“I Want Some Of That Pot Roast!” (Part 2 of 6)

A few nights before we departed we went grocery shopping for all the food we would need on the week-long summer camp. The troop committee chairman was Jack Robinson and he was the manager of a grocery store about three miles away. He usually arranged a discount with the owner so we always went to that store to do our scout camp shopping. We had fun buying all the food items from a huge shopping list. And then we’d go to the checkout counter and our eyes would get big when we’d see the total. It was over one hundred dollars!
Monday morning finally came and I took my pack and hiked over to the Church building and waited in the parking lot where we were designated to meet. We waited for all the boys and the adult leaders that were going to go. We had some final instructions from Jack and then a prayer. Finally it was time to depart. We loaded up the vehicles and were off. As we pulled into the street of the Church, David Jones-= said, “How long `til we get there?”
“About three hours.”
“I need to go to the bathroom!”
We all hoped that David was joking.
We made the trip down to a place called Ferron Reservoir. That was the site of our camp. We stopped at the prime camping spot right off the lake. We unpacked our tents and got those set up. Jack found out that he had forgotten his tent poles. His tent was also going to be the primary supply tent for the food. Now did he just decide not to set up that tent? No. He did what any good scouter would do. He improvised and set up the tent by tying the top to a rope and tying that to a tree limb overhead. My orange pup tent went up very well. We unloaded the canoes and kayaks and put them in the water. I helped do this but somehow I got all wet doing it. I went and changed my clothes but then helping with the next canoe I got completely wet again. I changed my clothes once again. You guessed it. I got them wet, too. Within an hour I had gotten three pairs of long pants wet as well as three shirts. I had one dry shirt left and a pair of cutoffs. I hung everything up to dry on some branches near my tent. At that moment it started to rain. And it never really let up until we went home on Saturday.