Today was again a half day of work, to allow everyone to attend the “Closing Arena Show,” which takes place days before the Jamboree ends. I don’t understand it, but what the heck, I’m not a scout executive.
So work ended at noon, I was done with lunch by 12:45, at which point I stood in line for a bus. Waiting 45 minutes in a line to cram onto a vehicle with seats set closer together than the distance from my hips to my knees, I really got to appreciate the bus that runs us directly from work to housing, and often is only half full.
I made it back to Wilcox at about 2:15. The show was set to start at 8:00, with a pre-show at 5:30, so I thought I would have a little time to sit down and catch up on my blogging, and maybe get a nap. At 3:00, someone in the barracks who had access to a staff car offered a few of us a ride back to the merit badge midway, just across from the entrance to the arena. Well, that was too good to pass up, so I jumped in.
I should, at this point, apologize to all of you who are trying to keep up with my escapades. Most of the time I have my blog written to within a day or three of the actual date, but finding a wireless network to access is infrequent, and even then, connections drop easily. By the time I get home, though, I will make sure everything gets posted.
So, I made it to the midway by about 4:00, and having nothing better to do, I went in and got the best spot in the house. Well almost. I sat down at the very front of the Western Region section, with an exit aisle right in front of me. I was exactly even with the right edge of the stage, and about 50 yards back. Perfect.
After twenty minutes of wondering if it would rain, one of the crew came along and told me I couldn’t sit there. I asked why not. He said that the staff seating area was over there, in front of stage left. I asked why I couldn’t just stay where I was, as I liked it here. He had no reasons, only orders, and you can’t argue with a man who has no reasons for what he’s doing, so I got up and relocated to the area he had indicated.
I made it twenty-five minutes before the next round. Different guy, same orders: Move farther left where you rebel scum belong, or something like that. I thought hard about rebelling for real, because I liked my new spot even better than the one before. I didn’t of course, wimp that I am.
The third time, though, I was starting to get mad. I stood up with the rest, but instead of walking over to the indicated internment camp, I walked over to another chap who looked like one who gave orders, and might have reasons for doing things. In short, he looked like he had half a brain.
Alas, looks can be deceiving. He called up the food chain and parroted what they told him, assuring me that I would not be asked to move again.
By the fifth time I had to find a new seat, all less desirable than the previous one after the second, I vowed that the next time I was asked to move I would simply ignore them. If that didn’t work, I would refuse, and if they threw me out of the show, it would be worth it.
Fortunately, my resolve wasn’t tested and they left me alone for the final four minutes before the preshow got going.
The preshow was mostly four guys running around and playing games with the audience, remote feeds from gatherings in other spots around the country, and a steel drum band from Trinidad and Tobago. The band was good.
At 7:45, they played a tape of President Obama congratulating the Boy Scouts on their 100th anniversary. All other presidents that I know of had actually come to the Jamboree to make their address, but he opted not to do the same. The timing was interesting as well; fifteen minutes before the national broadcast began. Either B. H. Obama did not want to be associated with the Boy Scouts and all that they stand for, or else the Boy Scouts did not want to be associated with the president, and all that he stands for. I’m not sure which it was, because I could see reasons for both to be true. Maybe both are.
Once the show got going, it was an amazing, high-energy affair. I have heard that you can watch a replay online at www.ustream.tv/shininglight and, though I haven’t looked myself, I have heard that the pre-show is posted there as well.
We had another jet fighter flyover to kick things off, though I wasn’t warned in advance, and so didn’t look until I heard them. By that time, they were almost gone, so I couldn’t identify them for you. The towers on the stage had giant flames that erupted twenty feet in the air a couple of times. Each time, you could feel the heat, even from as far back as I was. (Actually, I wasn’t all that far back. Maybe a third of the way or less. Mostly, my complaints were that they kept giving me a worse and worse angle on the stage.)
There was a display by the Black Daggers, another military skydiving/paratrooper group that did at least as well as the Golden Knights had. Amazingly precise.
Toward the end, they showed a video of what the Bectel Summit looks like, which will be the site for the 2013 National Jamboree. It does look amazing. In between jamborees it will be a high adventure camp, with whitewater rafting, kayaking, rappelling, mountain climbing, and, if the video was not playing tricks with perspective, a mile-long zip line.
The highlight of the show was the address given by Mike Rowe, the host of the Dirty Jobs TV show. Mike is an Eagle Scout, and he told about how he got started in Boy Scouts. His father decided it would be good for him, so he took him to a troop meeting in the basement of his church. His dad had to throw him out of the car. He said that at that age he was painfully shy and very uncoordinated. The first thing they did at the meeting was to play a game called “Swing the Thing.” This involved everyone forming a circle with one boy in the middle. The center boy held a rope, at the end of which was tied a bag of wet rags. The object of the game is for the boy to swing the weighted rope as fast as he can and for all the boys in the circle to jump over the bag as it goes by. If you mistimed your leap, you’ll get knocked over and you are then eliminated from the game. The last one remaining is declared the winner, and gets to swing the thing for the next round. Mike was the first one knocked down, and he wound up with a bloody nose.
“I hadn’t been there five minutes and I had a bloody nose. Things were going great,” Mike said.
When that game was over, they went outside and played “British Bulldog.” In this game, all but one person line up on one side of the field. At the shout of “go,” everyone tries to run to the other side of the field. The one in the middle tries to tackle someone and hold them to the ground long enough to say, “British bulldog,” which means that they’ve been caught and have to then work with other boy to help capture boys when they run back. The last one remaining is declared the winner, and gets to start the next game as the British bulldog.
Mike was the first one knocked down, and he wound up with a fat lip for his efforts.
“I hadn’t been there fifteen minutes and I had a bloody nose and a fat lip. Things were going great,” Mike said.
When the meeting started, the scoutmaster made Mike stand in the front and introduce himself to everyone. He was so nervous that he stuttered and stammered his way through it.
When he got home his parents asked him how things had gone, and he frankly told them that he hated it, but he wound up going again the next week, and the week after.
He said it took him a long time to figure out what it was that kept him coming back, and he finally determined that it was because Boy Scouts forces you to do things that make you uncomfortable, and facing those things makes you a better person.
He went on to relate that to his TV show. Dirty Jobs is all about people who perform necessary functions in the world that all of us would be uncomfortable doing.
He finished up by talking about his conundrum with the Scout Law, which declares, among other things, that a Scout is Clean, yet he makes his living doing dirty jobs. Clean is comfortable, and dirty is one of those things that you have to put yourself through to build yourself into someone capable of accomplishing great things. He has finally decided on a new saying, “A Scout is Clean, but he’s not afraid to get Dirty.”
The show had three more bands perform. Honor Society sang two songs, and spent all the time in between letting us know that their songs were available to download from iTunes. Switchfoot, whose name comes from a surfing term, were the headliners, and they sang three of four tunes and walked out into the audience to enormous cheers. Brian says he is a big Switchfoot fan, which surprised me. They’re a little heavier of a rock band than I thought he preferred. He says that Johnathan, a boy he rides bikes with all the time, is a huge fan, and that’s where he heard about them.
I have to admit that they are very talented, but it made me wish I were a little farther back from the three-storey tall speakers. I don’t care if that makes me sound old, I’ve earned my age.
The final performers were an a cappella group called Vocal Point. They were introduced as all Eagle Scouts, and they performed a song called “On My Honor,” which was amazing. I had actually heard of these guys before. They had all been part of BYU’s a cappella group before they graduated.
To finish off the evening, they put on the largest fireworks display ever hosted on a military base. It was impressive, to say the least. At one point, I was looking up as high as I could stretch when I realized that they were shooting off more fireworks behind me and to either side. Like I said, very impressive.
It was quarter to eleven when they wrapped things up and sent us to our beds. Some of the kids had several miles to walk, so I’m sure they had a late evening. I was in bed by one, but decided not to try writing this blog before switching off.
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