Non conforming details

[Bruce Day]

I could go on about how obesity among youth is a major epidemic, about dysfunctional families and drug and alcohol abuse, about kids who are already unstable because of unstable families.

At BSA summer camp with camp food, we have boys say that they get more to eat and better food than they get at home.

When we take them on high adventure trips, that may be the only occasion they have to experience something like that for the rest of their lives.

I've taken dads that are terrified of raccoons at night and have never camped out. They are afraid of the woods.

I've had boys whose mothers pick them up a Big Mac for a nightly dinner. They eat healthy for the first time, and talk about how they can hardly wait to get back so they can have a large soda and a large bag of potato chips.

I prefer 5-6 day trips into the wilderness because for some of these boys, it takes 2-3 days for the ill behavioral effects of bad diet to wear off. Lack of concentration, highs and lows, squabbling, much of it diet related.

In the BWCA, they hear wolves howling almost every night, catch 22" northerns and think they caught a monster, see moose , see eagles, portage canoes that they think are too heavy for them to lift ( 40lbs) and do not have violent video games and cell phones for a week.

I take along an old Shakespere fiberglass Wonder Rod which is pretty limber and bends a lot on a small fish so they think they have a large fish and can't break off. Last week I violated one of my own rules and left the forward treble hook on a lure. A kid and small pike embedded two hooks deeply in my hand .... one of the other adults had to cut one hook out, snip the hooks, and we were able to bend and pull the other straight out. After that I made sure to cut off the front hooks on all lures that were used.

I know we can't change lives as we would like, but we open doors, and maybe they retain something.