This year’s Central Minnesota Ripley Rendezvous proved to be challenging for me as the scoutmaster of Boy Scout Troop 68. It almost felt like Murphy’s Law was trying to prove to me that it still applies even after nearly three decades of being with the troop.
The troop originally had five Boy Scouts and three adults registered for the annual event. Four days before the outing I received a phone call from the father who had planned to attend. Due to a family matter that came up he had to back out. My assistant scoutmaster and I still were still going so we were still covered in the two deep leadership department.
A few days before the event I got a phone call from the oldest Scout of the troop telling me he would not be attending. A Scout who did not register in time but wanted to attend filled in this spot after a few calls were made. Then, a few hours before we were to leave, I received a call from a mother who explained that her son had been sick for the last two days and would not be able to attend the outing. That brought our total to two adults and four Boy Scouts.
Another small snag occurred as we gathered to leave on Friday night. When one of the Scouts discovered his buddy was sick and not going along he suddenly decided he was not going to Ripley either. His mother said he was going. He said he was not. But after I had a short talk with him he decided to go along. (He ended up having a good time.)
Checking in at Camp Ripley was quick and painless. The council had send out an email with information so we already knew which building in which we would be staying. It was a simple matter of checking in with the barracks supervisor. Each of the barracks had eight bays, four on the main floor and four on the second floor, each with 23 cots. We were assigned to Bay 6 which was located on the second floor. We would be sharing the bay with two other troops.
The evening program went pretty well. Lights-out was scheduled for 11:00. The third troop in our bay had arrived late in the evening and were not quite ready when the time came for lights out. At 11:15 I announced to the bay that the lights would be going off in five minutes. All the Scouts were ready by then, but the other troop’s adults needed another minute. Finally, it was time to sleep.
Well, maybe not. The boys in the next bay were still yelling at each other and creating a lot of noise. After five minutes of listening to this I got out of bed, walked to the next bay (which had the lights out), and announced to the boys that a Scout is courteous and that they should be in bed and quiet so that everyone could get some sleep. I walked back to my bay and crawled into my sleeping bag. In five minutes there was nothing but silence from both of the bays.
As I laid on my cot I thought to myself, “Why didn’t the adult leadership in the other bay take responsibility to keep their boys quiet?” I should not have had to tell their boys to go to sleep. I felt like the grumpy old scoutmaster that I never had wanted to be. Oh well, it was quiet now. Time to get some sleep for the next day.
Little did I know what surprises were in store for me the next day…
(To be continued)
