicles and cash needed to keep an army of troopers on the move.
The 107 Troop attracted boys from the electronics club. Boys who had been elected to various student council posts because of their popularity and standing on the sports teams were attracted to 329. On a Troop 107 hike, you really had to hump your gear because the leaders wanted you to stretch your muscles as well as your minds. We made a lot of educational trips into the woods where we learned about nature. Troop 329 did things like have the Air Force provide us housing in San Diego for our Sea March. In San Diego, the troop became inebriated soon after decamping. A petition to disbar the troop sat at Scout headquarters for months awaiting disposition of the troop's charter. Troopers from 107 went on to become Eagle Scouts. Troopers from 329 went on to become salesmen.
My first Scouting trip was a hike out in the boonies with Troop 107. We left the highway and turned onto a dirt road leading to Seven Springs. The cars stopped and the Scouts got out, unloading their packs and any items they wished to carry. The cars then proceeded to the campsite some miles away. We shouldered our packs, formed a line and moved out. It was undulating country, so it was tiring walking up and down, never on a level line. The ground was rocky--hard rock like basalt and granite and quartz. The brush cover wasn't inviting, mostly mesquite brush, jumping cactus and ocotillo. We stayed on the road and out of the brush. After an hour nobody indicated we were near our campsite, and we began to worry because deep night was almost on us. There would be a half moon that night, but in that kind of country you wanted to see where you were setting your feet. Stickers, needles and snakes were the ground cover in this terrain, so setting up camp usually required clearing your space to spread a ground cloth, and leveling the rocky ground.
The column kept moving ahead over the humps. The lead patrols started singing our marching songs and we joined in: songs like “Duke of Earl” or “Ally Oop.” The way to keep a group together is to keep things simple, and these songs did that and had a beat. We humped and bumped our way into the night. Finally the front of the line came to a stop and the rest of the line collapsed against it. When order was restored, I looked for the clearing that would be our campsite. Not seeing any, I looked for the road that would take us to the clearing. There wasn't a road either.
The troop leader struck off across the countryside, leading us to where we would set up camp. I didn't like that, not this late at night and not in that country. But who was I to question why? I followed the trooper in front of me. We were a good couple hundred yards into the country, dodging mesquite trees, stepping over boulders, avoiding cacti. Someone announced we would stop not too far ahead. That was a good time to start collecting firewood. The Scout in front of me stopped, bent over and reached to pick up a good-sized branch. When he lifted it, a rattler started its tail racket. The sinister sound rattled around in my ear socket.
I don't even remember flexing my knees, but I must have knelt way down because I launched myself airborne about fifteen feet and landed in the crotch of a palo verde tree. Someone shined a flashlight on the snake. Yellow eyes stared at us from its flat, anvil-shaped head. Its coils were tensed, keeping it flexed and ready to strike. I fell out of the tree. My jaw frantically worked back and forth, grinding my teeth. It probably wasn't a good idea but I picked up large stones and started heaving them at the snake. One of them bounced off its back and the snake backed out of sight, hopefully with a cracked vertebrae.
We picked our way along the path to the top of the nearest hill where we set up camp. There was a big wind that night, a real howler that brought a real chill. Luckily I tented up with Mike Jenson and Jack Loman, two campers who usually brought good equipment. Mike's tent, the tent we were setting up, was a new one with a lot of wind protection. With the ground carefully cleared and the tent staked, we started our fire. Jack was very irritating to camp with, at least as irritating as he was to be friends with. From the time we left the cars, I noticed that whenever Jack dropped his pack it made a sound like a ton of bricks striking the ground. Jack never left home, make that the kitchen, with less than more than ample provisions, not if he could help it. From the sound of those thuds, it was obvious Jack's pack was loaded with goodies. Because his family was highly dysfunctional, his parents gave him whatever he wanted. It's easier to raise a child that way, but society will have to bear the burden later.
He knew I had to scrounge my own dinners from the meager stores in the refrigerator at home. Seeing me watch him dine out in style and get jealous made him happy. I knew it, and he knew it. It didn't wreck our friendship; that's just the way things were. It wasn't Jack's fault I had such a lame dinner, and he knew I couldn't blame him for it. Tonight Jack brought a whole store-bought rotisserie chicken and a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew, the canned stew packed by campers in our area. Did I say Jack was pudgy? The march with his heavy pack and the wind chill gave Jack a real hunger. He picked and pulled at the chicken until there was nothing left on it and tossed the carcass into the underbrush to attract the vermin. His beef stew was heated now and he used a ladling spoon to shovel the contents into his mouth. He washed the food down with the cans of soda pop he pulled from his pack.
After letting his dinner settle, Jack grabbed a package of chocolate donuts from that amazing pack, called it a night and crawled in the tent to eat and sleep. We were all tired and followed him into the tent to move out of the wind and get some rest. After the usual banter, we slipped into our sleeping bags and zipped up, getting comfortable and waiting for sleep. Jack was so busy eating, he forgot to relieve himself before he settled in. He unzipped, crawled out of his bag, undid the tent's wind flap and left to take care of nature. It wouldn't have been in character for Jack to indispose himself by letting loose away from the tent, what with snakes out there and the cold. In fact, Jack decided to keep warm while his fly was unzipped, so he took his stance just downwind from the fire so the warmth covered his Johnson while he let loose in front of the tent. All that chicken and that good Dinty Moore beef and gravy gave Jack's piss a superabundance of proteins. When his stream hit the red hot rocks, the liquid superheated, breaking down the proteins and enzymes and combining them in new ways. The liquid flashed into steam, which explosively propelled the molecules into the night air.
Jack was the first to have those molecules enter his nasal cavity. He howled and grabbed his head and started shaking it, thinking he could dislodge whatever had taken up residence there. Mike and I hadn't seen what was happening, but now the steam cloud was blown into the tent through the open wind flap. Mike doubled over and started gasping. When the vapor attacked me, I went fetal in my bag. I immediately recognized I was smelling the foulest substance on earth. Mike began yelling at Jack to disperse the rocks he pissed on. Jack wasn't feeling so good; the smell had put him on the ground.
A brisk wind kicked up, blowing more of the foul smell into the tent. Mike crawled around on all fours, groaning and shaking his head. He lay on his side, pinched his nostrils shut and asked God what he should do. I simply lay there, unable to move, my diaphragm growing weaker, my breathing more labored. My eyes began to ache because my head was shrinking, trying to close the cranial entry points for the gas. Then my heart felt like it would explode. Near death, I lay prostrate, wondering if prayer would help. The wind at last dispersed the concentrated odor and I began to revive. As diluted as the smell was, when it reached the scattered campsites, you could still hear the anguished cries of the befouled campers. It was a night to remember.
