If I had to choose the defining moment in my life where I first became adventurous it would be my first Boy Scout camp. For 5 days I endured long walks up the hill to every meal, waiter duty, and chafing. By Thursday I was ready to call it quit. Luckily I had 2 guys in my troop (James Whitaker an Eagle Scout and Brandon Armstrong who unfortunately never attained Eagle but deserved it) who could pull me out of the gutter and help me out that week. I was eleven at the time and will freely admit that for the next year I hated it, although this summer camp started it all.
Next would be my days as a traveling actor. One evening my mother saw an ad for a theater group that would train kids, put on a show, and make quite a bit of cash per show. My sister and I tried out, and unfortunately she couldn't sing loud enough to please the man conducting the tryout and didn't make it. I made it though and this is where I learned how not to be afraid of everyone in an audience. Indeed I used to travel from school to school and put on a little show with about 15 others about Christopher Columbus. I was Pedro and my big moment in the play was to bring out the water barrel. Yeah I like to believe I played an integral role in saving Columbus from mutiny. The next fall my brother and I tried out (my sister wanted nothing to do with this any longer) and we performed Joan of Arc. I was given a bigger role this time. My brother was ecstatic when he was cast as "Stinky".
I skipped a whole summer here and I need to go back to tell another story about this summer. I guess I like telling stories and this is definitely a favorite. This summer our troop was divided into the kids who went one week with another troop in town, and the kids who went our normal week. I was placed in charge of three boys, each one years older than me, because I had been the last year. Understand for a twelve year old this is a big deal, especially when he is the youngest person from his troop to ever be the almighty Senior Patrol Leader (if only for a week). Everything was fine until we got to Outpost. Outpost was when any boy who volunteered could go out into the woods, build his own shelter, and sleep in it for the night. When I say the woods, I mean the woods. Nothing for at least 2 miles but solid forest (and ticks). One of our counselors that year was a huge guy with an eastern european accent. That counselor was chosen as the leader for this outpost and he called every other leader up right before we went to sleep and told us that it might rain. I wasn't worried, my little poncho tied to the tree on all 4 corners idea was foolproof. I would've slept the whole night if a thunderstorm hadn't come rumbling through the area until it was right on top of us. I awoke to the sounds of thunder and immediately checked my poncho (which was fine). Then, seemingly out of nowhere the eastern european counselor says in his scary Schwarzenegger-esque voice "Get up, we're moving to the pavilion". End of Part 1
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