The Hike – SCOUT SERG – Chapter 5 – Carnal Plus

I was pretty darned happy when I got paired with Scoutmaster Banner. It was the last-but-one night out in the wilds, and it’s traditional for the oldest of the scouts to spend a night hiking and then camping with one of the leaders. It’s pretty elemental stuff. You head out into the forest with a tent and a few provisions, and the scoutmaster allows his scout to call the shots in terms of map-reading, setting up camp and cooking food. It’s considered catastrophic if the leader’s forced to intervene in any way, you know, for safety or whatever. If they get lost, they get lost. If it rains, they sit it out. It’s simple.There’s a legendary rumor that, on one such mission, way back when, a scout from our troop managed to cause a minor forest fire, pretty much in the time it took his allotted scoutmaster to take a leak behind a tree! And lemme tell ya, that story gets told with varying degrees of dramatic license. In the most extreme version I’ve heard, the forest fire destroys a small town and they find a dead snorkeler in the embers who’d been swimming in the ocean when the fire fighting helicopter came along to scoop up the water to put the fire out! Crazy shit!Anyway, cards …More