Category: memoir

The wasp

The summer had been incredible. And the last week of camp started off smoothly. My staff had all reported back on time and most of the troops had checked in by mid-afternoon on Sunday. A little after four, I headed over to the dining hall to check on dinner. At six, they’d be serving nearly 500 scouts, leaders and staff. Sunday night was always a good meal: baked chicken, whipped mashed potatoes with gravy, vegetables, yeast rolls and cobbler for dessert. I could smell the food as I neared the dining hall. I cut around the back, to enter through the kitchen entrance. Passing the dumpsters, something bumped into my eye. Immediately I felt the sting. I slapped my forehead, killing a wasp. 

They say bad things come in threes. I should have gone out right then and found a rock to hide under to wait out the Apocalypse.

Up until my encounter with a wasp, it had been a wonderful summer at Camp Bud Schiele. The camp, in only its second year of operation, looked like a country club. The rolling grassy hills surrounded a lake which offered swimming, canoeing and sailing, fishing and waterskiing. I had a terrific staff. The first seven weeks had gone off without a hitch.

After this week, we’d store away tents and gear. The week after that, I’d be in Damascus, Virginia, ready for a two-week hike along the Appalachian Trail.

The cooks assured me that dinner would be on time. I got a piece of ice to hold against the wasp sting and headed back to the camp office. By the time of our staff meeting that night, my right eye had swollen shut. There, before me, stood my staff. Every one of them sat with their right eye closed. I wish I felt it was out of sympathy, but I know mockery when I see it.

The Forger

After Sunday, things slipped back into a regular routine. By mid-week, the swelling had gone down and I’d forgotten about the wasp. The council camp had a tradition going back generations where the camp staff produced a pageant for campers and their families on Wednesday night. It was convenient to do this middle of the week; visiting parents always recharged the son’s wallets which helped our trading post make a good profit. The pageant itself was quite a feat, as the staff dressed up as Native Americans and told some legendary story about natives in Western North Carolina. No one seemed to bothered that the staff dressed like Plain’s Indians, right off a Hollywood movie set. As camp director, I’d spent the evening greeting parents and talking up the scouting program.

A few minutes before the final show of the summer began, my business manager ran up to me and said there was someone in the office who needed to see me. I walked over and met the man who ran a small country store and gas station a few miles away. He wasn’t too happy. He showed me a check written by one of my staff members. The check was written on a closed account.

Todd, the staff member, who had been in uniform, told the man the check belonged to his mother and she had given it to him, pre-signed, so he could get gas and some snacks. The store accepted it, after writing the guy’s name and driver’s license number on the check. As country stores often did, he counter signed the check over to the bread delivery man. The only problem was, the check didn’t belong to the guy’s mom, but to another woman, the sister of a friend. When the check was denied for payment, the bread company had charged the store an extra fine. The store owner had called the woman whose name was on the checks. He learned the checks had been stolen. There had been a number of checks written on this account, which had been closed, across a three-county area. She also informed him there were a half-dozen warrants out for the guy’s arrest.

Honorably discharged after four years serving in the Marine Corp that May, Todd came with good references. His age was another asset. There were many positions he could serve by being over 21. Todd became an assistant field sports director, running the rifle range. For a couple weeks, he also served as a provisional scoutmaster, working with those scouts who came to camp without a troop. I’d been pleased with his work.

Unlike a lot of my staff, Todd always had clean uniforms, which I later learned was because he’d brought four sets of them with a check “which his mother had given him so he could buy uniforms.” As it turned out, even his uniforms were stolen. He purchased them through forgery. Although I didn’t want a sheriff cruiser flying into camp with their lights flashing to arrest a staff member, I also felt I needed to get Todd out of camp. Although I didn’t think he’d do anything, I felt it was a liability to have a staff member working with kids with that many felonies on his head.

I asked the local sheriff if they could wait till ten o’clock. The camp ranger (who was deputized because of the amount of land he managed) and I would detain Todd in my office until then. By ten, all the parents would have left, and the scouts would be back in their campsites. Then, in private, we could hand Todd over to a local sheriff deputy. They would hold him until the sheriff of Catawba County picked him up.

I made arrangement for my program director to take over the staff meeting we always held on Wednesday night and asked him to keep the staff together until I came back to talk to them. With Tony, the camp ranger by my side, I asked Todd to come with me to my office.

It was a long walk through the night. Once inside the office, I told him what was up. Todd was a big guy, probably 6’3” with broad shoulders, about the size of Tony and I put together. Afraid of what he might do, he shocked both of us by sitting down in a chair and crying. Tony offered him a cigarette. I decided not to insist he not smoke in my office. He took one (I’d never seen him smoke) and with tears in his eyes asked what was going to happen to him. I told him didn’t know, but I knew there were several warrants out for his arrest and that forgery was serious business.

The deputy arrived right at ten and arrested Todd. I felt sorry for him, as he was handcuffed. I told him we’d pack up his stuff and keep it safe and then went over to the dining hall where the staff was sitting around waiting. They knew something was up and were visibly shaken, for Todd had been a likable guy. The next day, Tony and I went through Todd’s stuff, inventorying it all and boxing it up and storing it in his car. A few days later, his parents came down and picked up his car and drove it home.

An indecent photograph

I’d had enough excitement for one summer. But the week wasn’t over. On Friday, as I was trying to finish up paperwork in my office, the mother of a camper who’d been at the camp a few weeks earlier came by. Like the store owner, she too wasn’t happy. She dropped an X-rated photograph on my desk, one that had come from her son’s camera. I could have gone all summer without seeing that. Her son swore to her that he had no idea where the picture came from, but looking at it, I knew right away who to ask. 

I called for the waterfront director. When he entered my office, I showed him the picture of someone’s privates, with a bathing suit pulled down. The director recognized the bathing suit and sent for two staff members. He had quickly figured out what had happened.

As the scouts checked into the waterfront, there was a place where they could ‘check” valuables, things which shouldn’t get wet, like wallets and cameras. The staff member in question had seen this camera and he, and another staff member, decided it would be funny to take a pornographic photo on some unsuspecting kids’ camera. The staff member responsible for checking in valuables had taken the photo and another waterfront staff, with the bright red striped bathing suit, served as the model.

Although I knew it was just a childish prank, the Scouts have strict rules on such behavior. I found myself having the privilege of firing two more staff members. Like Todd, both were well-liked and hard workers. The rest of the staff were angry at my decision, especially since it there was only one more day of camp left. They were particularly mad that I didn’t allow them to attend the closing banquet we held at the end of the next week, after closing down the camp for winter. At least the model in the photograph must not have been too mad with me, for the next year when he graduated from college, he called to ask me to be one of his references.

It had been such a nice summer. I enjoyed everything the camp had to offered: swimming, water skiing, sailing, canoeing, and fishing. But after that last week, I was never so glad to head off for a two-week hike in Southern Virginia.

Other Scouting Stories:

Ron Carroll, Part 1

Ron Carroll, Part 2

Delano

Harold

Camp Bangladesh

A couple of weeks ago, I posted the first of memoir of one of my mentors. Click here for that post. Here is the second part. 

Staff Retreats 

Ron taught those of us on staff to make the best of any situation. We were a small staff; there were only five of us. Twice a year, Ron pulled us away for a three-day retreat. We spent the time planning and training. We worked hard. But Ron was never one to let hard work get in the way of a good time.

Many of these retreats were held in beach houses owned by a council board member. Several were on Wrightsville Beach, others on Brunswick County beaches. In addition to planning, training, and setting goals, we’d fish and take turns preparing fancy seafood dinners. If the water was warm, we’d swim. There was one fall retreat, after working all day and a big dinner, we played football in the surf as the sun set. It probably wasn’t the brightest thing as the sharks often move closer to shore to feed at dusk, but no one was harmed. 

One fall morning we meet at a beach house on Wrightsville Beach. Ron unlocked the door. We began to barge in with boxes of food, a couple of cases of beer, bottles of booze, bags of chips, along with flip charts and calendars and other assorted accruements. We were all shocked as a barely dressed woman stepped out of the bathroom. She squealed and ducked back in. Then, in the commotion, a young man appeared from the bedroom as the coed returned from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. “Who are you?” She asked. Ron told her he arranged with so and so to use the house for a few days. This turned out to be the girl’s father. 

Embarrassed and concerned her daddy might learn she’d taken a premature break from college in order to entertain her boyfriend, she asked for a few minutes to pack. Ron was polite and said we were all in need for some breakfast and that when we return, we’ll have forgotten what we’d seen. We left. An hour later we returned; the woman and her illicit boyfriend were gone. I’m sure when Ron dropped a thank you note to her Daddy, he omitted that it had been our pleasure to meet his daughter.

Ron’s Organizational Skills

Ron had a temper and never liked it when things didn’t go the way he’d plan. In one staff meeting, where he learned several assignments had been dropped, Ron started cussing and fussing and marched us into his office.

Ron’s desk was always immaculate. He started lecturing on how to organize our mail so that everything got done. He had a three-bin file on the edge of his desk. His goal was to never handle a piece of paper more than twice, he said. When he opened his mail, if it could be handled immediately, he did so. If it was of top importance and wouldn’t take much time, it went into this top bin. Second bin was for things that weren’t critical, and the bottom one was for things he wanted to look at but was not so important that the world would end if he didn’t get around to it. In his rant, Ron picked up the stack of papers in his top bin.

On the bottom of this stack was a Hustler magazine. We all started to smirk. Ron’s face became redder and redder as we all broke out into laughter. Finally, before Ron blew a gasket, someone pointed to the magazine. Ron turned over the pile. Then he laughed. His lecture came to an end with some mumbling about priorities.

Ron and Marketing

Ron should have been on Madison Avenue. Not only was he a good salesman, but he was also a master marketer. Even when we were doing things like raising money to pay off debt, Ron could come up with positive campaign slogans and materials that turned what many would have considered drudgery into an opportunity to celebrate. I don’t remember all the names, but one desk, I still have a “Catch the Scouting Spirit” mug holding pencils. In a shelf at work, there’s a “Total Development Campaign” apothecary jar holding toothpicks. 

Ron insisted that when an event was over, it didn’t matter how good it turned out. What mattered was how people thought it went. If it was the greatest event in the world and only those who were there knew about it, it was a flop. Then next time we’d have to work just as hard. However, even if the event was mediocre, but everyone thought it was great, then it was a success. The next time such an event would be even easier to promote. Ron encouraged us to learn the stories from scouts and leaders and to tell them in order to promote the program. 

Knowing I was interested in photography, Ron encouraged me to shoot photos whenever possible. With the scouting program financing my film and developing chemicals, I photographed everything. As I was working in rural areas with smaller newspapers, I often had full page spreads of my photographs showing scouts in action. Photos ended up in the council annual report and on camp posters. I was shocked when visiting Ron years later, just before his death, to see the posters framed and hanging in his home. Although at the time my writing was limited to an occasional press release, I’m sure Ron’s insistence on telling stories influenced my writing more than I could have imagined.

Ron and Perception (another part of Marketing)

Perception was also important in how we did our jobs. Ron taught us that you always left your business card and even encouraged us to stop by places in which we knew someone wouldn’t be home or in the office. Leaving a business card was almost as good as making a face-to-face visit. It didn’t take as much time and it left the perception that we were hard at work (in truth, when you have hundreds of volunteers, such time saving techniques were necessary to help everyone feel connected and cared for. He told stories about dropping off his business cards in mailboxes in the middle of the night. I never did that, but I wouldn’t put it past Ron.

In addition to dropping off business cards, Ron was always writing notes to people—both to volunteers as well as his professional staff. Whenever we did something well, he’d write us a note and encourage us to do likewise. To this day, I always care a few note cards in my folder, a habit I learned from Ron.

Building Camp Bowers

One of Ron’s great achievements as the Scout Executive for the Cape Fear Council was creating Camp Bowers in Northwest Bladen County. The council had not had a camp since a few years after my scouting days when they had sold Camp Tom Upchurch. While they had property, nothing had been done toward building a camp. Ron set out to change this. He charged ahead. 

I remember one of my first staff meetings where I learned the importance of fund raising, if we wanted to be paid. We all worked hard and soon were not only raising enough to meet the budget but also paid off the debt which had been accumulating on camp construction through the “Total Development Campaign.” While the camp wasn’t quite finished, we dedicated the camp in May 1981. Hank Aaron, who had recently retired from baseball (and an Eagle Scout) gave the keynote address. A month later, we began the first summer of camp. 

The fire at Camp Bowers

A year later, we held another council camporee at the camp. Troops from all over Southeastern North Carolina gathered. We had around 1000 boys on the site. It was dry and windy spring day, and things were going well. Around lunch, people began to comment about the smoke in the air. It was checked out a learned that a few miles away, someone was burning a large brush pile from where there a track of land had been clearcut. Shortly after lunch, the winds picked up. We received word the controlled burn was no longer in control. A raging fire headed straight toward the camp. 

The word went out to evacuate. Since the camp was a couple miles from a paved road, with only one way in or out, it was important to be on the safe side. After everyone had been safely evacuated, the staff all stayed behind.

Ron went into town to get more water hoses so we could have hoses available at all the buildings. He came back, not only with water hoses, but with a cooler of beer and snacks. That night, the humidity rose, the wind died, and the fire laid down, burning in a bay (swamp) at the edge of camp, not too far from the camp office. We were told to watch the fire and to let the forest service know if it started to come out of the swamp. Ron got the bright idea to haul lawn chairs and the cooler up to the roof of the camp office. We took turns napping and watching the fire, while enjoying cold beer and chips. 

The next morning, the wind picked up and the humidity dropped. We worked liked crazy putting out spot fires and watering down buildings. The North Carolina forest service brought in the big guns. Several large helicopters were based on the lake, picking up water and dropping it a few hundred feet away. A waterbomber made a couple of passes, as bulldozers trenched around buildings. While the first didn’t destroy any buildings, the burned areas were on the camp boundaries were evident even as summer camp began that summer.

Ron’s Single Life

Toward the end of my time with the Cape Fear Council, Ron and his first wife divorced. We’d often hold staff meetings on Friday afternoons and those of us available would go out on the town during the evening. Often, I stayed with Ron overnight in the condo he rented on Wrightsville Beach. On one occasion, I had been down to the council office mid-week. Ron suggested we go out. We did and I spent the night with him. The next morning, I had a 7 AM breakfast meeting with the Chairman of the Board of United Carolina Bank (for whom Camp Bowers had been named). That morning, it was foggy. I wondered what’d I’d gotten myself into as I drove back just in time to make the meeting. 

A few months after I left for the Piedmont Council, Ron became the Scout Executive in Orlando Florida. Not long after that, Ron returned to Wilmington to marry Pam, who had been his secretary. It was a delightful wedding and they remained together until Ron’s death in 2005. 

Addendum 1 (added two days later):

Parker, a who was also a part of the staff at Cape Fear Council in the early 1980s and can barely be seen in the back of the photo, emailed me about this post. He told of another skill Ron taught. Always set up for a meeting enough tables and chairs for 90% of the expected guests. This way, if more came, it looked even more successful as you pulled out extra chairs. If there were those who couldn’t make it, you didn’t have a lot of empty chairs sitting around. Parker spoke about how he, in his career working for Chambers of Commerce, adhered to this practice.

For some reason, I didn’t associate this practice with Ron, but it was also another thing I learned from working with the scouts.  Over the years I have fought the battle with administrators, sextons, and volunteers to set up less chairs than expected. It takes a while for them to see the reason, but eventually they do.

Addendum 2 (added two days later)

In my previous post, I told about being with Ron a few months before his death. At the time, Ron and Pam asked me if I was willing to officiate at this funeral. I was. Sadly, when Ron died, they wanted to do the funeral on a particular day in Wilmington, NC. I had already committed to officiate at a wedding the next day on the West Coast and needed to be there for the rehearsal. I wasn’t able to officiate at the funeral.

Other Scouting Stories: 

Ron Carroll, Part 1

Harold Bellamy 

Delano

My Last Week as a Camp Director: Camp Bud Schiele, 1984

Camp Bangladesh (A Summer Camp Scoutmaster)

Last week, I introduced you to Delano. Today, I’m introducing you to Harold, an unlikely Scoutmaster from Tabor City during my time working for the Boy Scouts in Columbus and Bladen County, North Carolina in the early 1980s.

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It was probably a cruel joke. Harold volunteered to spend a week with his scout troop at Camp Bowers. He asked me for book recommendations. I lent him a couple of books, one of which was James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room. I knew he’d read it. It shocked him to learn of a book by Baldwin he hadn’t read. After all, he taught social studies. Furthermore, like Baldwin, he was an African American, both products of the Black Pentecostal church. And I was a white boy and the Boy Scout’s hired hand. 

Giovanni’s Room isn’t your typical Baldwin book. Unlike Baldwin’s better-known writings, Giovanni’s Room has nothing to do with the African American experience. Set in Paris, the story features a unique triangle relationship between an American couple and an Italian (Giovanni). But it’s not the American girl, who’s interested in Giovanni; it’s David, the boy. I read the book in college. I found the book eye-opening and unnerving. Baldwin draws on his readers emotions by making them feel affection for all the characters. And he doesn’t touch on race. In addition to bisexuality, the story also involves capital punishment. After a fight with his former employer at a bar, Giovanni kills the man. The book ends with Giovanni’s execution for the murder.

When I lent him the book, I had a suspicion Harold was unaware of Baldwin’s sexuality. I should add that in addition to teaching Junior High, Harold was also a preacher in an Apostolic Pentecostal Church. But he dug right into the book. 

Harold didn’t exactly fit the Norman Rockwell’s view of a scoutmaster. He ended up with the job by default. A coach at the high school had been recruited to be the scoutmaster. He asked Harold to be his assistant. That next school year, the coach accepted a high school position in South Carolina. When no one else stepped forward, Harold who wanted his troop to do well, took over as Scoutmaster. I don’t think Harold had ever camped before becoming an assistant scoutmaster. I’m not even sure he’d built a campfire and I’m pretty sure he never used a compass. Harold was much more comfortable sitting inside with his head in a book than outside swatting mosquitoes and gnats. 

Even though Harold wasn’t created out of the scoutmaster’s mold, Harold was a great leader. Under his leadership, several of the boys in his troop earned their Eagle. These were the first Eagles earned in Tabor City in more than a decade. In fact, there had not been a troop in Tabor City for a decade before Harold and the coach got together. Harold served as Scoutmaster for four or five years. 

Tabor City had been a rough place. While the Chamber of Commerce crowned the town the “Sweet Potato Capital of the World;” informally it was known as Razor City. The city had a brutal past. In the 1950s, the Klan ruled. An intervention by the FBI destroyed the Klan. However, an uneasy truce existed. As an African American, Harold helped break down barriers which existed into the early 80s. He earned respected from the community, as shown by families allowing their white sons to join his troop. Several of the business leaders of the community thanked me for working with Harold and wanted him to succeed. 

Harold and I became friends, partly drawn together by our interest in history, social studies, literature and practical jokes. Later, as I felt drawn to seminary and to the ministry, we had some serious theological conversations. While I knew Harold to be a preacher at a Pentecostal Church in Tabor City, I just learned (see below) he ordained as a Bishop.

Harold finally forgave me for shattering his idyllic view of Baldwin. When my personal life became chaotic, Harold supported me. He even tried to set me up with another teacher at his school. I no longer remember her name, but husband had died in a work accident. We went out to lunch and her former mother-in-law was there. When we finished, we discovered that she’d paid for our meals! Harold, I think to care for both of us, attempted to bring us together. Later, after I left the area and moved across state, Harold and I occasionally met for lunch or dinner when I drove across state to see my parents in Wilmington. We wrote back and forth a few times after I left North Carolina for seminary in Pittsburgh, but with me having no reason to travel through Columbus County, and Harold no reason to head up north, we lost contact. 

A few years ago, as I was again occasionally driving through Columbus County (from Savannah to Wilmington), I tried to find him. I learned he retired from teaching after serving as a principal in Chadbourn.  In preparation for posting this, I learned of his death. Reading the comments posted on his obituary, I learned that after teaching in Tabor City, he taught at West Columbus High School and, as I had learned earlier, served as principal at Chadbourn Elementary. The secretary at the school could give me no more information about him. I also learned he become a Bishop. He suffered from a long-term illness and died in a Whiteville Nursing Home. He was 71 years old. 

Yet the key to my salvation, which cannot save my body, is hidden in my flesh.
-David imagining Giovanni’s execution in James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room)