“You work on Merit Badges and grow closer as a troop!” That
was how they sold Scout Camp for a bunch of 15 year-old boys to our parents.
“It’ll be fun, we have lots of leaders going – look at all the pictures from
last year.” And the procession of pictures of boys engaged in various outdoorsy
activities proceeded. We left the meeting with parents assured that the outing
would be full of kum-ba-yas and merit badges. And that’s how it was.
For like a day.
The social decay that occurs with scouts in absence of
parental authority is astounding. In
moments what were before [relatively] well-behaved boys transform into their
best impression of Jack, Ralph, and the other boys envisioned by William
Golding. Within moments of arriving chaos erupts. A slingshot war has started, veterans from last year are using the lessons learned in ‘Wilderness
Survival’ to find those plants best suited to spike the neighboring camp’s stew
with, while the new kids are skipping (literally) across the lake in a cooler.
In short, it was heaven for a 14 year-old on his first
overnight trip without Mom or Dad.
I quickly joined in, sampling the lake (the 'cooler slide' had
transformed into a game to see who could get furthest into the lake before
swamping) before quickly being drawn into the plans to prank the neighboring
troop. That night, the line at the port-a-potty was long, as we chuckled in our
tents and congratulated our companions on locating some plants that, we had
been warned, acted as laxatives.
We continued for days like this, I enjoying my newfound freedom,
and always trying to push the limits our leaders had placed, until one of our
more elaborate pranks (involving fishing line, fireworks, and our leader’s
tents) ended up in a trip to the hospital for several of our compatriots.
Whenever I think back on that camp, I have to smile at the fun
we had breaking all of the rules, but also the lessons learned about the
purpose for those rules. The presence of authority is often to keep us safe, especially
when we often fail to foresee the consequences of our actions.
I'm not going to lie, some of the funniest stories I hear are about people who have broken the rules. However, some of the saddest stories I have heard are also from people who have broken the rules. I think we find a sense of pleasure in having additional freedom, but I think this story illustrates that rules can actually make us happier to prevent us from bad port-a-potty experiences and hospital visits.
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