The Venice Infection Continues to Spread

Star Date: July 16, 1969       10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1..."BLAST OFF" 

I know dad will be upset because I wasted an extra penny on this post card with my 6 cent Apollo 8 stamp, but I felt like I had to splurge since they launched the Apollo 11 today with Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins as humankind was on the verge of taking its first steps on extraterrestrial soil.   Yuri was the first human into outer-space in 1961 and the USSR had been way ahead of us in the Space Race. But now, the good 'O USA was about to finally leap into the lead!  Yee Haw! We were winning so I spent the extra penny on postage.

By this time, most of the pooping business had calmed down and we were regular again - well I don't know if "regular" is a good word to describe our troop from Venice.. but our bowels had certainly settled down.

When we rolled into Farragut State Park in Idaho to meet up with the other 35,000 Boy Scouts we were sweaty from fighting and smelled like an outhouse evidenced by the flies and mosquitoes in tow and also couldn't walk in a straight line - dizzy from carbon monoxide.

 It was pretty obvious that we were far from "regular."

We were like an infection spreading across the Midwest - more like the Bubonic Plague actually.


My adrenaline addiction helped me beat all the kids in the wrestle-mania staged in the back of Scout Truck and so things were looking up. I couldn't fight Cockerel, because he had diarrhea so bad and when our Scout Masters asked those in charge if we could camp next to the outhouses they graciously acquiesced to our request.

 "Wasn't that kind of them!"   Uh Huh!  

I was part of the Hawks patrol, thank God, because the Flaming Arrow patrol had Cockerel, Ronnie and "little Wiener" who staked their claim right next to the KYBO's.  In Boy Scout language or in Military language (I'm not sure which), KYBO was some fancy code word for the outhouses...it meant Keep Your Bowels Open! Seriously! I thought they must have read about us in the newspaper or something, because if there was anybody in the world that had their bowels open it was Troop 32!

It was embarrassing, really!  Those guys not only looked like they lived in KYBOs, but smell like it too! I pitched my tent as far-away as possible because I thought I might die from vomiting - you know my SuperPowers!

I felt a little sorry for Venice California because I think we had just soiled (that was a pun) their laid-back beach-city surfer reputation!  Anyway, if I could sing an ode to express the way I feeling right now in "Allan Sherman" style, it would go something like this:


Hello Mudder, hello Fadda
Here I am at camp "Diarrhea"
All the boys are overflowing
They say we'll have some fun when we stop pooping.



I saved the life of, naked Cockerel
he almost drowned from constipation.
You remember "Little Wiener"
He got gut-rot from last night's spaghetti dinner.

Now I don’t want, this to scare ya

But Cockerel now has "prune" eruptions

You remember the "Salton Sea" fuss

The Highway Patrol brought him back to us

Take me home, Oh Mudda, Fadda

Take me home to good ‘O Venice

Don’t leave me here in the back of the scout bus

or I might die from puking my guts up

Chronister smells like a bag of dog poop

And attracts all mosquitoes

Flies are attacking our dirty shirts

And everyone here has the “Hershey Squirts” 

Dearest Fadda, darling Mudda

How are my precious older Brothers?

Let me come home if you miss me

I’ll even let the hippies torture me!

Yellowstone was just okay

We made it out alive yesterday

I beat up Kissel, "Rollie-Pollie" and the Venice High Wrestler

Now I’m the champ, gee that’s better

Mudda, Fadda, kindly disregard this letter. 

for android users Allan Sherman: Hello Muddah Hello Fadda

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.