The Order of the Arrow
As a Latter-day Saint, I’ve been taught all my life that you don’t refuse an opportunity to serve. Consequently, I’ve held many teaching and leadership positions in the Church throughout my life, and I anticipate several more before I’m through. Some of them have been more fun than others, and some of highlighted my strengths, while others have demonstrated just how much I have to learn.
Yet there’s only one assignment that would cause me to run screaming into the night:
Scoutmaster.
Yikes. I shudder just thinking about it.
Quite frankly, I loathe Scouting. Every traumatic experience of my childhood can somehow be traced back to the Boy Scouts of America. And since Scouting is the official boy’s youth program for the LDS Church, all three of my sons will likely be wearing those tacky khaki shirts and learning the Scout Law. And, sooner or later, someone’s going to ask me to get involved in their “Be Prepared” preparation. At which point I will vomit.
From whence cometh my Scoutaphobia? It wasn’t just the kid who put a dead fish in my tent at scout camp, which invited a colony of ants to take up residence in my sleeping bag. Or the time I was sent from campsite to campsite in search of bear repellent, which doesn’t exist. Or the Patrol Leader who enforced discipline by clocking me in the jaw. All of these helped, certainly, but I think it was the Order of the Arrow that put me over the top.
The Order of the Arrow is a secret society within Scouting, one with secrets so secret that I can never reveal them, mainly because I can’t remember any of them. What I do remember is the three-day nightmare induction ceremony which was called, appropriately, The Ordeal.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The Ordeal begins at a Scouting Camporee, at the “tap-out.” That’s where some scrawny kid with a loincloth and a faux Indian headdress hit me on the shoulder with a tomahawk while I was sitting around a campfire. At that point, I became a “candidate” for the Order of the Arrow, and I was under a vow of silence until I performed an act of service for my parents the next day. So, the next morning, I dutifully, silently emptied the dishwasher. After that, the vow was lifted, and I could talk freely about how much the previous night sucked.
So a few weeks after the “tap-out,” I headed off to Camp Whitsett, a scout camp up in the hinterlands of nowhere, where I was put back under a vow of silence and told to go sleep in the woods, alone. No tent. No foam cushion. No pillow. Just me, a sleeping bag, and plenty of rocks. In the middle of the night, my ears began to freeze, and I buried my head inside the sleeping bag, which was covered with ice the next morning when I awoke.
That’s when the party began.
For breakfast, I was given a plastic Dixie cup, a raw egg, and a match. I think I succeeded in boiling the egg somehow, but I can’t remember being too happy about it. Lunch was half a slice of white bread with half a piece of baloney. Dinner was a carrot and a gumdrop. The intervening hours were spent in slave labor clearing brush and digging ditches, all in complete silence, because of the stupid silence vow, which I broke repeatedly. Our only respite came in the form of a one-hour pseudo-therapy session where the vow was temporarily lifted and we could confess our sins to grown men in Scout uniforms, and they proceeded to break beads on our little Order of the Arrow badges for each of our transgressions. I only got one of my beads broken, I think. Perhaps I should have broken more. Maybe I would have felt better. I certainly was in the perfect mood for breaking things.
After we’d finished our carrots and our gumdrops, we were led around by ropes in total darkness, still under the vow of silence, only now, we were being forced to keep our eyes closed. Scout Nazi enforcement squads walked up and down the line and whacked you in the back of the head if you tried to peek. After what seemed like an hour, I was allowed to open my eyes to see some weird, creepy Indian ceremony in front of a campfire, which would last a couple of minutes or so, and then you were led to the next station, where you did the same thing. It’s here that I think the Order’s deepest secrets were revealed. I’m sure they were very important. I had to go the bathroom.
I realize I’m being somewhat negative here, and that’s unfortunate. There were the good times, too. It was in Scouting where I learned how to ignite my farts with a Bic lighter without singeing my anus. I also learned the value of teamwork when my fellow Scouts and I would urinate together on campfires to put them out. I learned the meaning of the word “smegma.”
What a wonderful Scoutmaster I will make.
Yet there’s only one assignment that would cause me to run screaming into the night:
Scoutmaster.
Yikes. I shudder just thinking about it.
Quite frankly, I loathe Scouting. Every traumatic experience of my childhood can somehow be traced back to the Boy Scouts of America. And since Scouting is the official boy’s youth program for the LDS Church, all three of my sons will likely be wearing those tacky khaki shirts and learning the Scout Law. And, sooner or later, someone’s going to ask me to get involved in their “Be Prepared” preparation. At which point I will vomit.
From whence cometh my Scoutaphobia? It wasn’t just the kid who put a dead fish in my tent at scout camp, which invited a colony of ants to take up residence in my sleeping bag. Or the time I was sent from campsite to campsite in search of bear repellent, which doesn’t exist. Or the Patrol Leader who enforced discipline by clocking me in the jaw. All of these helped, certainly, but I think it was the Order of the Arrow that put me over the top.
The Order of the Arrow is a secret society within Scouting, one with secrets so secret that I can never reveal them, mainly because I can’t remember any of them. What I do remember is the three-day nightmare induction ceremony which was called, appropriately, The Ordeal.
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
The Ordeal begins at a Scouting Camporee, at the “tap-out.” That’s where some scrawny kid with a loincloth and a faux Indian headdress hit me on the shoulder with a tomahawk while I was sitting around a campfire. At that point, I became a “candidate” for the Order of the Arrow, and I was under a vow of silence until I performed an act of service for my parents the next day. So, the next morning, I dutifully, silently emptied the dishwasher. After that, the vow was lifted, and I could talk freely about how much the previous night sucked.
So a few weeks after the “tap-out,” I headed off to Camp Whitsett, a scout camp up in the hinterlands of nowhere, where I was put back under a vow of silence and told to go sleep in the woods, alone. No tent. No foam cushion. No pillow. Just me, a sleeping bag, and plenty of rocks. In the middle of the night, my ears began to freeze, and I buried my head inside the sleeping bag, which was covered with ice the next morning when I awoke.
That’s when the party began.
For breakfast, I was given a plastic Dixie cup, a raw egg, and a match. I think I succeeded in boiling the egg somehow, but I can’t remember being too happy about it. Lunch was half a slice of white bread with half a piece of baloney. Dinner was a carrot and a gumdrop. The intervening hours were spent in slave labor clearing brush and digging ditches, all in complete silence, because of the stupid silence vow, which I broke repeatedly. Our only respite came in the form of a one-hour pseudo-therapy session where the vow was temporarily lifted and we could confess our sins to grown men in Scout uniforms, and they proceeded to break beads on our little Order of the Arrow badges for each of our transgressions. I only got one of my beads broken, I think. Perhaps I should have broken more. Maybe I would have felt better. I certainly was in the perfect mood for breaking things.
After we’d finished our carrots and our gumdrops, we were led around by ropes in total darkness, still under the vow of silence, only now, we were being forced to keep our eyes closed. Scout Nazi enforcement squads walked up and down the line and whacked you in the back of the head if you tried to peek. After what seemed like an hour, I was allowed to open my eyes to see some weird, creepy Indian ceremony in front of a campfire, which would last a couple of minutes or so, and then you were led to the next station, where you did the same thing. It’s here that I think the Order’s deepest secrets were revealed. I’m sure they were very important. I had to go the bathroom.
I realize I’m being somewhat negative here, and that’s unfortunate. There were the good times, too. It was in Scouting where I learned how to ignite my farts with a Bic lighter without singeing my anus. I also learned the value of teamwork when my fellow Scouts and I would urinate together on campfires to put them out. I learned the meaning of the word “smegma.”
What a wonderful Scoutmaster I will make.
posted by Elder Samuel Bennett | 11:36 AM
12 Comments:
Actually, bear repellent does exist. :) http://www.tbotech.com/bearspray.htm It is basically pepper spray and is really only used once you meet the bear. Also, move to Canada. The church doesn't do Scouts here. ;) Instead there is something equally frightening to all mothers: The father /son campout.
I remember at camp one guy found a road-kill woodchuck and tried to “skin” it. It was more a disgusting dissection than a skinning.
Ah the bug bites, bad food, rain, hazing and filthy latrines (one kid lost $20 down it – there it sat, just floating on the top of the s***.).
Overall it was a fun experience.
All good Republicans were once good Boy Scouts. Ronald Reagan would not be pleased.
Urinating with other boys out in the woods means you're gay.
It can also be gay in certain public restrooms.
Besides functioning as an outlet for practicing advanced evacuation techniques, scouting was also where most of us learned to play 5 card draw poker for Jolly Ranchers and Starbursts. Though, since we had no real knowledge of the whole sequence of betting and calling, I'm pretty sure I was hosed regularly.
As many of us have lovingly proclaimed, "I got my mother's Eagle Scout!"
Yeah, but you actually got yours. My mother swore that if I didn't get my Eagle, I would regret it for the rest of my life.
The rest of my life has yet to begin.
I'm sure this will be a story for which your spirit family will comfort you in the next life. Geez, don't get your holy underwear in a bunch.
... or you could just pretend to be a man and quit your bitching, you little girl! How about you come out and try the U.S. Army Special Forces selection, sally!
wow I really think that you got your underware in a twist and you need to pick it out. If you don't like it than don't talk about it. Everything in the ordeal has a pourpose and it really soulds like your just a wuss cause if you wine about ants in your sleeping try going to philmont but you wouldn't do that because once again you are a wuss
Hey thanks a lot you jerk. I'm about to go on my ordeal, and you got me all freaked out.
Also, i'll bet you never made it to Eagle. (am i right?)
u r a pussy. r u a fag 2?
you're an idiot! The ordeal is a bad part of the OA introduction but it's to prove you're ready to be part of the organization. Although i see you obviously failed. It's an honor to get in and you should treat it as such.
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