Life's a sunny side up.: Forest Lawn Summer Camp (2012)

Dear Mrs. Rita,

Hi, Mrs. Rita. I just came home from an exciting week of Boy Scout Camp in the Forest Lawn Scout Reservations. This was my first time camping as a Boy Scout. I got to earn a lot of merit badges, including Emergency Preparedness, Wilderness Survival, Golf, Canoeing, and Swimming. My favorite one was Canoeing.

The classes started on Monday at eight in the morning. My first class was Emergency Preparedness. We talked about house fires and how to prevent and prepare for those. We also learned why we should not to put water on grease fires. We shouldn’t do that because the grease and water don’t “like” each other and will make the fire become even bigger. A way to deal with grease fires is to put the lid of the pan on the fire, which cuts off its supply of oxygen The counselor also had us put together an Emergency Kit in case there was a fire. Some of the items might include flashlights, battery radios, First Aid Kit, waterproof matches, and extra clothing. One of the requirements for this merit badge is to draw an escape plan if there is a fire. Then the family would have a place to meet, and everyone would be safe. This merit badge was pretty easy for me.

For Wilderness Survival, I learned the seven main priorities in survival. There are S.T.O.P., First Aid, Shelter, Fire, Signal for Help, Water, and Food. We also made a Survival Kit. It will come in handy in case I ever get stuck in the wild. We had to build a shelter in the wild and sleep in it on Wednesday night. We built our shelter beneath three pine trees. When we slept in it, it was very scary, with the trees’ shadows. When I slept in our shelter, I woke up several times and once I thought a bug was actually crawling across my chest! One of of my friends sleeping in the shelter with me said that he actually saw a bear’s leg stick into our shelter!

One Wednesday night, a scout from our patrol, left the camp. He said he had never been away from home for that long and was very homesick. We all hugged him and said good bye to him. I felt really sorry for him and I knew how hard it must be for him. Also, at such high altitude, people can get easily dehydrated. Carson, who is one of your students, got so dehydrated that his face was kind of pale and he felt dizzy once after a swim class. Our patrol leader, Jacob, also probably didn’t drink enough water, so that his lips were so chapped and burned they were almost black. Those lips scared me a lot and forced me to drink a lot of water.

Canoeing, which was my favorite class, was very interesting. My buddy and I got to capsize the canoe in a 27-foot deep lake and push it back to shore. Although the weeds were kind of squishy and felt a bit weird, it felt good under my feet.We also tried a T-Rescue, which was when one boat capsizes and the other boat tries to dump the water out of the first boat and push it back into the water. This was all done very close to shore and I wanted to see some of the grass snakes that hung out in the dense vegetation. The weather was pretty hot, so the cool water refreshed us.

Swimming was also very fun. We swam six laps and learned the basics of lifesaving. The requirements were to do a deep and shallow dive correctly. There were also different floats that we had to do. I also got to use snorkels and fins. These snorkels were better than mine at home. This merit badge was pretty easy and I liked it a lot.

After this 6 nights long camp, I got home so exhausted. But it was really a cool camp and I want to go again next year.

Sincerely,

Justin W.