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The Briefcase
We paid a price, though, for our hasty journey. On setting up camp, we found that we had forgotten half of our camp stoves, and that the spaghetti sauce for Saturday's dinner was nowhere to be found. And too, my briefcase containing various troop forms, reports, lists, badges, cards, tent stakes, bits of rope, and a sub that was to have been my dinner, was missing. A cell-phone call solved the spaghetti and stove problems --- a car full of baseball players who were to arrive later would bring them along. The briefcase, however, was gone and I found myself fretting about it in idle moments, and gradually becoming more and more preoccupied with its present location. I retraced the path back to the parking lot and checked the lost and found, but no briefcase. Along about 11 o'clock, as our camp was quieting down for the night, I was wandering around looking for it when a voice came from one of the tents. "Hank, my stomach doesn't feel so good." "Who is that?" I said to the voice in the dark. "It's me, Chad. I think I am sick." "Well, don't be sick in the tent," I replied. "Get dressed and come out here." When Chad had joined me, we took a little walk back toward the center of camp to see if a visit to the latrine would help. As we walked, we passed by dozens of campsites that still lit up the night with their propane lanterns; sites so dense and organized that our Scouts had given them names like Chicago and New York. This last was so large that it even had suburbs. "So, what did you have to eat tonight?" I asked Chad as we walked. "Well, I had some chocolate-chip cookies and lemonade." "Anything else?" "Yeah, well I had a taco and some potato chips, too." "Anything else?" "Well, I had some pizza and a Big Mac before we left." "Anything else?" "I had a few sugar cookies and, oh I know, I had a piece of sour candy. That must be what gave me the stomach ache!" With that mystery solved, Chad retired to the toilet, and I rocked on my heels in the darkness, examining the night sky. Another time I would have savored the night, or smiled at the unintended humor of Chad's replies, but not this time. There I stood in the darkness, pondering the whereabouts of my briefcase and wondering how best to get it back. When Chad rejoined me he said, "My stomach feels a lot better now, but a wasp in the toilet bit me on the neck and I think its swelling up." So we walked back to the camp, and I found some ice and a paper towel and took care of this next small crisis, and again I didn't smile at the irony on the situation. Silly though it was, my mind kept returning to the lost briefcase. Even later, lying in my bag, I thought about it and so, only slept fitfully that whole night. Saturday was warm and sunny. The Lost and Found Department had accumulated an interesting collection of stuff, but no briefcase, and I went off to the day's events with the mystery still preying on my mind. The 1100 Scouts and leaders walked up to the Activity Area and spent an excellent morning rolling logs, using crosscut saws, climbing poles and doing other Scout related activities. As usual, there were mistakes made by the Scouts that required a word or two. One thought it good fun to light a leaf on fire with a lighter he had found. He won't do that again soon. Some others got a little rough or showed more interest in the snack bar line than the lines for the events. With 23 Scouts, a certain amount of this is to be expected, and normally I take such small problems in stride. Whenever I start to tense up, I wander off by myself for ten minutes or so, and look at the woods, or think about how to best handle a problem. This works well for me, and I have had many an interesting idea or insight while taking one of these short breaks from the crowd. This time, of course, I thought about that miserable briefcase, and the frustrations did not drain away. Along about 1:30, you could have seen the unusual sight of over 1000 Scouts out for a three-mile hike. It was a hot, dusty business, and most of my Scouts were out of water before we reached the train that then hauled us 9 miles to Drake's Well Park for a look at oil country history, and a noisy and interesting nitroglycerine demonstration. It really was a good day, but I was not at my best, and it's funny how that changed my view of things. Instead of smiling and relaxing, I let little things get to me, and by that evening, after the campfire, people had begun to notice the difference from my normal style. Sunday was another beauty of a day, and I could see that many of our campers had had an excellent time at the Tri-Council Camporee. Ian, our newest Scout, had taken to the woodsy life with ease. I loved the look on his face when he realized that he didn't have to sweep out the tent that had been his house for the weekend, but that instead he could just pick the whole thing up and dump out the dirt. Buck Heeter, our oldest Scouter, also had a great time. As a boy he had lived close to this very spot, back when the oil industry was much more active in this part of the world. He told tales of those days that made the past come alive for us.
I was
glad that the others had had a good time, though I was still
fretting about my briefcase. Obsession is a miserable thing, and the
next time I run into a cranky so-and-so, I will stop and think about
where he may have left his briefcase. As for mine, well, we pulled
back into the parking lot in Clarion, and there, propped up near the
Scout room was the cause of all my grief. One of the guys at the
Model Railroad Club that shares the floor with us had found it in
the parking lot just after we left, had kindly retrieved it, and had
attached a note to that effect. Inside the briefcase I found last
Friday's dinner, and various other treasures just as important. |
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