The Rogue Boy Scout Troop: Fun with Dynamite

  There was a story in the news from Connecticut about a woman losing a few fingers due to an encounter with a stick of dynamite.

  The woman and her husband had moved into a house a few months back.  A storm hit the northeast and knocked out power in the couple’s area.

  Then the woman remembered when they were moving into their new digs she saw a couple of candles on a shelf in the basement so she went downstairs to get one.

  What she lit wasn’t a wick, it was a fuse…it wasn’t a candle, it was a stick of dynamite.

  The story was never told as to why the previous homeowner had dynamite in the basement nor did we ever find out how someone mistakes a stick of dynamite for a candle.

  And I never did find out why Scoutmaster Pete* left a box of dynamite under the lodge at Boy Scout Camp instead of at his li’l ol’ farm.

  I should explain.

  The Connecticut incident brought back a memory of time spent in what I now call my “Rogue Boy Scout Troop.”  Of course back in the day I didn’t know it was a rogue Boy Scout troop then but as the years have passed it became clear I was in a troop where the leaders’ drinking whiskey and beer and getting away from their wives for the weekend was the priority as opposed to by-the-book Boy Scoutin’.

  About once a month our troop would go off on camping or backpacking trips in the mountains of western Virginia.  Lots of times we’d go on backpacking trips along the Appalachian Trail.  Sometimes we’d go to the place we called “Boy Scout Camp.”  This was a few acres of woodland in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

  The camp had a three-sided lodge made out of old railroad ties, big enough to hold maybe 20 scouts and leaders in sleeping bags.  There was a running stream, there was a mountain spring and there was a freshly built pond stocked with Rainbow Trout.  Boy Scout Camp was owned by the church that our troop called home.

  Most of the work on the camp had been done by Scoutmaster Pete*.  Scoutmaster Pete had hauled in the old railroad ties to build the shelter.  Scoutmaster Pete had brought in the bulldozer to dig out the fish pond. 

  And it was Scoutmaster Pete who brought the dynamite to Boy Scout Camp.

  I really didn’t know much about Scoutmaster Pete except he worked with Scoutmaster Dick at the Big Pharma plant in town.  I knew that Scoutmaster Pete had a wife and kid and as a kid myself I didn’t give much thought to him often leaving them at home when he went on Boy Scout adventures.  As an adult I did wonder why a man would leave his wife and daughter alone while he did his scoutmastering.  I found out years later that Pete had gone to the same university as me but many years earlier, that he and his wife divorced in the late ‘70’s and he retired to Costa Rica where he died, just 65 years old.

  If Scoutmaster Pete wasn’t taking the whole troop on a weekend expedition he would often go on more rugged adventures with Scoutmaster Dick and some of the older scouts like canoeing flooded creeks or backcountry backpacking trips.

  Pete and Dick liked to mess with the locals on these trips, like the time their merry, rough-looking, fresh-from-camping band descended on the nice restaurant at Peaks of Otter Lodge on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

  The waiter came to take their order.

  Everybody at the table ordered and then it was Scoutmaster Dick’s turn.

  Dick grew up in Maine.  His family was French-Canadian.  French was his second language.

  Dick ordered in French. 

  The waiter turned to Pete.

  “What did he say?”

  “Hell, I don’t know,” said Pete, “He’s a hitchhiker we picked up along the way.  We’re treating him to breakfast.”

  Scoutmaster Dick spoke some more French.

  “I don’t know what to do,” said the waiter.

  “Hell, son, go find someone who can speak whatever language he’s speaking,” said Pete.

  The waiter went on that mission while Dick stifled a laugh in his napkin.

  The waiter came back with a guy.

  “Habla Español, señor?” asked the man.

  Dick spoke more French.

  The Spanish speaker turned to the waiter.

  “This fellow is speaking French,” said the man.

  It took a few minutes but the waiter returned with a French speaker and Dick ordered his breakfast.  And on the way home they laughed and laughed.

  Anyway…

  Scoutmaster Pete brought in the railroad ties for the camping shelter, the bulldozer to scoop out the pond…

…and that dynamite.

  So one winter Monday at one of our weekly troop meetings some of the older scouts, like the ones who had driver’s licenses, asked if any of us younger scouts wanted to go on a weekend trip to Boy Scout Camp.  It was one of those months where the scoutmasters couldn’t take us on a weekend campout.

  Six of us met up at the church Friday evening.  We were going to ride to Boy Scout Camp with Eagle Scout Woody and Junior Assistant Scoutmaster Larry.  Junior Assistant Scoutmaster Larry was a nondescript kind of guy…I think he grew up to be an accountant and have a wife and 2.0 kids.  Eagle Scout Woody was what one might call a “character.”  He always seemed to be getting into trouble of one kind or another.  There was the time he had to be rescued from a country bar where he went to use his fake ID to buy beer.  Or the time he drank all of Scoutmaster Pete’s cooking wine…Scoutmaster Pete liked to pan fry his camping steaks in an iron skillet with some Mogen David wine….high class livin’, tell you what…

  Anyway, Boy Scout Camp was just an hour out of town.  Soon we were packed up and headed for the mountains.

  The older scouts drove down the forest trail in the dark and soon we were at the shelter.  Soon we had a roaring fire going, had the Coleman lanterns lit up and there we were.

  “I saw they’s havin’ a shootin’ match at the head of the holler,” said Eagle Scout Woody, “I’m goin’ up there, anyone wanna come with me?”

  “I’ll go,” I piped up.

  No one else wanted to go.

  Eagle Scout Woody grabbed his 30.06 rifle, put it in the front trunk of his beat up Corvair and soon he and I were headed on down the forest trail to the shootin’ match.

  Eagle Scout Woody pulled into the farmyard with the other cars and pickup trucks, grabbed his 30.06 out of the front trunk and moseyed inside the little farm’s barn.

  There were locals of all shapes and sizes inside the big ol’ barn.  Big fat ol’ red-cheeked farmers chewin’ tobacco, young muscular farm guys, pinch-faced old men.  Lots of Coleman lanterns lit the place up.

  “That’ll be 2 dollars, boys,” said a big ol’ man wearing bib overalls, a hand pointed at Eagle Scout Woody another hand pointed at me.

  “You didn’t tell me it was gonna cost anything,” I said to Eagle Scout Woody.

  “You ain’t got two dollars?” he asked, reaching for his wallet.

  “Well, yeah,” I said.

  “Well quit yer bitchin’ and pay the man,” said Eagle Scout Woody.

  At a shootin’ match you put your initials on the back of a target, the target is sent by pulley out to the back of the barn up against a bunch of hay bales.  You take your turn shooting at the target and if a bullet, any bullet, goes through or gets closest to your initials you win that match.  50 cents each match.

  Eagle Scout Woody strode up to take his shot.

  “You ain’t from ‘round here, are you boy,” said Bib Overalls.  “You ain’t usin’ that 30-ought-6 in my barn, you’ll blow a damn hole in the back wall.”

  Eagle Scout Woody and Bib Overalls eyeballed each other.

  Bib Overalls handed Eagle Scout Woody a .22 rifle.

  “Just use these li’l ol’ peashooters here, boy.”

  Eagle Scout Woody took his shot for five matches. 

  Fifth match he won.

  Just like all the other winners Eagle Scout Woody got a round of applause.

  Eagle Scout Woody gave a smile to all around then he turned to Bib Overalls…

  “What’d I win, boss?”

  Bib Overalls turned around, reached behind a counter and presented Eagle Scout Woody with a big ol’ five pound box of candy with a naked lady on the lid.  She was blonde, smiling, standing by a pool in the sunshine with a big bouquet of flowers held strategically below her bellybutton.

  The “Nekkid Lady Box of Candy” as it became known in troop lore occupied a place of honor next to Eagle Scout Woody’s bunk for the weekend.

  Saturday dawned crisp and cold, sun filtering through the pines highlighting spots of snow from the storm a week or so earlier.

  A fire was built, we all whipped up our own breakfasts.  Some of us had freeze-dried bacon and eggs (just add boiling water and stir!).  I made some Quaker Oats instant oatmeal…apples and cinnamon…I ate a lot of that when I was a kid.  As an older dude I learned it was not much more than high carbohydrate sugared slop.  Did I mention to you I have The Diabetes?

  “Ho, HO!” came a voice from back of the shelter, “Look what I found.”

  It was the voice of Eagle Scout Woody.

  He came around the corner from the back of the shelter with a small box marked “FRAGILE” and “DANGER” all over it.  He moseyed over to the fire pit.

  “I found Scoutmaster Pete’s dynamite stash,” said Eagle Scout Woody.

  He opened the box and we all peered inside.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen a real, live stick of dynamite…eight of ‘em.

  “Damn,” said Larry.  “You need to put that shit back where you found it.”

  “You’re such a pussy,” said Eagle Scout Woody.  “This shit can’t hurt us…no fuses…no blasting caps.”

  Us younger scouts stood around and looked at the box with wide eyes.

  “What the hell is Pete doing leaving that here?”

  “Probably to keep it away from his house,” said Eagle Scout Woody.  He took a stick out of the box.  “C’mon, let’s go have some fun.”

  “NO,” said Larry, “I outrank you and I say NO.”

  “Oh jeez, I’m so scared, Big Larry the Junior Assistant Scoutmaster is pulling rank.”

  Eagle Scout Woody went for his 30-ought-6, grabbed it out of his car trunk and headed down the road toward the fish pond.

  “WOODY!” yelled Larry, “IT’S DANGEROUS!”

  “I KNOW WHAT THE HELL I’M DOING,” yelled Eagle Scout Woody, not looking back…one hand holding his rifle slung over his shoulder like a marching soldier, the other holding the stick of dynamite.

  “Damn,” said Larry.  He looked around, picked up the box of dynamite and put it under the shelter.  “Come on guys, let’s go see what he’s up to.”

  We followed Larry down the road to the fish pond…

…where we found Eagle Scout Woody standing, the butt of his 30.06 resting on his hip, holding it with the barrel pointed in the air.

  “I knew y’all couldn’t resist.”

  “Where’s the dynamite?” asked Larry.

  Eagle Scout Woody pointed out to the middle of the frozen pond.

  There in the sunshine on the white pond ice was the lone stick of dynamite.

  Eagle Scout Woody shouldered his 30.06 and squeezed off a shot.

  BLAM!

  A hole appeared in the ice about a foot from the dynamite.

  “You mean it’ll blow up without a fuse?” asked Ronnie, one of the other younger scouts.

  “One bullet meets a stick of dynamite….KABOOM!” said Eagle Scout Woody as he slid another bullet into the rifle and handed the rifle to Larry.

  “Hell no,” said Larry crossing his arms.

  “You’re gonna kill all the fish in the pond,” I said matter-of-factly.

  “You’re fulla shit, McGee,” said Eagle Scout Woody.  “I may kill a few but not all of them.”

  We younger scouts stood and watched.

  Well, except Ronnie.

  “Lemme take a shot, Woody,” said Ronnie.

  Eagle Scout Woody looked at Ronnie sideways.

  “You think you can hit that, boy?”

  “Damn straight,” said Ronnie, puffing up his chest.

  Eagle Scout Woody handed the rifle to Ronnie.

  Ronnie squeezed off a shot.

  BLAM!

  Another hole appeared in the ice about 5 feet away from the dynamite.

  “Damn, boy,” said Eagle Scout Woody as he took back his rifle, “You suck.”

  He eased another bullet in the lever-action 30.06.

  He offered the rifle to Larry.

  “You SURE you don’t want to take a shot, Larry?”

  The two older boys stared at each other.

  “Alright, you sonuva bitch,” said Larry and with that took the rifle and squeezed off a sh…

KABOOOOM !!!!!

  A big-assed plume of water shot skyward.

  Ronnie fell backwards on his butt.

  “Sheeeee-it,” said Eagle Scout Woody, starting to laugh.

  Larry stared out to the center of the pond and watched as the mist from the blast cleared.

  There in the middle of the pond was a big hole in the ice, maybe 20 feet across.

  And one by one motionless fish started to appear in the hole.

  “Oh hell,” said Junior Assistant Scoutmaster Larry, still holding the rifle, staring at the hole.

  Eagle Scout Woody sat down on a tree stump.  He laughed and laughed and laughed.

  And more dead fish filled up the big hole in the ice.

E P I L O G U E

  That was the last time our troop went camping without the scoutmasters. 

  I was a kid and I didn’t know all the stuff that went on with the older scouts and the adults.

  So I never heard how Pete figured out what happened.  Could have been something as simple as he drove out to Boy Scout Camp one weekend, saw all the dead fish and discovered that one of his sticks of dynamite was missing.

  Years later when I was an older scout and Pete and Eagle Scout Woody weren’t Boy Scoutin’ anymore Scoutmaster Dick told me that Pete got Larry and Woody to pay him back for all the dead fish because Pete believed the blast did kill all the fish in the pond.  Scoutmaster Dick didn’t know how much money that was.

  And I never found out why the hell Scoutmaster Pete stored his box of dynamite under the lodge at Boy Scout Camp.

-30-

*All names fictionalized…