Camp Spencer, 2011, day three

There might be a guest blog post for day three - it depends on how quickly the Scouts taking Computers merit badge can get their tasks done.


Adding pictures is a pain, because the iPad blanks out image upload on the google blogger site. In order to embed a picture, I have had to resort to transferring images using the PC or Droid phone, figuring out the URL, and adding that via HTML to the content. Not a good lesson to show Scouts trying to learn computer basics. One Scout in the class saw the iPad and said "but it doesn't handle Flash". Religion choices already made at such a young age!


Adding pictures is a pain, because the iPad blanks out image upload on the google blogger site. In order to embed a picture, I have had to resort to transferring images using the PC or Droid phone, figuring out the URL, and adding that via HTML to the content. Not a good lesson to show Scouts trying to learn computer basics. One Scout in the class saw the iPad and said "but it doesn't handle Flash". Religion choices already made at such a young age!

Wednesday night we went to Scout Vesper service, where camp chaplain Scott Gray told the story of "Unfortunate Tao", a tale of an empirical succession in ancient China. Scouts are also collecting for the World Freedom Fund, which is supposed to help improve Scouting opportunities in other countries.




The first two photos below are in Panoramio, taken at a couple sites in Camp Spencer. I shot them with the Nikon cool-pix camera, then uploaded them through the PC to the web. Still trying to figure out how to move images from the iPad to the internet, and assuming the I in iPad stands for me-me-me, not the Interwebs.


The next seven pictures are from different scenes around camp, not in any particular order. One and seven are from trail work. Two and three are from computers and cooking merit badges (should be obvious which is which ). Picture four is a Staff song/skit, something about Junior Bird Men, with appropriate headgear.

Photo five is the Scoutmaster coffee station, and picture six is Zachary picking at some vegetation outside Hansen Lodge, where Troop 117 is staying.











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Summer camp 2011, day two

Since Monday's fire drill, camp has been a beehive of activity, so to speak. We are hosting 3 provisional campers from another troop, who have fit in very well with the relaxed pace of our troop. Although one has the same first name as one of our regular troop members, and the other two have the same name, we've come up with appropriate nicknames - Aaron with an A is A-Aaron, and Erin with a E is E-Erin. Isaac taking BSA Scuba is "Scuba Isaac" though the other Isaac is just Isaac.

We have a Con-Ec project to do, one that our troop started working on earlier this year on a weekend camping trip; we will complete trail maintenance on the Spencer Nature Trail, which bleeds into the Red Trail (also known as the Broad Creek Trail now). The effort will be mainly grass whipping, with maybe one or two water bars thrown in for good measure. It's too bad that the trail does not look well-used, and that many of the numbered station posts are out of the ground. Without knowing their original purpose, it is hard to site them properly. We decided not to tackle post hole digging with the current troop alignment.

Monday night was a camp-wide game called "Staff Hunt" where each Unit in camp sent out patrols to locate Spencer staff and return then gently to the dining pavilion area.

One of our Scouts was injured right before camp and we've been trying to convince him to get into the woods.  It's a shame to waste an opportunity that only comes around once per year. Maybe tomorrow he will feel well enou to venture away from his home base.

The site inspection Tuesday was better than the day before; we earned a score of 100 percent on the cleanliness of our camp and other safety factors.  This is just one of the requirements for a Troop award from the Scout camp.  Some of the others are going to be tough to achieve. We'll see what happens.

The Early Bird swim is set for Tuesday and Thursday - one of our adults and two Scouts passed me this morning, heading to the pool as I was heading back from the shower house (before 6 AM :-).

Monday night was the quarter mile swim, for those trying to do the mile swim on Thursday, and for those Scouts taking Lifesaving merit badge. We have four in the latter category and three of them completed the daunting swim. One was so tired from late night chatter he seemed to run out of steam. Let's hope he can get another chance this week, as pool time is not easy to set up.

Tonight is Troop Night, where we can either host a campfire program or visit another site who invited us to their program. We will go to Hansen Lodge where Troop 117 is planning to serve Boy Scout popcorn and have games to play. I picked up some cookies and other snacks at the Dublin Market, including soft chocolate chip cookies as requested by Mr. Louie.

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Summer camp, day one,try three.

Camp Spencer, 2011.



Sunday arrival, followed by health re-checks, and swimming tests.





Typing this at the Scouting Academy, formerly known as the First Year Camper program at Camp Spencer, Broad Creek Memorial Scout Reservation. Leaving for camp Sunday morning was the usual confusion with getting last minute health data, checking phone numbers, and, reminiscent of sandlot baseball team picking, deciding who rides in which car. I should have had a bit more coffee for the ride, as I was beat when we reached Camp Spencer.

Check-in started at 1 pm, and we made it to camp a half hour ahead of that. With staff still shaking down the process, the typical pinball bouncing around occurred before the official time approached. I sidled up next to the registration desk at a few minutes before 1 pm, and was able to get our troop through staff host assignment quickly. The goal of starting medical checks at 1:30 seemed optimistic, given how slowly the site inspection and tent assignment process usually goes. But we made it to the dining hall and through swim checks with little hassle.

Using the newly won iPad and the now venerable Droid 2 as the mobile hot spot while in the woods has presented some new challenges and learning opportunities or, more simply, hassles. The biggest pain has been trying to figure out how to get digital images from either the iPad or a digital camera and then put the image tags in this blog. Blogspot itself has been a little flaky, though how much of that is beginners non-luck and how much actual bugginess I am unsure. Sites like flickr and picasa have each put roadblocks in front of the methods I have used for years to embed images. I resorted to sticking the memory card in the phone, rebooting in the process and other tricks like emailing myself picture linkPs.

OK, fire drill at camp. Gotta go!

Long ago, not very far away

1973, the year of living fairly dangerously.




Page 1 of the script for "The 1973 Poly Follies" ("52nd Annual").

This copy has been squirreled away in my file cabinet for years, and I only thought about it recently when chatting with Carl Hyman, one of the co-writers, along with Tom Stevenson, and me. The story is getting fuzzier over the years, and is worth embellishing on. The first page seems to have faded more than the others, though one can read most of it in this scanned and enhanced, yet shrunken reproduction.

Per tradition, the Poly Follies opening musical number (after an orchestral warm up or overture) was "Another Opening, Another Show". This was taken from the musical "Kiss Me Late", which played on Broadway in the late 1940s through early the early 1950s. According to the Internet Broadway Database, that play was set in Baltimore's Ford's Theater in June 1948. Did we have permission to use the music and lyrics? Good question, teacher!





Page 2

The script was mimeographed, I assume, though as I recall we wrote it out longhand on yellow legal paper. The 3 of us would gather after school, often at Tom's house in Northwood as I recall, but presumably at the school and other locations.





Page 3


This script was used in the production of the play, as the stage or prop managers version. During rehearsal, various lines were cut or modified. Presumably someone was tracking these edits in every copy, possibly every actor, as well as everyone on the crew who needed a copy.



Page 4

The jokes and gags may seen juvenile, even sophomoric (though we were high school seniors at the time), and they should. The Follies was traditionally a satire, a spoof, a what-I-later-learned-was-a pantomime, or maybe burlesque. There were traditions passed down from class to class, year to year, about the format and content of the show. It was a musical variety, with dance numbers, and showcased whatever bizarre talent we could convince the school staff to let us get away with.

The notation for "Song: Bawlamer [Baltimore] My Home Town" (appropriately pronounced in Bawlmerese) here showcases a talent I thought I had: songwriting. I put together words, and music, on a blank notebook in G and F clefs (or something like that), and the real musicians put it into something the Poly Band (or Orchestra) could manage. Sadly, that manuscript was lost along the way. I remember where I left it, though.




Page 5

Some typos escaped the editorial process, like on this page, when Humph is spelled Mumph once, and "I'll" is rendered as "I8ll or 1811". For those "youngsters" who think Shift-8 gives you the asterisk, or worse, the multiplication sign, here's a shot of my Olivetti "Valentine" manual typewriter keyboard:




Back to the show.




Page 6

Most of this page includes stage directions, written in (by me, in my horrible penmanship capital letters) for the stage director. I recruited my brother Dave for that job, who was 2 years behind me in school (or was it 1?).

Remember: Put all the "Acting Talent" into this that you have and make all practices. Make this Follies one to remember.

Page 7

I'm not sure what happened here, as page 6 definitely ends Scene 1, with directions for "Blackout and Curtain" but Scene 2 just seems to come in with no introduction. I guess the hand-drawn line from the top paragraph means these lines are for the DM character.

Right below that is another handwritten note, indicating that "Mr. Johnson" and "Mr. Filip" are the actors playing Colonel Corn and Lotta Stench.

As I recall, the teachers had a tradition of doing a short skit during the intermission of the main play, though short walk-ons during the main production also occurred.





Page 8

And here we have Mr. Wiseman, another teacher, after the prior two leave. I don't recall us doing all the prop action we imagined when writing this ("Two bushels of corn fall from above"), but who knows?

There's a stage note that the "Tap" number is coming up in one page. The message would have been passed to those in dressing rooms or elsewhere to go to the appropriate stage wings, in costume and ready to go on.



Page 9

The "Tap Dance" was set to the tune "We're In The Money", an even older tune (from the film Gold Diggers of 1933). We were shameless borrowers.





Page 10

One typo that I like on this page was misplacing Glen Burnie north of Baltimore, while it is definitely south of town. I am sure all three of us writers knew that, though whether the mistake was a geographic foul-up, or a mental error thinking one thing and typing another who will ever know.

Catch the "down the zinc" catchphrase, a classic Baltimore mispronunciation. My family didn't pick up that one, but I have heard it and continue to hear it sometimes.




Page 11

Here we have the end of Scene 2, with the directions to prepare for the "Can Can" in 7 pages, and a warning to teachers that "This is your act". Was that Act 1, or Act 2? Was there an intermission?





Page 12





Page 13


A few lines cut here. Not much action. Yak yak yak.






Page 14

Love scene? Then segue to "Shadow Waltz". I must have totally blocked this section of the play from my consciousness. Nothing.






Page 15 (though the numbers appearing on the printed page started over at 1)

Now into Scene 4. The stage directions have a large number of people, blocked into groups by stage right, center stage, and stage left.





Page 16

The snew.

What's snew?

Not much, what snew with you?




Page 17


"Can Can" in one page. The Can Can dance is also a musical, per the Internet Broadway Database. Whether we "borrowed" our music and steps from that show, or from the original roots in France (or some early Western which borrowed it from somewhere else), I have no idea. It's the biggest chorus number we traditionally performed (I was in the line) and required good physical skills. We were not the Rockettes.





Page 18

Most of this dialog was axed. Probably a mercy killing.





Page 19

The end of "Act One" and we go out with the Can Can

Intermission. To the lobby for a Dixie Cup with a piece of ice and soda from a canister.





Page 20 (but unnumbered)

Most of this script page, that starts the second act, was dropped, though there is a musical number for Chaim, and a mention of Lee Kravitz (billed as "Student Director").




Page 21


A lot more axed. Act 2 is getting short of time.





Page 22


The directions call for the "Dollies" in four pages. We had a "walk down the stairs" as I recall, with large dancers making a big impression.




Page 23


This page starts with Act 2, Scene 2. It says for the dancers to make a quick change for "The Tiller". That was more athletic than the Can Can, but just as energy draining.




Page 24

Sing. All the words.



Page 25

Act 2, Scene 3

Not sure what "Kravitz, C2" has his name on this page of the script.





Page 26


Not as funny as the first act, I think. I remember how hard it was to write funny, with stage directions, character development, etc. as a teenager with no experience. We thought we could do it, and hopefully our teachers (like Mr. Jon Gross) quietly corrected our more outrageous excesses. Or kept the outrageous ones in and left out the drab ones.




Page 27

The last page of the script, and it is nearly as weathered as the first page. Stage directions for "The Object Of My Affections" and Scene Four is described as "The Big Production Number". In our dreams.

The last spoken line, another tradition apparently (memory fails me here) is "May Joy and Happiness Reign Supreme". Why not?




Page 28

But wait, there's more.

Autographs on the back of the script; the main reason I retained this artwork all these years.

Names:

• Clara Bell Ringer - Louis Chambers (with the female graffiti)
• Alan Chon
• Dennis Meyers
• Carl Hyman (with characters after his name?)
• Don Levin (with the facial portrait)
• Mike Lewis (?)
• Jeff Brown ("73")
• Bob "Balmer" Brown
• Joe "Chauncey" Pocious
  
• Tate Redding
• A cat
  
• Tom "Cecil B" Stevenson
• David Braiterman
• Michael Rist
• Steven Lebowitz
• Joe Dwyer
  
• Frederick Wittel
• Gregory Buchheister ("D2")
• Walter Jones
• Fred "Cookie" Hassani

The program book is another story, for another day, maybe. Usually, students did the art work for the cover, and each class (that got motivated, and could afford it) bought a page, or two, and contrived to demonstrate their wit. Oh, and the title of the play is "It's A Broad's Way."

Chesapeake Chapter Ordeal 2011 and The Finder of Lost Objects

Last weekend in the wind and rain, Nentico Lodge 12, Order of the Arrow, Chesapeake Chapter, held our annual Ordeal for new members and returning Brothers. Again this year I assisted with registration, as well as general service around camp and some membership duties for the Lodge. Rain was predicted on Saturday, but the Friday check-in and sleeping "under the stars" remained dry.


REGISTRATION UPDATES

With more pre-registrations this year than I remember from prior years, we entered as many as we could find into the OA LodgeMaster (OALM) database before the Chesapeake Ordeal, intending to minimize candidates spent in line before the ceremonies. That worked out well, with only a very few people showing up with no records. As usual, though, not everyone who planned to attend showed up, with 8 possible Ordeal members unable to be inducted. They were identified as having no Clan after everyone in attendance had been assigned to an Elangomat.

I puzzled over how to deal with their records, since deleting them from the Chesapeake Ordeal event would lose their pre-pay status. So I decided to move their event record to the next one chronologically. I could not see how to do that from the OALM Event Manager screen; you can only delete from there.




On each individual record in the Membership Manager screen, I selected their Attendance history record, modifying it from the Chesapeake Ordeal to the Arrowhead/Thurgood Marshall Ordeal. Hopefully, if they can't make that one, someone else will push their record to the next Ordeal in the season. At the end of their eligibility, we'll need to figure out what to do, as we still have their registration fee.






LOST AND FOUND

At the end of the weekend, I waited at Camp Saffran for the Summer Camp open house scheduled for later Sunday. As each person left, gear, papers, and other materials lingered in the Nentico Pavilion and the administration building. Once everyone else was gone, I decided I needed to get a lost and found going. I carted the useful gear home and shot the photographs below.

Since that time, one new Ordeal member has picked up the bedroll, but I still have a rain coat, water bottle, and pair of gloves (plus a carved arrow on a string). If you can identify these, let me know and we'll return them to their rightful owners. If not, I guess they go into our Troop trailer with other found objects.

Why is my annual OA dues renewal letter so late?

Since I took over the voluntary position of adviser to the Membership Committee of Nentico Lodge, I've learned a lot about mailing. Maybe I learned things that I would rather not have known, but I've had to in order to assist getting membership renewals delivered. Since one just arrived today for my son (mine was paid for via the Golden Ticket), I figured it was time to review the steps. Next year we'll do better, I hope.

My training began prior to the LLDC in December 2010, but that was more or less my formal start of the role. We talked about OA LodgeMaster quite a bit, and not so much about the dues process. At that point, I knew we needed to draft a letter, prepare a mailing list, and that was about it. I wasn't thinking about envelopes, postal meters, or much else yet to be revealed.

07-Dec-2010

Harry sent me various forms of the Lodge letterhead, as he has the originals and it didn't make sense for me to scan anything. I thought it would be good to avoid any printing where the masthead or any other boilerplate text is already.

08-Dec

Tony sent me the contact person for the mailing house. In subsequent days, I talked to the person about the process, what format they needed the letter and mailing list in, and other steps that needed to occur. I sent later emails and left voice messages, which stopped being returned. That was strange, but what did I know?

12-Dec

Tyler and I worked on the language of the letter, trying to include updates about recording emails, and fitting everything into place.

13-Dec

Tyler, Harry and others reviewed the draft letter, moving things around to make it work

16-Dec

I met with Eric and Casey to go over the money and resource side of this; Eric said he could set up onlines dues payments. I was a little leery of changing the letter, thinking it was going to go out in a few days, and we had not tested dues collection or reporting.

22-Dec

Tony gave me more instructions on producing the mailing list, and other tips on the process, such as where the envelopes were, or should be. Then it was Christmas, and I stopped working on this until after the New Year.

08-Jan-2011

Bob and Tony and I corresponded about where the dues letters were. I thought we just needed to do a few more things and they would be sent out shortly.

10-Jan

I started working with a new contact from the mailing house, after learning the previous contact was gone late in December. We went over what they had, what they needed, and what I needed to do.

11-Jan

I worked with Joe and Casey on topping off the postage meter, based on the number of letters and the non-profit rate we've always used.

12-Jan

The mailing house found 4 addresses with forwarding instructions in the US system; I found new addresses from ScoutNet. They said changing these would be a re-work charge, so I said never mind.

13-Jan

The mailing house sent images "for approval" of the letter, and the envelope. After reviewing it, I found some fields were not lining up as my document had them

14-Jan

I sent back the revised instructions and the mailing house updated the letter so that data fields were correct.

15-Jan

We sent a mass email to Lodge members, telling them dues renewals would be mailed out soon. Fewer than 100 bounced. The online dues renewal was not quite ready, but we've gotten about 20 as of the end of January.

17-Jan

The online dues renewal was ready. A few folks tried it out.

18-Jan

One set of envelopes was ready for pickup. I drove a set down to the mailing house.

20-Jan

The postal meter funds were ready, but the mailing house needed 1000 more envelopes, as they miscounted their stock.

21-Jan

Big surprise - the mailing house postal clerk said that the letter can't be sent under a non-profit stamp since the content included personal information. After much back and forth, we realized this was strictly true, though it had never been mentioned in the past. They had printed and stuffed the envelopes, but could not mail them. We went through our options, all of which would cost money. There was a lot of shock factor.

29-Jan

Joe suggested we take out the personal parts of the letter, as an option. I didn't like it much, as it would kick back the timetable, but the extra $900 was going to be hard to justify.

31-Jan

The mailing house gave a quote for a revised letter, which was much less than the first class postage would be, so we decided to do that. It meant finding new blank letterhead (over 2,000 sheets), and new envelopes.

01-Feb

We ordered more stationery from Harry.

03-Feb

The mailing house shredded the old letters and we approved the new format. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but my towel was out and waving.

07-Feb

The letterhead arrived at the mailing house.

10-Feb

The carrier envelopes (the outside window envelopes) were delivered to the mailing house.

14-Feb

The return envelopes arrived at the mailing house. This was the last piece of the giant puzzle for 2011.

17-Feb

The dues renewal letters are in the mail...

Defenders Trail, Day Two

(Originally posted February 20, 2011; updated April 20, 2022 to fix image rot)

Since I walked the middle section of the Defenders Trail first, in January, I would have to complete the entire trail in 2 remaining steps, whether on one day or two. And since I'm hiking the trail by myself, I want to be extra cautious in not overextending my reach, to find my car is miles away as it gets dark, stormy, or tiring. After flipping a mental coin, I chose the northern part of the trail as my next segment. Two historic monuments/areas I wanted to be sure to visit on this hike were Battle Acre, and the Aquila Randall monument. A bit of research on the old Defenders Trail guide book, searching the internet with the excellent Historic Marker Database (HMDB), and viewing maps both online and on paper led me to decide to park near Battle Acre, hike south past the Randall monument, then return to my starting point, looping as far north as time, weather and my condition allowed. Near Battle Acre park are houses, some row homes, and some individual. To minimize interfering with neighborhood parking, I left my car on Kimberley Road very near North Point Road and walked over to the park.  

 

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The two photos of the marker, and the center of the park itself, on the HMDB, don't show the whole picture, as it were. The park is surrounded almost entirely by a fence, but it's split in parts, and the gate pillars are askew, as seen above. Because the park is bordered by busy roads, commercial establishments and high density housing, it felt more like a vacant lot than a park on a winters' day. The sad condition of the American flag on a pole at the center contributed to the rundown feeling. I thought of North Point Boulevard, along with North Point Road, as resembling a dollar sign; the older "road" section being the "S" part, winding along the the original topography, and the newer "Boulevard" section as the 2 straight lines cutting through in a wide, smooth bypass of anything close to nature. I guess that's the price of progress, having fast roads where you barely know what you're driving over, but it means a few things to planning and executing a hike. 

Normally, I'd want to travel on the older road sections, because that's where the local historical events happened, and because slower traffic can be less risky to the pedestrian. But the newer four lane divided highway has wider shoulders and off-road sections to walk on, including paved surfaces wider than a car, while the older two lane road has few if any sidewalks, and the off-road section is typically not paved any wider than the white stripe down the side, plus the drainage ditches can be hazardous to walk near, requiring more concentration to each footstep than to the world around. 

With all that, I chose to walk on both old and new areas, varying my route to minimize back tracking. With more people, and more cars to drop off and pick up, you might be better off staying on the older roads, as long as you watch intently for traffic at the narrowest parts. Pedestrians seem scarce around here. The Aquila Randal monument is less than a mile away from Battle Acre, on the other side of North Point Boulevard. 

The crossing of North Point Road is tricky, as the northern part merges onto the four lane in a tight curve with low visibility. I'd recommend getting to the east side of North Point Boulevard at the Cove Point Road intersection since it has traffic lights and cars actually stop for periods of time. 

The intersection with the eastern part of North Point Road is a "slow down and turn left" process, where you'd be racing across the median to get to safety.

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Unlike the HMDB photos, which show the business to the south of the Aquilla Randall and North Point Battlefield monuments in the background, the above shot is from the road, with the nearby residence behind. And when I say nearby, it's more like the statue and plaque are lawn ornaments, as there is no separation between their yard and the historic area. You could obviously drive right past this and not notice the historic significance at all. 

The remainder of the hike on February 12, 2011, was more contemporary than historic, as I traversed industrial areas near the Beltway, taking a side trip over I-695 to railroad sidings, warehouses and maintenance buildings. Probably the most pleasant surprise was near an enclosed "pond" that I thought was for stormwater management, but may actually be a tidal marsh of sorts, when I startled a great blue heron that was crouched in the vegetation not far from the highway (several feet). As it took off and spread its wings widely, I fumbled to get the cell phone camera on and pointed in the right direction. If you zoom in and look closely, you can see it is on the far side of the water by the time I snapped this.  

 

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Once I reached the area I had hiked on the first leg, I turned back north, generally following the wider North Point Boulevard, but side tracking onto North Point Road for variety. When I was parallel to my car, after about 2 hours of walking, I continued north and west toward the shopping center now called North Point Plaza. The older guide book mentioned a "North Point Shopping Center", but I'm not sure if is that one, or the smaller North Point Village Shopping Center near where the drive-in was. After seeing very few people outside of their cars for nearly 3 hours, the activity at the "Amish Market" and other Saturday commercial activity was a big contrast. As I have visited portions of the Defenders Trail, I've taken many pictures, uploading those that might be interesting to Panoramio, and then to Google Earth. Before I started walking, I noticed Google Earth had few if any photos of the neighborhoods in this historic peninsula. 

With the second leg complete, there are now 56 shots tagged with DefendersTrail [dead link], along with others in the vicinity. The Google Maps truck has driven on North Point Road, and North Point Boulevard, but there is no substitute for putting your own feet on the history trail.