I was up at a little before six, and was out the door for breakfast by 6:15. I didn’t sit down to eat until just after 7:00 because the line was so long. Everyone is on the same schedule now, and we all need to be to our areas by 8:00. Fortunately, someone has arranged for a special bus to run directly from Wilcox to Tech Quest, leaving at 7:30. The speed limit on the base has moved to 10 miles per hour now that all the scouts are here, so we were a little bit late arriving. At least I had company.
I forgot to mention that I got my work assignment yesterday a little bit before we stopped work for the day. I get to work in the DNA lab, which is one of those rare areas where there is no outside, sponsor-led instruction. Everyone in that group is part of the Jamboree staff, like me. Due to my vast experience in theater (three years of drama in high school and two years teaching Shakespeare), I got to play the part of the corpse.
We’d gather all the scouts we could fit in one group into their seats and I would give them all a warm Boy Scout handshake, welcome them to the Jamboree, and start explaining what we would be doing for the next twenty minutes. Somewhere along there, I would collapse to the ground.
Mark would rush up shouting, “What happened? What did you do?” Various statements of denial would be mumbled back. Jason would lean down and check my pulse. “He’s dead, Jim.” Tom would find a nasty-looking wound on my hand courtesy of green and purple Crayola markers. “Look at this. He’s been poisoned!”
They would collect a sample of DNA from the wound, and then drag me outside to wait for the coroner to pick me up while they helped each of the scouts collect their own DNA, amplify it using a lysis buffer solution and isopropyl alcohol, and then “compare” it to the sample from the corpse. Each of the scouts got to take home their sample, where you could see the strings of DNA with the naked eye.
I had a lot of fun with the role, introducing myself as James Boddie, Heinrich Von Corpse, and Humberto Muerto. The novelty wore off for us long before the day was done, though, so I think we may find a different opening act for tomorrow. Too many complaints about my weight, too. They got progressively less and less gentle in throwing out the dead man.
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