Blown away by the story

One thing about writing a column is that if you do it long enough you start repeating yourself.
Another thing is this: You’re not in a position to stop me.
Sure, you can turn the page. But I can prattle on.
That thought occurred to me about a week ago when I was chatting with Ted Johnson, our part-time reporter at The News and Sun in Dunkirk. Ted, who is also assistant sports information director at Taylor University on a part-time basis, was beginning to work on a story about Frank Merry Park, southwest of Dunkirk.
And before I knew it, I was talking — for probably the 200th time — about a Boy Scout Camporee held at Frank Merry Park when I was a Tenderfoot.
My troop was a somewhat ragtag bunch, and like most scout troops we had next to no equipment. We’d bought our uniforms at The Model in Portland or had found one handed down from an older relative. And we had our indispensible Boy Scout Handbooks.
But we had no tents.
And it’s difficult to go camping without a tent, at least in Indiana where the weather has been known to be a little unpredictable.
And then our scout leader hit upon a solution. Through a family connection, he was able to secure a tent. One big tent. One of those tents they erect over the gravesite at a cemetery following a funeral.
So when we rolled into Frank Merry Park and all the other troops started setting up their World War II surplus pup tents, we stood out from the crowd.
While their tent poles were pieces of wood, ours were made of pipe. While their tents could sleep two scouts at best, ours held every kid in the troop, though we were jammed in a bit like sardines. (On second thought, given the fact that we were all pre-adolescent boys who would not be bathing for a few days, sardines would have smelled better.)
To say we took some kidding about it would be an understatement. But since about half the troop still held the rank of Tenderfoot, we were prepared for some ribbing.
That night, two things happened.
First, one of the Explorer Scouts — a sophisticated 14-year-old — sneaked out of the tent and walked all the way into Dunkirk, where he bought a pack of cigarettes and walked back to the Camporee. The exploit was legendary, though it didn’t qualify him for a hiking merit badge.
Second, a storm rolled in. And it was not just any storm. Tornados were sighted in the area.
Sometime in the darkest part of the night, we were all rousted from our sleeping bags and told to make our way to the recreation hall for safety.
We’d sleep the rest of the night on the concrete floor.
The next morning, groggy and a little disoriented by the experience, we walked back to the windswept camping area.
One tent — in my recollection — was the only one standing: Our clunky, laughed-at tent borrowed from a funeral home. The pup tents were gone with the wind, probably in the middle of Ohio by then.
That was my contribution to Ted’s reporting on Frank Merry Park. It’s not much. But at least he had never heard the story before.[[In-content Ad]]