Scout Class Memoir 2004

©2005 Clint Hollingsworth

The Classroom

Here I am camo'd up, pretty good hunh!

OK, here I am with flash. Don'tcha wish that flash hadn't worked again?

Here's Tawni. All week long I was trying to figure why she looked familiar. Finally, I got it. Ravenwing's ancestor?

The rest of the week, was kind of a sleep deprived blur.

The instructors provided us with a hilarious daytime "party" in which they imitated party people they had snuck up on. (I learned to keep my shirt tucked in and my teeth hidden). and later that night, we wound up with teams divided in half and going to find the nighttime version of the party. Tom, Ed and I did more sprinting down the sand roads than we did moving with stealth. We got there just in time to see everyone leaving.

 There was a lot more martial arts training. We did disarms, swung escrima sticks and staves and worked on counter-tracking (leaving no trail) and went on an odd observation excercise. We were walked out to the main sand road, and shown a lot of tracks and disturbance in the road.

As much as I wanted to be the master interpreter of tracks, my mind was so fuzzy from sleep debt, that I just couldn't make my mind wrap around it. When I got back to camp, I just journaled the thing.

All this was leading up to the Friday night outting, the main event. We were to go out and find REAL parties and cause assorted mischief. Unfortunately, it was a bit anti-climatic. We wandered all along the various party routes, but it was as if we had the entire Pine Barrens to ourselves. I did learn about chiggers though. A lot.

Saturday was a fairly quiet day, Tom sent us off with inspirational words. Billy showed us a few very nasty mantraps and we wrapped things up.

After a whirlwind ride to Newark Intl Airport and bribing a sky captain to get me through to make my plane, I found myself setting into my cramped continental seat. I remember thinking, as I watched the ground crew, loading the plane, "I wonder if I'll be able to sleep on the way back?"

I next woke up at 30,000 feet, half way to Seattle.

And so, that was my experience of the Tracker School's Scout Class. I had a great time in many ways (for one thing, I was outdoors, and not in an office).

I was a little disappointed in that several parts of the class were almost too basic. Maybe it's just that I've had so many classes with Jon, studied the martial arts for a fair number of  years, or that I've read so many of Tom's books. But I did learn by doing, which is much more useful than learning by reading about. The meat I was looking for, (scout Awareness, bird language, concentric rings) are now taught during the Scout Philosophy class. Well, one to shoot for in 2005.

I understand that many of my readers probably think I'm (even more) crazy now, enjoying the hardships as I did. What can I say? It feels like,... going home to me.

One last item, for those of you who think these skills and classes are only for young people and that you're too old: one of my fellow students, Robert, was a man of 69 years. One of the  shadow scouts, who had lived hidden in the forest and had busted our chops, trapped and ambushed us all week was Ellen, a 67 year old great grandmother. Makes one think about how we choose to live our brief time here on this world, doesn't it?

_________________________________________________________

Home