Stewed Prunes and Open wide "The Flood Gates"

Star-date: July 9th 1969  (continued)...







I had no idea what was going to happen since the Scout Masters had put my name on the "No BM" side of the secret ledger at the private interrogations last night. I crawled out of my sleeping bag the next morning and didn't have a care in the world. We were on the way to the Boy Scout National Jamboree and the United States was about to send men to the moon...for the very first time in the History of the world... and the sun was shining - "I was a Happy Boy and things were going my way!"

I'm a Happy Boy   
Our Senior Patrol Leader, Ray, suspiciously sneered at us as he stood stirring whatever-it-was - steaming in the great big pot over the low flame on the camp stove.  PRUNES!  500 gallons of prunes - so I exaggerate - sue me! But someone in our troop must have bought out the entire prune section of the local Wyoming (not-so-super) Super Market!
 

We were called to attention by a poor rendition of revelry that snorted and wheezed and sputtered out of the end of Alan's dented old bugle. We were separated into two lines. The short line had the kids who were smart enough to lie and say they had taken a "BM" (obviously these were the kids from outside Venice where they used proper language for what we called "Dropping a Buick" "Laying a Brick" "Taking a Dump"). The rest of us stupid kids were herded into the long line right behind 500-million-gallon bucket of stewed prunes. With an ominous premonition I wasn't too sure that things were going "my way" anymore and was suddenly nervous about the immediate future of this Boy Scout summer extravaganza.

There is still a remote possibility that letting Boy Scouts out of Venice could have decent ending... hubba- hubba-hubba-hubba-hubba... but the feeling I was having right now is that this adventure might not have such a good middle.

The four other guys got hot oatmeal - while Ray ecstatically scooped ladles of mushy warm prunes into the tin bowls of our boy-scout mess-kits. I've seen this stuff before. This was "old lady food" and I know what it can do to you. I ate two bites of the laxative-fruit-cocktail, not because I particularly wanted to, but because I was plugged up by oatmeal and gloop-pasta-paste and needed to. However, I wasn't about to over do it. As they watch us, I put one bite in my mouth and flung two bites over my head into the shrubs behind us whenever they looked away. I was beating the system - I was "beating the man"  Hehehe. I  wonder if this is what my older brothers felt like when they burned their draft cards... Markie D was an anarchist.  

Here is the long and the short of it: Remember David Cockerell the 15-year-old human garbage disposal who almost drowned yesterday trying to liberate his bowels? Well, believe it or not - this knucklehead volunteered to eat the remaining 4 gallons of the left-over prunes.  NOT GOOD! Worst was...that some ADULT ALLOWED HIM to scrape out the pot and eat the entire remains of this evil elixir! This guy was either hungry or desperate or both! We packed-up all of our stuff, jammed our personal belonging into our backpacks, threw it into the back of the scout truck and headed down the highway.

As the stiff-shocked, moving-truck rattled down the highway towards the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park - rebellious bellies began to gurgle and rumble and made noises louder than the exhaust of the carbon-monoxide belching truck we traveled in.     SHAKE RATTLE AND ROLL baby!

A rocket ship was about to be sent to the moon and yet the height of our technology, was a whinny little doorbell buzzer someone had brilliantly installed in the back of the moving van, as an emergency communication with those in the front cab.

A couple guys pee'd out of the back, trying to relieve themselves as usual, but two hours later the prunes began to do what prunes do - DRAINO!

I'll tell you right now, "We were no longer The NO POOP TROOP"

Steve had to go. He said that if they didn't stop the truck he would probably explode in some kind of violent eruption akin to what happened at Mount Vesuvius. Alan, the bugler, laid on the buzzer until the scout masters pulled the truck over and even before it came to a complete stop, 3 or 4 guys jumped out of the back and headed into the pine forest.

        The Flood Gates were open wide!

We managed to get inside Yellowstone until the next diarrhea panic attack!

The other "normal" scouts had a bathroom in the back of their luxurious travel-coaches, but for us - it was press the buzzer, jump over the barn-doors and squat behind some shrub and wipe off with nearby branches or pine cones - (something we'd all regret later). I don't think Ronny, Cockerel or Chronister even washed their grubby little hands and it looked like they rubbed their filthy mitts on their uniforms.   "Gross! It was disgusting!" They looked grody and they smelled even worse!"

"Hey, Kissel..what has six wheels and flies?" I asked.
"I don't know. What? An airplane?" he replied
"No" I said "Our troop 32 scout bus."  We laughed, but it was true.


The back of the truck smelled like poop and was now swarming with flies. The good news was that by about our third stop inside the park, the cause of our stomachaches had been liquefied and partially eradicated. 

In the words of Iron Butterfly... IN A GADDA DA VIDA...   

     ...thankfully, it looked like the days of "Prairie Dogging" "Logs, Buicks and bricks were behind us"



With the stuff in our belles that felt like the hot geothermal brew of the Blue Sulfur Springs, poor-poor Cockerel was as eruptive and as reliable as Old Faithful.

We spent a night inside Yellowstone Park and on the 11th began to make our way to Idaho.  This is when the event that led to the embarrassment of the entire Boy Scouts of America - that had Lord Baden Powell rolling over in his grave...happened!

My stomach felt better and we were on the road again so "I was a happy boy." However, this inexplicable euphoric feeling might have had something to do with the fact that I chose to travel with my head hanging out of the back of the truck, inhaling the toxic fumes in order to keep from smelling, Ronny, Cockerel and Chronister...

Next, my premonition comes true: Our Scout Masters worst nightmare and the unfortunate serious of events in the not-so-good middle part of our summer adventure...

...MMA cage fighting and the Highway Patrol escort.  In the mean time we pretended to be hippies and got all psychedelic rocking out on air guitars to Iron Butterfly - We were from Venice and had a reputation to uphold.