Conclusion: The Psycho Revenge and the Unluckiest Man Alive

Have you ever seen cockroaches scurry around at night after turning the lights on and watched the mad, frantic dash for cover before they were squished by the giant shoe?  That's exactly what we looked like - only different. We were wearing underwear and had tribal markings duct-taped across our naked upper torsos scrambling for cover in our tents.

Seriously, though the duct tape- was the personification of cool!

After the snakes had been let loose in the tents of the other Boy Scouts, we scurried like those cockroaches- only with chonies on - back to our tents, and pretended to be like other normal Boy Scouts.  Ray and Alan had used an entire half roll of the duct-tape on Cockrell - securely fastening his underwear to his stomach. The last thing they wanted was Cockrell running around naked. We giggled in anticipation and then hit each other and shushed each other and giggled and hit and shushed each other in the thrill of anticipation that couldn't be contained.  

Then it happened!

1:37am: "The screech that was heard around the world."
                   
One 14-year-old from Troop 34 screamed like a 10-year-old girl on the drop of a roller coaster when the snake slithered across his face in the middle of the night (or like that lady in the shower scene of Psycho).

This acted as the ALARM and was exactly what we had hoped for. The terrified screaming woke everyone up at Camp Slauson (everyone, expect for us of course). This was when one of the girls from the Santa Monica Troop also discovered the garter snake that had nestled in between two of them (Did I say "one of the girls"? - darn it, I meant one of boys).

Oh well, Panic ensued. Chaos! Mayhem! When the girls oops boys began shooting out through the flaps like cannonballs, they caught the rope, which the recon-team had tied 4 inches above the ground in snare like fashion. Not only, did the stealth rope trip the first kid out, but it also pulled the tent poles along with them - collapsing the tent and trapping the other kids inside.

Perfect and utter pandemonium - couldn't have worked out any better.  Boys fighting inside the shrouds, that had now covered them in pitch blackness, were frantically trying to claw their way out. The death-shrouds were in a tug-of-war match - anchored to a foot of the stupid troglodytes on the outside who were crawling in the dirt thinking that a Zombie had him by the ankle (which was only the rope he had tripped over and on the way out and was now tangled up in).

Santa Monica - same thing.

Beverly Hills - they just started crying thinking it was a Zombie Apocalypse and paid no attention to the empty rolls of duct-tape and pieces of rope lying in their otherwise, pristine camp.

Thank goodness the noise was so loud that our Scout Masters couldn't hear our laughter.  And on cue, this was when we went into our Oscar award winning act. We emerged from tents screaming and running around as if we were casualties of the same prank. We carefully collapsed a couple of the poles when everyone was out of their tents to make it look like we had been victimized as well, by the troop we had framed. ONLY!


Only, on the way out of his tent, Ray FORGOT!

 Ray forgot that we had tied ropes to the front poles of our tents in a ruse that had caught the poor guy right across the ankle (the unluckiest and the luckiest person alive). Down he went with a thud!  Our Troop 32 cabin was on a hill. Down Ray rolled! Bouncing from one dirt terraced step to another - pulling the tent behind. Poor "unlucky" Ray was sure to die. There was no way he could live through this.


Then  WHAM- Ray shot up into the air like an animal in a hunter's snare.

When setting up the tent, Ray had decided to take a shortcut and tie-off the top peak of his tent to a tree branch. Rolling down the hill to his sure death the branch stopped the tent which suspended the "luckiest-man-alive" in mid air.






Ray proved to be the perfect cover up! There was no way Troop 32 could have been involved in the greatest Boy Scout caper of all time, placing blame squarely on Troop 33 from Beverly Hills.

The laughter we had at Ray, who was precariously dangling from the branch - covered the laughter we couldn't contain at the snitches...the cake-eaters and (as Jeffery Lennon called them) the bottle-feeders from the other three troops.

Unfortunate Bridge Crossing

Branch Cracking

Truck Smashing

Ray Skewering.

Arms and Legs Flailing

Markie D Singing

Cockrell mooning

And Little Wiener Cooing.

Some Kids applauding

Cake-eaters snitching

Tribunal meeting

And Jeffery Seething

Payback Brewing

A Plan Ensuing

Paraphernalia Gathering

And Snipe-Hunt Pursuing.

Snakes Slithering

Boys who need Mothering

Zombies Reaching

And Death-Shrouds Smothering.

Venice Scheming

Mar Vista Bleeding

Santa Monica Weeping

And Beverly Hills Pouting.

Ray Dangling

Our Kids Laughing

Jeffery Proclaiming...

              ...The best Boy Scout Outing! 

You think I jest! But, 96.34% of this story is absolutely true.

Just find Jeffery and ask him yourself. He would tell you, "No Reserve. No Retreat. No Regrets"

To me, it was just another lousy day in paradise on Harding avenue. And that's just the way it was... until the next true of adventure of Markie D and growing up on the best street and the best city in the world.