Time for a HALT

On a warm evening in mid-September, the idea of taking my son on an overnight campout at Loud Thunder sounded like an opportunity for fun and character-building. I left the choice up to him, but since he wanted to go, I signed us up. A month later, huddled in my sleeping bag and not quite shivering but not warm enough to get back to sleep, I couldn’t help asking myself if this was worth it.

It was our third HALT (Halloween at Loud Thunder), and I had tried to be prepared for the problems we had had on previous occasions. Make sure he packs his pajamas. Extra pants, extra socks, extra underwear. Hats and gloves – although it seemed an unneeded precaution on an October afternoon that was brisk but not so cold Al felt he needed to change from shorts (because the pants had been in the washer) to pants.

By the time we got to the Council Ring for the after-supper campfire, we were grateful for our hats and gloves. He was eager to crawl into a warm sleeping bag, but agreed to go first to the observatory. Even without the telescope, we could see far more stars than here in town (and here we no doubt see far more than in even a mid-size city). But with the telescope, we could see Jupiter, amazingly bright and white, and three of its moons.

Usually s’mores are too sweet for me (though I loved them when I was younger), but last night they were delicious – although Al did have trouble biting through the cold chocolate bar. When we returned to our very small dome tent (a neighboring Scouter was surprised that two of us could squeeze in there), moisture had condensed on the outside, and frozen. I was glad for the Hollofil 808 in my sleeping bag, and hoped my son’s would be warm enough.

What does it mean to be “under God”?

I remember reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every day at the start of the school day at New Meadow Elementary School. After the pledge, we all sang “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee,” and I’m not sure how old I was before I realized that the third word was not “tizuvthee.” I really didn’t give much thought to the meaning of the words of either the pledge or the song. They were just part of the daily routine, like getting dressed or walking to school.

I’m pretty sure one teacher did make sure we knew what some of the big words meant. “Republic” was a word for our country. “Indivisible” meant that the country couldn’t be split up (which just reinforced my impression that the distinctions between different states were not very important). We probably talked about the meaning of “liberty” and “justice,” but I don’t remember any teacher ever saying a thing about the phrase “under God.”

I don’t know if that was because they were afraid to broach a subject that might generate complaints about church-state separation, or if they simply took it for granted that we knew what the phrase meant. They had all grown up when prayer and Bible reading were still common in public schools, and virtually everyone could be assumed to belong to some branch or other of the Judeo-Christian tradition. I imagine that most of the students, like me, also took it for granted. Whatever “under God” meant, it was, like being an American, simply part of how things were for ourselves and everyone we knew.

My 10-year-old son is growing up in a world that is different in many ways from the one I grew up in. But I get the idea that the Pledge of Allegiance is something he says every morning without thinking much about it, just as I did. As a part of earning his Webelos badge, we are starting to work on the Citizenship requirement, and one activity is reciting the Pledge and putting it in his own words. The first part is simple; the second has him at a loss what to say.

National treasure

“National treasure” was the theme of our Cub Scout day camp this summer. As I am a member of the planning committee, I spent a good deal of time thinking about what kinds of national treasures to try to work into the camp program. National parks? Natural resources? Our flag? Our history? Our people?

Mostly we focused on nature and the national parks. I spent evenings coming up with clues, then ideas where to hide the clues, and more clues to point to those hiding places. Since I didn’t work with the Scouts directly during camp, and my own son was at College for Kids instead of camp, I never did hear how well some of my clues worked out.

I figured a yellow crayon and a stone should be a fairly easy reference to Yellowstone. That one was for the youngest group; the older boys had to figure out that a picture of a bald man’s head, a feather, and a quarter were clues to “bald eagle” (the only answer that wasn’t a national park). For Mount Rushmore, they got a picture of a mountain, and three coins: a penny, a nickel, and a quarter. I was going to include a dime, then someone pointed out that it had the head of the wrong Roosevelt.

The theme for today’s July 4 parade was “Stars and Stripes Forever.” At the last Cub Scout pack meeting, some of us expressed an interest in making a float for the parade, and I was wondering if there was a way to somehow show the history of the American flag. But I was too busy with day camp to work on it. So were other parents, I guess. The boys just walked next to a trailer pulled by an old (1945) tractor, handing out ice pops to the children along the route. (Another float in the parade did display the history of the flag.)

Today we celebrate one of our nation’s greatest treasures – the commitment to liberty embodied in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was at once an eloquent statement of values around which the new country would form, and a bold political action that set in motion the battle for America’s self-government. Googling for more information on this historic document, I was happy to find this website at the National Archives: The Declaration of Independence: Our National Treasure.

A good end to a rough week

My vacation week is 80% over, and I’m happy about that. The first four days were the hard part, spending seven hours in the hot sun (temperatures have been in the 90’s, with humidity around 70%, for a heat index up to 105, so even in the shade it feels miserably hot) watching other people’s children. Tomorrow I get to myself (well, mostly - I have promised to play the Ungame with my younger son), in the air-conditioned house.

This was another required week off from work (cost-savings measure), and I originally planned on spending it with my younger son at Cub Scout Day Camp. That was before I found out that snow days had pushed the school district’s annual “College for Kids” a week later than expected, so that it conflicted with day camp. Unlike many boys his age, my son would rather be in a classroom doing math, art, and science than running around outdoors.

Of course, given the weather this week, some of the Scouts at camp may have wished they were indoors too. One mother expressed surprise camp hadn’t been cancelled, and more than one child went home with heat exhaustion before all of us adult volunteers became sufficiently aware of the symptoms to watch for (lethargy, headaches) and in the habit of demanding the children drink even when they didn’t feel thirsty.

I probably suffered from a bit of it myself. I felt lousy the past couple days, too tired to do anything more than I had to, or even to want to do anything. I promised myself I would not let the camp director talk me into being Tot Lot Director again next year. Supposedly I was a “figurehead,” the over-21 adult required by the rules, while teenagers would do most of the work with the kids. But much of the time I found myself alone with five or six kids aged 4 to 7.

Creative cakes

For a lot of people, the arrival of March means spring cleaning, indoors or out. For others it might mean getting Easter decorations ready. For me, it means thinking of an idea for our annual Cub Scout cake auction.

The first time I heard of a cake auction, when my son was a Tiger (the first level in Cub Scouts, for first graders), I thought it sounded rather silly. Why would people want to bid extravagant sums for a cake? I’m a very practical person, and if I want a cake I make one, or buy one at the store if I’m in a hurry or want fancy features. Some of these cakes do get fancy, but they’re also very obviously made by amateurs.

I do like being creative, however, and welcomed this as an outlet for my creative ideas. There are just so many things you can do with a cake, a knife, a can of frosting, some food coloring, and an assortment of candies in various shapes and colors. My imagination always exceeds my ability to actually put my ideas into an elegant and edible form, but I enjoy the process. And I hope to raise a decent sum for the pack as people bid on my creation.

Here is this year’s effort, a Dragon Cake.

I would have liked to figure out a way to represent fire or smoke coming from its nostrils, but short of inserting birthday candles and lighting them, I couldn’t think of a way to do it that didn’t remind me of a toddler trying to shove a Cheeto up his nose. I also thought of suggesting we place some decapitated bunnies near its head (there being lots of bunnies in the stores right now), to give an indication of its appetites, but thought better of it.

I learned that:

• Cake is easier to cut when it is frozen – but the hand holding the cake while you cut gets really cold.
• Rice Krispie treats can be molded into interesting shapes, but you have to wait until it is partly set. Then you’d better hurry before it’s set too much and no longer very moldable.
• It’s hard to make a Rice- Krispie-treat-head hold its mouth open. Fortunately the teeth, made from the white end of candy corn and stuck on with extra frosting, propped it open just enough to see the teeth.
• Chocolate-covered graham crackers make great decorations. The ones that break the wrong way make delicious snacks.
• It’s hard to find fruit snacks that look like jewels. (I used Fruit Gushers.)
• It’s even harder to find those gold-foil-covered chocolate coins if you didn’t save any from the holiday season. I finally ended up using plastic play money. (These and the “jewels” are the dragon’s treasure.)

People look at things like this and tell me how creative I am. I found myself wondering, this evening, how being creative fits with being an ISTJ, a personality type that never seems to have the word “creative” in its description, except when accompanied by words like “not” or “dislikes.” My ISTJ nature comes out much clearly in my desire to pay no more than I have to for a cake, but feeling also the responsibility to support the pack by bidding more than I would like (I was high bidder on a basket of brownies and a brownie-mix-in-a-jar).

Next project: come up with creative ideas for this year’s Cub Scout day camp…

Why help the bluebirds

Yesterday my son and I attended an orientation session to learn about the bluebird project his Cub Scout den will be helping with. I’ve heard about this project each year, but never took much interest, as it was something the older boys did. Now my son is in third grade, he will be bridging to  Webelos in May, and his Bear den has been invited to help with this year’s bluebird project .

The boys will help construct nesting boxes, mount them in areas where bluebirds have nested in past years, and monitor them regularly to observe evidence of nests, eggs, and eventually young bluebirds. Success is measured as the percentage of eggs that hatch and result in “fledged” birds (those who fly away from the nest).

As the representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers explained the program to the boys, the question in my mind was “Why should we be helping the bluebirds?” If they can’t manage on their own, without the help of our nesting boxes, what long-term good are we doing? It’s one thing to try to restore a damaged habitat, or to give temporary aid to an animal population until its numbers grow sufficiently to manage on its own, but there was no indication that this is a temporary project. (Our pack has been doing it since 2004.)

I’m sure it will be very educational for the boys, and I hope also fun. They’ll have to develop/use skills with tools to make the boxes, follow instructions to properly prepare and mount the boxes, take detailed observations and record them, and be consistent in checking back to monitor the nests. Already they have learned how to recognize the nests and eggs of different types of birds. (While the boxes are primarily to benefit bluebirds, tree swallows are also welcome. Chickadee nests are to be left undisturbed if there are eggs. Nests and eggs of house wrens, sparrows, or starlings are to be removed.)

Lessons from the Pinewood Derby

Another Pinewood Derby over (what a relief!). Another car to set on the bookshelf, along with the 2007 and 2008 models. And another set of lessons learned (or to be learned – we’ll see how well I follow through next year).

1. Start early – not just thinking about what to make but actually cutting the wood. The sooner you get started, the more time you have to get it done right. Keep in mind that you may get a cold a few days before the race and not feel up to doing much work. Besides, you want to prepare your Cub Scout to “Be Prepared” as a Boy Scout.

2. Pay attention to which end is which (based on the position of the axle grooves) before cutting the wood.

3. If you didn’t follow the lesson of #1, don’t try to apply a gloss coating the night before the race without making sure it will dry in under 24 hours.

4. The lesson in #3 is especially important because it’s hard to put the wheels on without being able to hold the car firmly (and a car with a sticky not-quite-dry coating is not something you want to hold firmly).

5. No matter how the car turns out, plan on a celebration after the race. This is an excellent time to use one of those Pizza Hut BOOK IT! certificates that your son has been earning.

C what I’m thankful for

Church
This is another easy one to pick out for the top of the list. (See my Thanksgiving ABC’s post if you’re wondering what list I’m talking about.) I’ve been part of one church or another since I was an infant (not that I remember much of the first couple years, but I do remember playing in the toddler nursery and singing Eensy Weensy Spider and getting graham crackers for snack).

As a teenager and young adult I found role models in the church, adults who helped fill in some of the rather significant gaps in my social and emotional development, as well as encouraging me in my spiritual life. I’ve always wanted to be able to pass on that gift of caring and encouragement to some other confused young person, but either most young people aren’t as confused as I was, or God knows I’m still not ready to have that kind of influence on a young Christian.

Most of my best friendships have come about through church. I met my husband at a young adults group at church. And I met God at church. I’ve been welcomed, challenged, instructed, and nurtured in the churches where I have worshipped and served. Church is a second family, and a second home. When I’m new at a church (I’ve lived in six different states since college, and each move means a new church) it can feel pretty lonely, but in time I get to know my new brothers and sisters.

Cedarville University
When I graduated in 1982 it was called Cedarville College. It’s a lot bigger now (the last time I was on campus was a very brief visit in 1998, it had already grown a lot, and I know from reading alumni magazines that it has continued to grow), but so far as I can tell from its website, it is still faithfully teaching young people to pursue excellence in their education and in their service to God.

Fish story

I’ve learned several things from two days as a Den walker at Cub Scout Day Camp.

You can carve Ivory soap with a popsicle stick.
An adequate supply of wet wipes is important when there is no place to wash your hands.
Gnats ignore bug repellant (rumor has it vanilla body spray does work, however).
Bug repellant made for kids may come in a can kids can’t use themselves (trigger too stiff).
Porta-potties are not very stable and are capable of tipping over (so I’m told, haven’t experienced it).
On a hot enough day when you walk nearly seven miles, you may be able to avoid using a Porta-potty even after drinking over a quart of water.

My favorite lesson was learned today, however:
A big enough fish can break a fishing pole before it breaks the fishing line.

My son was reluctantly and impatiently holding his pole, when the instructor – who must have seen something moving in the water – told him to be ready, and then to pull. He pulled. And pulled. I grabbed the pole to help him and pulled. And pulled. The pole cracked. Fortunately the instructor managed to grab the falling front end of the pole, get hold of the line, and pull in a large mouth bass that looked like it could easily have swallowed the fish the other boys had caught. Since all fish were being returned to the water, we don’t know its measurements, but it sure looks pretty impressive in the picture.

Chocolate cake for $20

Until we joined Cub Scouts last year, I had never heard of a cake auction. That people would be $40 or $50 for a fairly ordinary cake – albeit one that was decorated creatively – stunned me. Of course, the purpose of the cake auction is to raise money, so people are writing their checks for Cub Scouts, more than for cakes.

This year I was better prepared. I came up with a list of ideas for cake themes a month ago, and let my son pick his favorite. Then I started shopping for plastic firemen. I was amazed at how difficult it was! There are plenty of plastic soldiers and police, but a dearth of firefighters. Finally I found a set at one dollar store, and a set of fire engines and accessories (I really wanted a fire hydrant) at another.