Dear Mom and Dad,

It is eleven o’clock (at night) and I am REALLY tired. This letter may not be very long! Today was a great day at Camp Ho Non Wah.

Before I start at the beginning, I want to make sure I tell you the most important news of the day. Troop 1 won the ultimate frisbee game tonight against all the other troops! We had to play three separate games, and the older boys even let me play for a while in the first two matches. Evans Taylor even scored a point for Troop 1! No one – not even Mr. Gage – remembers a first-year scout scoring a goal at HNW.

The last game was against Troop 2, and that one was a lot harder for us to win… but we did it! We even got a picture with all the players from both teams. Now that we beat all the teams, we get to play the counselors on Friday night! Troop 1 is the only team to ever beat the counselors, and we did it twice! I think we have a really good chance of winning again this year!

Not only did we win the ultimate frisbee championship, but we won the basketball championship, too! We got to play Troop 2 in basketball as well. There isn’t a big basketball game against the counselors. I guess they are probably just afraid to play us since we are so good.

I woke up on time today and felt a little more rested – the moon wasn’t shining as bright as it was on Sunday night. And maybe I slept better because I had run out of candy earlier in the afternoon. (Don’t worry, I fixed that in the Trading Post today.)

We got to wear red ruby t-shirts today. There is a hint to the location of the red ruby every day in the Bohicket Times, but Mr. Boyce said that scouts don’t usually find it. He said that he didn’t even believe it was real until someone found a bright red bowling ball a few years ago. Some of my friends started searching today, but we haven’t had any luck yet.

Breakfast was good. We had biscuits with sausage gravy, cereal, milk, and orange juice. I started counting the number of meals where we have pork. Breakfast was meal three. I’ll talk more about this later.

We set things on fire in Woodsman today!!! We had to learn all about fire safety first, but it was still pretty fun to make a camp fire. It rained a little last night, so we had to use a lot of matches, but our counselor wouldn’t let us use any gasoline (we asked a bunch of times).

We also learned how to tie lashings in Woodsman today. Lashings help you make all kinds of cool things. I was able to help make a towel rack in camp using lashings and the bamboo that John Russell Dunbar cut before we came to camp. I’m pretty sure that counts as a requirement for my First Class rank!

While we were in Woodsmen, I could hear Jack Gaskins and James Lilly rowing and kayaking in the pond. I’ll get to take canoeing there when I come back to Camp Ho Non Wah next year! I heard that Jack had to teach his instructor how to use a rowboat the first day of class!

I could also hear guns all during class, and I heard at lunch that Burd Satterfield was the first person to qualify for the Shotgun merit badge. Next year, I’m hoping that I can take shotgun and rifle merit badge. Those seem more fun because the archery guys still haven’t shot any arrows yet!

Lunch was good. We had hotdogs, french fries, bug juice, and cookies. This was meal number four made out of pigs. Don’t lose count!

After Woodsmen class in the afternoon, we got to cool off with swimming class. Sometimes, I wish we could take our Woodsmen classes in the pool… it sure would be a lot cooler.

We worked on a knife holder in leatherwork today. We won’t be able to use a knife until we have our Tote and Chip card, but I’ll be ready with someplace to put my new knife!

Supper was the bad meal of the day. You know I like Grandma’s chicken bog, but what we had tonight wasn’t anywhere near that good. It was kind of gross. The rice was really dry and I think Sarge forgot to use salt and pepper. I did eat my corn, but it wasn’t nearly as good as the corn we get from King’s Market when we go to Edisto Island. I wonder if maybe Sarge shouldn’t start buying his vegetables there…

I sure hope Camp Ho Non Wah composts their trash, because I think we could have made a LOT of fertilizer with tonight’s trash. Oh – I almost forgot! There was SAUSAGE in the chicken bog. That’s meal number five with pork! Daddy, didn’t you tell me that there was a huge pork shortage because of some disease in China? If Chipotle is going to have trouble getting enough pork to feed their customers, then how is Sarge getting so much for camp???

I earned another merit badge after supper. All the first-year scouts earned the fingerprinting merit badge. The thing that took the longest was calling the roll! We learned four or five things about fingerprints and then we stuck our thumbs into an ink-pad. That was it!

We had a Woodsman meeting after fingerprinting and then we had some ice cream before we went to watch the basketball game and the ultimate frisbee matches.

Tomorrow morning, I take my first big boy-scout hike. All the woodsmen are going to hike five miles by going to the Charleston Tea Plantation. I’m pretty sure I’ll be fine, but I better not forget to bring my water bottle.

Mr. Satterfield is telling me that I need to go to bed now, so I better say goodnight. I’m hoping there might be a big package in the mail for me tomorrow!

I love you both, and please don’t worry about me. I’m having a great time… and you know I’m a Boy Scout, so I’m prepared for just about anything.

Love,
Your son

P.S. – Please don’t forget to play a little extra with Grover.