Dear Mom and Dad,
Do you remember how I left you last night in my letter home? I was looking forward to going to sleep listening to the raindrops on my Adirondack roof. Well, soon after that the sky opened up! I have never seen so much rain come down in my life! My cabin-mates and I hunkered down in our cabin and pretty soon we saw the water rising on our floor. We thought we were going to have to climb on the roof! Mr. Satterfield said he would post a picture of our cabin floor on smugmug. You would be proud of me because I kept all of my friends calm until the the storm passed over us. We decided that Mr. Barton (he runs the camp) should rename our campsite “Lake New Shirmer”!
Did you know that we get new shirts every morning? Our shirt today had Rocky the Raccoon on it! Mr. Gage told me a story about how Rocky always visits our campsite because he likes to eat our food… and sometimes Rocky even eats after a boy get sick! YUCK!!! I don’t think I’ll let Rock lick my hand if I see him this week!
Breakfast was really good this morning. We had French Toast, cereal, sausage, and orange juice. I was really lucky because I got only cup of Apple Jacks at my table! We even sang the “sausage song” – that was pretty cool! I have found out my new Troop 1 brothers are not much on singing… and that suits me fine. The older scouts have been telling us we will not like the Woodsman program, but their memories must be pretty short because I have been learning all sorts of things about the outdoors. We even went out and hunted poison ivy! Don’t worry – none of us touched anything with three leaves. “Leaves of three, let them be!” Or was that “Leaves of five, let them thrive?” Now I’m a little worried and I think I’m starting to itch a little.
We went to leatherwork before lunch. After lunch we went back to Woodsman and then to our first class for swimming merit badge. That’s going to be my first Eagle-required badge I will earn in Boy Scouts! I’ll only need 12 more required badges to become an Eagle Scout. I was thinking I might have all of these done by the time camp starts next summer, but I’m having so much fun learning all of this stuff that I might just need to skip the first half of sixth grade to concentrate on my scout merit badges and get Eagle by Christmas. What do you think of my plan? Maybe we could say I opted for remote-learning next year and no one would know the difference!
The older boys have been working on cool moves for ultimate frisbee and teaching us younger guys how to execute them. We walked over to the frisbee field between classes and during siesta time today. We will play for the troop championship tomorrow night and if we win we will advance to the troop vs. staff championship on Friday night. Charlie Smith and John Mullen have been at camp at least a zillion times and they tell us there is no way we can lose. I sure hope they are right because I would not want them to blame my class of new scouts on bringing bad luck!
Before breakfast this morning, the older scouts told us new scouts that it was time to clean up our bunks and clean up around the campsite. I heard one of my First Year friends ask “why we had to clean up…..we just got here!” His roommate said “because a Scout is clean and reverent!” That sounded pretty good to me so we started cleaning up. I plan on doing the same thing for my room when I get back home this weekend.
Dr. Kobes must be really smart…..he is always fixing things around our campsite….this morning he even showed us how to make a clothesline out of two bamboo poles. He said this was for our camp gadget. We have to make a new gadget every day! I cant wait to see what he helps us build tomorrow. Now I know why his son Peter Sam is the Senior Patrol Leader. I sure hope that I can be the SPL in the next few years.
Peter Sam’s dad even took the Safe Swim Defense Class this afternoon so our Troop could all go swimming together tonight after dinner. Wow, he’s a doctor, a gadget fixer, and now a lifeguard!
Please tell Rover I miss him and can’t wait to tell him all about my week when I get home.
Lots of love,
Your favorite son