Notes From My Knapsack 6-25-06
Jeff Gill

Day Camp Takes All Year

Cub Scout Day Camp for Licking District Cub Scouts has ended, and the older Boy Scout troops are now going week by week out to Camp Falling Rock, out Rocky Fork way a couple miles past Hickman on Rt. 79.
Before we forget, and the carved bars of soap, birdhouses, and stamped leather crafts are put to work or put away around the house, it is time for a huge "Thank You!"
Our district Cub Day Camp is so popular, in fact, that the thanks have to come from Franklin, Fairfield, Perry, and Muskingum Counties. From June 13 to June 17, a total of 321 young boys from six to ten years old, 46 siblings who had parents that were among the 242 adults assisting with the twenty stations and four days (five for the older, or Webelos Scouts) of "Scouter Space" adventures, the theme for 2006 Cub Day Camp.
Ric and Angela Eader of Pataskala returned as directors, and were honored at the closing program by Jeff Schiavone, Licking District executive for the Simon Kenton Council, our wider Scouting structure in central Ohio. Over 600 crowded into the Waterfalls Amphitheater at Camp Falling Rock and gave a standing ovation to the leaders who made this amazing week possible.
For doing a program area, usually repeated twenty times in four days for groups of twelve to twenty-two, the Eaders note that they can’t be everywhere, so they needed these folks: A.J. Hildreth, Debbie Neighbarger, Brad Barborak, Amy Ybarra, Ruth Herbert, John Cash, Aaron Kirkingburg, Dave Addis, Jim Coley, Rick Ives, Randall Farley, Martie Slate, Jeff Chapman, Anne Arnold, Lisa Crum, Joe Bush, Harold Mason, health officer Russell Sparks and his wife Rebecca, and Lori Harvey, plus eight boys from Troop 141, and the staff of CFR who ran the pool.
That’s just to run the program.
Then you needed at least twenty adults who were committed to being there all four program days as day camp den leaders, plus dozens more "den walkers" who were parents who came a day or two as they could, and climbed Cardiac Hill as they could, or couldn’t.
We’re trying to get the name changed to the more optomistic "Cardio Hill," since your cardiovascular health is certainly helped by two or three trips up that slope each day!
For the den leaders who knew how to find the Foxfire Trail (hi Stephanie! Thanks Al!) and all the rest, the week really couldn’t happen without you.
Many youth serving programs have been having a rough time, with the press of so many competing options and the lure of the dancing blue fire in our air conditioned caves. I know many of you rejoice with me that close to 400 kids got dirty, got out in the sun (yes, SPF 40 was slathered in abundance), and got away from electronic almost everything, at least until they got home hungry, tired, and maybe a bit more thankful for their homes in the evenings.
And if we did our part right, they were ready for bed, too, for which I know their parents were thankful. Enjoy these longest days of the year this week, and get out and find a blister on a trail somewhere.
If you’re not sure what to do or where you’re going in the out-of-doors, ask your local Cub Scout. They have a pretty good idea of what’s going on out under the trees and stars.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s also a proud Cub Scout leader (like you couldn’t tell), so send him your tales of the trail at disciple@voyager.net.