"Thanks for picking me up Bill. Sorry about Natalie roping you into it." I chuckled and he painfully smiled back. "Honestly, she shouldn't have done it without checking in with me to see if it was ok." I held out a large cup of steaming coffee. "I hope that this helps. Peace Offering?" He smiled and said thanks.
"Becky, you know I was going to be there anyway. I just didn't know..." and his voice dropped off. After a few minutes of silence, we started a pretty good conversation. We had branched into a lot of scout areas when I asked him why he doesn't camp out anymore.
He became very quiet and I knew that I hit a nerve. "Sorry Bill, please disregard that question and please move onto something else."
He held up his hand signaling me to wait. "I have a CPAP machine. I need to be plugged into an outlet. It's my breathing machine that helps me all night." He waited a bit and added "I'm over 50 pounds overweight and if I could lose that, I probably won't need the machine."
Waiting a few micro seconds, I ventured something. It was something I didn't think all the way through but I decided to just go for it. "Bill, I've gained 30 pounds over the years since Natalie was born. How do you feel about forming our own dieting support group? I know that changing things gradually works much better in the long run then loosing the weight real quick. God knows that. I've done that twice and gained it all back plus some more. I also know that I need someone to talk with while I'm making the changes in my life. I need that additional trusted human contact." He smiled and agreed. We spoke more about what and how and the things we would do to support each other until we pulled into the parking lot.
I looked around for Natalie and the scouts that I've been working with on Mondays. I didn't quite see them but I did see girls that looked the right size and kind of the height. They also kind of sounded the same but these girls were somehow taller, more dirty, more loud, more confident and even happier? All this was costing me was my Monday evenings off. Cheap at three times the price as my dad used to say. Natalie saw me and raced to me with a steaming plate of 'train reck', a metal camping fork, and a cup of steaming black camp coffee. I quickly found out at the first sip, sugarless and milk less was a given. It was not to my liking. Right behind her was another scout that gave Bill the same breakfast.
Bill said thanks and leaned over to me and said "Drink the coffee slow so the grounds sink to the bottom or use your teeth as a filter. The new scouts tend to be a bit impatient and haven't learned to take the boiling coffee pot off the campfire and bang the pot with a large spoon to settle the grounds first. Then they need to learn to pour the coffee out slowly and not pour out the grounds at the bottom of the pot."
"Bill, what have you gotten me into?" That's when he smiled. "Real life and making a difference with kids. And bad coffee. Lot's o' bad coffee. What did you expect?" He smiled then added "Good coffee?" I groaned.
I knew that he was right and this was the right place for me and Natalie. We ended up taking a total of 3 campers home, two second year friends and Natalie. At the apartment, I offered a lunch of sandwiches and soup for the three of us. After that quick lunch, I started the camping laundry as Bill instructed Natalie on how to clean and store the camping equipment to be brought back to the meeting tomorrow. After it was stacked and organized by the back door, he said his goodbyes with a smile. I was surprised with a hug from him and he exchanged a fist-bump with Natalie.
Natalie and I had supper three hours later and then soon hit the hay. It had been a long day for everybody.
Bill
I'm beginning to feel more comfortable with Becky, but I'm still worried about Skids. The Hoffman family started to put pressure on everybody that they could. It was almost getting Putin like. The fluff articles were taking up half of the local paper. The public displays of the great things that were done for our area because of them were stepped up. You know that your country is in trouble when there are pictures of only the leader everyplace. Somehow, the Hoffmans were able to get the steelworkers some overtime to finish their part of the bridge rebuild and get them quickly out of town. The police department was chastised because they couldn't find who did the brown stripes. The fire department and the EMTs were severely threatened with huge budget cuts. No punches were being pulled. The Hoffmans were at their weakest that they've ever been, and they were not going to go down without a dirty fight. After all, their money and power were at stake. I think that if a real investigative reporter and a States Attorney got involved, it would be fines and possible prison time. I'm sure that it was fear that focused their energies.
At the last scout meeting, we were still working on the Citizenship and the Community merit badge. Working with these scouts is my refuge. It gives me hope for the future.
"Mr. Pollock, Mr. Pollock when can we go to the local government meeting?" A crowd of 8 scouts suddenly surrounded me. "Observing a meeting and then making a report is all we need to finish the Citizenship in the Community merit badge. It's needed for Eagle."
"Ok, when is the next city council or County Board meeting?" Five hands went up, so I asked the other three to find out. I've done this before and it's a great way to help kids grow and gain a 'protected' experience to help them advance in the world. Experiences, supported experiences makes the Girl Scouts and BSA scouting programs valuable. These three that didn't know were helped by the other five who did know. It was ten minutes later that we agreed to schedule ourselves to go to the next County Board meeting in 3 days. That'll be Thursday. Tonight, I'll send out emails to these 8 scouts and their parents as well as the rest of the two troops. I don't know if a requirement like this is needed for the Girl scouts, but we've always added them to our invitations. We get along and support one another's programs.
For BSA scouts only, the email contained the info for the Citizenship in the Community Merit Badge and its requirements, a permission slip to have signed by a parent as well as the standard begging for additional parents and leaders for shared rides. I also emphasized that the requirements do not need to be done in any order but the scout is required to be prepared. The girl scout email contained the base info. Some of the assistant scoutmaster's wives are Girl Scout leaders so they get to craft their own invitation for the field visit to the government meeting.
