So my weekend began when I walked off of my bus and packed for the Camporee. I began texting a friend, and before I knew it, I was standing among tents that I helped put up (Note to the reader - Our Scoutmaster was last on the site. I was playing SPL and scoutmaster at original setup.). So I attended an SPL meeting where I learned that everything I knew as far as timing goes was a lie, and we had to wake up earlier.
I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of my troop surrounding my tent screaming "WAKE UP ALEX!" For the record, the only reason they wanted me up was because I was supposed to help making food for them.
We plugged through half of the day doing events such as lumberjack, this crazy memory game (more on that in a second) and a legit discus competition.
So there was this crazy memory game where there were 100 items on a tarp and we had to remember as much as we could after looking for 5 minutes. I was amazed at not only my own memory, but my troop's. They remembered close to 70 of the things.
Lunch rolled around, I had some ramen, and we had a shotput competition.
At this point, I had to leave my troop to join my WYEP group at our band competition in Schenley Plaza. My next post will be on my thoughts on that event.
I made it back to camp just in time for my father's interfaith service at camp, and got to listen to his sermon. Most people in general hate sermons but I kind of enjoy them. It gives me the chance to hear other people's perspective on things, and most of the time they are semi-profound. I like the profound ones... anyway, next topic!
So we went to the campfire in the parade field where troops sang songs, and we gave the best skit ever and other troop stole said skit and bottom line it was this amazing brotherhood-ish thing that is hard to explain fully but bottom line bonds scouts in general together.
I left the campfire at the end to attend yet another SPL meeting where they offered dutch-oven deserts and announced the winner of the patch design contest. I am proud to say that I am the designer of said patch. However, said patch hasn't come in yet from the patch makers as of 5/6/12 when I wrote this. When said patch comes in, I'll post a picture of it next to this rant.
We left camp that night, my father, brother and I for home. The next day we were to be in Slickville to greet the Bishop.
Slickville can be summed up in these sentences from a previous post:
"...Being the son of an Orthodox Priest kind of puts you in this alienated bubble. You see, my geographical church is in downtown Carnegie, Pa., but in reality I end up going to my appointed church in the center of the Universe Slickville, Pa. The median age in Slickville is 75ish, ergo I am the only highschooler other than my brother. But nevertheless I love it."
After church in Carnegie on the day that I posted about (link here) I invited Bishop Daniel (If you didn't click the link you are lost now) to come to Slickville. That was back in January. This past Tuesday we receive word that Bishop Daniel is coming to Slickville - because of my invitation.
Slickville is this amazingly stark contrast from my hometown in the sense that it is a very simple town, where everyone knows everyone and greets anyone who walks through the doors. In the city if you did that, odds are that you would get mugged or something.
So we are driving out to Slickville and we hit the half-way point of Export, Pa and my father turns around (Slickville is about 45 minute drive) and asks if his red bag which contains, like, everything involved with a church service minus the building is in the back. It wasn't. So he turns the car around and drives us back home, I get the bag and toss it in the back with lightning speed.
There is a lovely ending to this story in the sense that we were able to be back and ready before our regular start time of 10:30. We proceeded with a service in Slickville with a bishop for the first time in about 13 years.
The neat part about the whole ordeal is that we didn't have enough time to call the presses, fix up some elaborate service, but rather gave the Bishop a truly Slickville Service. He recieved the raw un-rehearsed group of singers (We don't have a choir), the hospitality, and welcomed him as a visitor. And, I think to him he welcomed it as a change.
In his words, "You guys didn't put on a show, you gave me a service."
That was my weekend, minus Re(ImagiNATION). That is my next post when I can get to it.
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