The Bear Necessities

I was once in the Boy Scouts! Oh yea, I remember that week. I was in "Den 10783-Article 2 Paragraph 7 Line 9 " if I remember correctly. The first thing we had to do was all raise our hands and promise to protect and honor three things: God, Country and our Den. I interrupted the pledge to ask why we had to protect our Den. I said, "Uhm, the only thing in our Den is a 30 year old couch that you'd only touch if you lost at the game "Truth or Dare". We also have a black and white TV the size and smell of a sardine can but I dont think anyone would even go into our Den to steal it because of the carpet. You see the Den has this old shag carpet on the floor and up one of the walls. Evidently my Dad bought too much carpet but still wanted to get his money's worth so he nailed it up on the ..."

That's when our Adult Leader interrupted me to say that the "Den" we were pledging to protect was like our Boy Scout gang. You know, "Yo Represent! Boy Scouts in Da Hood! Yo better be wearing the Yellow Bandana on our street or prepare to feel the sting of our spit wads, Boiiiiiiiiiiz! Word to your Den Mother!" That made sense, so I continued with my pledge. However, the "Country" part confused me as well.

I interrupted again, "Will we really have to help our country? Like, if the Army finds a Terrorist hideout and they are ready to go in, is it possible the General will stop and call in Den 10783-Article 2 Paragraph 7 Line 9 for back up?" Our Leader told me that I could take the pledge later when his headache went away.

Our first major activity was to go camping that weekend. I'd never been camping before all though I grew up an avid hunter. In fact, I'm really good at duck hunting! I remember the first time I went duck hunting. It was so easy. I went to this little pond early one morning. I found a good hiding spot over by the swing set. I put out some bread and started blowing my duck call. It wasn't five minutes before I had 18 ducks and one near sighted old guy right next to me! The old guy kind of annoyed me because he kept hitting me with bread every time I blew my duck call but I realized that I'm a natural hunter! Then I had to leave because a group of kids showed up and wanted to use the slide I was hiding under. But camping in the Boy Scouts was not what I was expecting at all. My Dad dropped me off and I walked over to the camping area. I was totally disappointed. I saw nothing but tents and sleeping bags. "Uh....Wheres my room?", I asked. The Leader made a little joke by pointing to this small little tent.

"Ok. That's funny but seriously where do I plug in my VCR?", I asked pulling out my movies. That's when I learned the phrase "Roughing it". Once we were unpacked we went over some camping rules which included, and I'm not making up this part, what to do if a bear attacked you! Seriously! The adult leader told me that if a bear is attacking you, you are supposed to play dead. Well, there's lots of problems with pretending to be dead when a bear is attacking you. First of all, if there's a huge bear tearing through my tent, I dont know that I'm that good of an actor to convince the bear that I was dead.   I doubt that I could look up from my sleeping bag into a growling set of teeth and still lay perfectly still with my arms crossed holding a flower over my chest. Plus, even if I could stay still the bear is bound to say, "Did that dead guy just wet himself?"

Also, this "play dead" advice was totally opposite from what my dad had always told me to do. My Dad has always said that if I see a bear in the woods then I was supposed to run toward it with my arms out like I was going to give it a hug. He said that would scare the bear away. In fact, all the facts these "Scout Leaders" told me about bears was opposite of what my dad told me.  These "bear experts" said it was a BAD idea to rub meat all over your body before going into the woods.  My dad told me that it helps hide my human oder so the bears wont smell me.  So now I didn't know what to believe.  The Scout Leaders where supposed to be outdoor experts but my Dad is always right. My dad told me that and if its true then he cant be wrong. So I didn't know what to believe.

So, I was really torn because when it comes to bear attacks, you cant try out several options before finding the one that works best. You need to know the one that works best on the first try because there's no second chance. A bear cant tear through your tent, grab you by the head while you are shouting, "Cut! Ok, playing dead didn't work. Everyone back to your original places. Let's take it from the top and try it again. Can someone get the bear to spit my head back out and we'll try some other tactics." No, you have to be right the first time you try it! Concerned about all this, I raised my hand and asked, "Wouldn't the best way to keep a bear from attacking you be to stay in a hotel? That would seem to work really well. Plus we could watch the movies I brought!" You would think that someone that had that many headaches wouldn't be in charge of a camp out.

Anyway, the rest of the campout was fun. All though, at one point I realized that I was in the middle of the woods with 18 guys that were learning how to tie knots. This was not good because my mouth tends to get me in trouble. In fact, I got really scared at one point when I heard one kid say, "Cool...we can tie up nerdy geeks and leave them in the woods where they'll be lost forever." This kid was wrong by the way because I had my knife and a compass so I was back at camp in just twenty minutes!!

The only other bad thing that happened involved me talking in my sleep. The first night I guess I was mumbling something that sounded like "Mush Mush." because the next morning all the boys started calling me "Mush Mush". I didn't let that bother me though. I just waited till the next night and pretended to talk in my sleep again. After rolling around a bit I started saying, "I know...I shouldn't have hit him while he was sleeping. I just couldn't help it, he was making fun of me!" I followed it up with an evil laugh. The tents were totally quiet the rest of the night. The next morning no one called me "Mush Mush". In fact, they didn't talk to me at all! It was awesome!

Job 37: 5 "God's voice thunders in marvelous ways; He does great things beyond our understanding."

This just in...

1. Wendy wanted me to paint the fence last week so...you guessed it! I redid my website instead! Check it out, tell me what you think and please send an email to Wendy saying how much better a new website is than a painted fence!

2. My comedy/ devotional book (Growing Up Super Average: The Adventures of Average Boy) is doing really well! So well that Focus on the Family asked me to write a discussion guide for Youth Leaders and Parents to use while going through the book with their kids. I'm going to have the discussion guide up on the website in two days (after I finish the fence) so check it out! Also, thanks everyone for buying this book!

3. I added a new photo section on me myspace called "Me and You". So if you have a pic of me and you, email it to me and I'll put it up there!

1. http://www.godtub e.com/view_video.php? viewkey=d5d4ee2c067a456e7c0f (This kid called in to Christian Radio station KSBJ and...well, just listen. Man, I wish I was that smart when I was his age...or even now!)

And finally...

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Go live for Christ, He died for us!