Camp Fife
Scott Mclean
Today’s course in foolishness will focus on camping. We did a lot of camping when I was younger. I had mentioned that two of our favorite areas were Deep creek above Bumping and Conrad meadows.
I also went to Camp Fife as a Boy Scout and that’s where I’ll start. I belonged to the Naches Heights troop and we were somewhat non-conformist.
We weren’t into the troop yell, sing along, and rah rah stuff but did well in the relay competition. We’d pick the best people for each section.
For instance I often did archery, and we beat the larger spit and polish troops most years.
One year they had a provisional troop made up of kids in trouble for the most part. The camp director came to tell us we were in suspicion. Someone had slashed tents and sleeping bags in the provisional camp and they blamed us.
We denied it and Dad went on the warpath. It turns out that the slashing was done by one of the provisional troop members who was mad at his camp mates. With some angry encouragement from Dad, the director gave us a grudging apology.
One of the members of my troop was driving down stakes for his tent and hollered “I struck water!” He had hit one of the underground plastic waterlines. The director came up to fix it and cut his finger due to poor knife safety practices. We were rapidly becoming some of his least favorite people!
The kitchen staff that year was a woman and her two daughters, who by most anyone’s impression, did not practice good hygiene. According to one camp staffer, they often did not wash their hands, even after using the restroom. It’s hard to imagine these days but all three smoked while they were cooking.
My friend Kerry and I would often sneak across to the old Goose Prairie grocery to buy something safer to eat. On one of these shopping trips we ran into the camp director over there. He asked what we were doing there and we told him we were buying stuff that was safe to eat. He said there was nothing wrong with the camp food and I asked him “If that’s so, why are you loading up on spam, canned soup, and chili?” He turned red and told us to get back to camp.
By that evening, people all over the camp started a combination of vomiting and diarrhea. Kerry and I were the only ones in our camp unaffected. Food poisoning was later pegged as the culprit.
Fife had outhouses that were open to the air at the bottom and top with about a 4 foot section of wall for privacy. Kerry and I hid up inside two of the interior stalls with the intent of scaring a friend who was supposed to be heading up there. We heard someone step onto the wooden floorboard and jumped out screaming.
Oops. It was the camp director who must have had to hurry to the nearest toilet. Unfortunately for him, our surprise sped up the process and he didn’t make it into the stall. We hurried back to camp but waited until out of hearing before laughing.
Dad recognized the signs and asked what the heck we’d been up to this time. I told him “We just scared the crap out of the camp director!” We both lost it and Dad made us give a full account of our actions.
We made it to the end of our week up there without being dishonorably discharged from the Boy Scouts. I think director Poopy Pants, as we dubbed him, was too embarrassed to come talk to Dad about our behavior.
Kerry and I were gloating about making it home without getting sick like everyone else. Kerry called me that night and said it had hit him and he was puking and had the squirts, as he put it. I laughed and said I was now the only one to make it unscathed.
45 minutes later I got the full deal, probably as punishment for my gloating!
Next story will be more in the family outings line.
Later!