Most youngsters have attended one camp or another. While growing up my twin brother Kjell and I found ourselves attending many Boy Scout camps. The purpose of the Scout camps is to teach survival skills, and in addition to what was presented, Kjell and I usually added a few of our own presentations for good measure, such as the time when we poured liquid laxatives in all the large juice jugs. The effect was beyond description!
Our troop travelled to our annual end-of-summer camp at a wilderness campsite just outside of Oslo. This campsite was owned by the Norwegian Scouting Association, but had not been in use for over a year. The main wooden meeting hall had tables and benches lined up in rows on both sides with an aisle in the middle, and a large kitchen at one end. There were also a few outhouses placed side by side in a row, far away from the hall. Two holes were in each, as I guess companionship is important to Scouts. One was for the exclusive use of the leaders, which we found rather bizarre as we didn’t think that they smelled much different than we did.
I was the first to use one of the latrines, and I had no sooner exposed my bottom and sat down to do some business when I heard a buzzing sound down below. I quickly jumped off and took a look and sure enough there was a yellow jacket wasp nest hanging underneath between the two holes, and the wasps were swarming out and lining up for an attack. I grabbed some paper and sort of ran into the woods while trying to haul up my pants with one hand and protect my nether region with the other, even as the wasps were circling that fleshy hind part of my body! When most of the wasps gave up I found a suitable tree, lowered my pants and squatted behind the tree to finish what I had almost started. One pesky wasp was circling around my derriere, and I found out that squatting and swatting is not a good combination as I fell on my exposed butt. I thought the wasp had got me as I felt a stinging sensation in the middle between my buttocks. I jumped around swatting behind me and found that I had fallen on a spikey pinecone and it was stuck there. The wasp had flown away and I was able to remove most of the pinecone. Then I carefully squatted again and finished the job.
I had problems walking as there seemed to be some part of the cone still stuck in my backside, but I hobbled to our tent and told Kjell about the harrowing experience, and how I had ended up falling on a pinecone. He laughingly led me to the first-aid tent, where they made me pull down my pants and lay on my stomach on a gurney, while the first-aid person, between hysterical bouts of laughter, picked out the remainder of the cone. He smeared on some antibiotic salve and sent me on my way.
The first-aid person alerted the leader about the wasps’ nest in the outhouse. The leader knew that all the wasps would be inside the nest after dark, so he snuck into the latrine after dark with a large paper bag to cut the nest into. He was able to do that without getting stung, but we could hear the angry buzzing inside the bag as he threw the bag on the bonfire. Many wasps escaped a fiery death and came chasing after us for revenge as the assembly scattered! Luckily nobody got stung.
The next day one of the Scouts came back to camp with his clothes all torn. The leader asked him, “Did you have an accident?”
“No,” said the Scout. “A bull bunted me over a fence.”
“But that's an accident,” said the leader.
“No, it's not. The bull did it on purpose!” The Scout insisted.
A few stories were usually shared at the bonfires, and I have some samples to share.
A man went to a psychiatrist complaining of an identity crisis. “You have to help me,” he said. “Sometimes I’m a yurt. Other times I’m a tipi. It gets to be too much! I’m a yurt! I’m a tipi! I’m a yurt! I’m a tipi!”
“Calm down,” the doctor told him. “You just need to relax. You’re two tents.”
Ole came into his favourite restaurant and sat at his usual table. He ordered his usual meal of potato and leek soup. The waiter sat the soup down in front of him, and stood back to watch him enjoy it. But Ole just sat there. “Is there something wrong?” the waiter asked.
“I can’t eat this soup,” Ole replied.
“Is it too hot?” the waiter wondered.
“No.”
“Too cold?”
“No.”
“Too salty?”
“No.”
The waiter called for the maître’d and the chef, who each went through the same routine: “Too hot?”
“Too cold?”
“Too salty?”
“No, no, no.”
Finally the chef, at his wits end, said, “Sir, I will taste the soup myself. Where is the spoon?”
“Aha!” said Ole.
Sven went fishing, but at the end of the day he had not caught one single fish. On the way back to camp, he stopped at a fish market.
“I want to buy three trout,” Sven said to the owner. “But instead of putting them in a bag, please toss them to me.”
“Now why in the world should I do that?” the owner asked.
“So I can honestly tell everybody that I caught three fish!”
