Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 16:49:35 -0700
From: cliff golden <cliffgolden@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: National Camping Award

Define camping?

It will be beautiful here in Illinois this weekend, 75-80 degrees and clear skies. Last weekend was beautiful too.

Of course, no trip this weekend. Three weekends the whole summer without a trip scheduled and they're all perfectly beautiful.

Of course if we were camping, there'd probably be tornado warnings.

On our last trip; the 1st day was in the 90s (temperature & humity both), with the 2nd night in the 30s and raining.

Maybe that's the definition; if it's beautiful and wonderful, it's NOT camping; but when it's crappy and miserable it IS camping.

Think about it, the trips you remember most are the crappy and miserable ones. They require something from us.

Maybe that's what camping is all about, being outdoors and investing something of yourself. You have to put something into it to get something out of it.

Those easy beautiful days are best left to postcards.

It's the tough days that test us, tear us down and rebuild us stronger. It gets under our fingernails and into our skin, and at the end of it all, you're totally beat on the outside but that much more alive on the inside.

The trick of it is, getting all that into a teenager's head. It just can't be explained in way they can understand, so year after year, you trudge through the mud, rain, heat, sleet, wind, snow, and any other crap Mother Nature can find, to show kids the real beauty and power that camping reveals.

Then they can feel totally beat on the outside, but that much more alive on the inside, and finally realize what their crazy old Scoutmaster has been talking about.

Some things are spoken. Some things are felt. You have to understand camping isn't about tents or roofs. It's not about what's above your head, but rather what's inside it. It's about doing something that is challenging enough to test you, make you react, respond to it, look beyond it, and rise above it. Camping builds character in a very real way.

Citizenship, Character, Fitness, camping is a test of all three. The real test of camping is how it affects boys. It's all about that effect.

We have beautiful easy days, and we have character building days. Scouting is about the latter.

So in that spirit, I would like to extend to all of you my most sincere wishes for some really truly crappy days to take your boys camping in.

Happy character building,

 Cliff Golden
 Scoutmaster Troop 33
 DeKalb, Illinois