21 - Personal Narrative

A Lot to Do with Not a Lot of Time

            The day was not one of my greatest. Lawn mowers running, hot, humid air, mosquitoes, a large group of people staring at me, and wasps. I just wanted to get it over with. There was so much to do, but I was finally at the last stretch. If I pulled this off right, I would be able to impress the Eagle Scout Board of Review within the next week.

            I had been enlisted into the Boy Scouts of America by default as a Latter-Day Saint Church member in my younger years of age. At that time, I loved being a scout member! The first guy I met was named Daniel. This guy was hilarious! Every week at mutual, we would recite the Scout Oath and Scout Law, and every week, Daniel would act out every word in each as we recited it, beating his fist on his chest for loyal, waving for friendly, saluting for obedient, folding his arm for reverent; it was amazing how fast he would come up with new ways to act out the Oath every week on the spot! He was also very outgoing, smiling and asking everyone, including me, how we were doing.

About a year later, I met another great guy in my scouting unit. The Elmar family had just moved in, and William Elmar, a black boy my age, joined our silly unit. He laughed a lot, and when he did, it sounded so creepy, like he was quietly laughing at someone he was stalking or something, it’s hard to explain. Every time he did it in church or at scouts though, we all lost it and laughed so much! He also loved joking about pretty much anything. While driving to an arcade and games center for all of us guys to enjoy some time together, Will and I somehow started talking about crazy people driving golf carts, and we laughed almost nonstop from the back of Brother Elmar’s minivan!

            One time, we gathered as a unit to plan a campout. We had a scribe write all the food and activities we each wanted, and the places we each wanted to go. I typically wouldn’t contribute to such planning meetings due to being shy, but I had recently just learned to ride a bike at a late age, and loved the idea of us all biking together in the wilderness! After adding my idea to the board and further discussion about logistics and weather, we agreed on a plan to get all the bikes we could together, fix and prepare them for mutual next Wednesday, and go to Stephen F. Austin State Park in a little over a week. Bikes were in short supply, and I didn’t have my own at the time, so we brought Sister Elmar’s bike, a light blue bike not made for off-road use.

The day for the camping trip came, and we car pooled up together for the drive past Houston which lasted a little over an hour through stormy weather. We worried the camp would be too wet, but it turned out beautiful. The storms just barely missed the park, it was dry and ready for adventure! I had planned on using one bike that was made for off-roading, but Ethan, another one of Brother Elmar’s sons, wasn’t feeling too well that day, so we switched bikes and I got the light blue slow bike. Nonetheless, we all sped down hills and raced through leaves on the trail and around corners in the forest, and then raced through the streets back to our campout. If that bike had feelings, it would have hated me for its abuse. We got back to camp to be greeted by Brother Lambson, another scout leader relaxing in a chair by our table. He told us we’d just missed a bunch of pretty girls asking where we had gone, but he didn’t fool us for a second. Brother Lambson loves to joke, and we knew no girls would come looking for us. We were just a fun group of guys who loved to hang out together, not with girls.

            About a year after this fun experience and many others, several unfortunate events happened at once. Both Daniel’s family and the Elmar’s moved out, and a lot of new guys grew up into the age of our scouting unit. With my best friends gone and nobody to play with but a bunch of new kids who only liked to play rough sports, I ended up in a place where I wasn’t earning any more rank advancements. Whenever the Bishop would ask me why I wasn’t at mutual, I would just shrug and brush it off. When the unit would invite me during church to go on campouts, I would nod to affirm the fact that the trip was a nice idea, but then stay at home that day.

            It wasn’t until a couple of years later that I realized how far I was from reaching the Eagle Scout rank. As I entered High School and established a social life there, becoming an Eagle Scout got pushed to the end of my list of priorities. Once the urgency of the situation settled in my head, I established two goals: most importantly, to reach the Eagle Rank. Secondly, to impress Brother Holt, the local scout leader who happened to be in my ward, into helping me reach my first goal. Impressing Brother Holt was not easy. He is the type of person to only be impressed after the fact, that is, after boys earn their Eagle Scout ranks, so convincing him to help me required a lot of work, especially with how old I then was. To begin this mad dash to earn rank advancements, I began with the help of an old friend, Brother Lambson.

            At one meeting where I was meeting at Brother Lambson’s house to pass off swimming requirements, he acted very goofy. I brought my brother along at Brother Lambson’s request to be the guy I must rescue. My brother jumped in the six-foot-deep backyard pool, and brother Lambson jumped from his chair, waving his arms in the air, wide eyed, nervous facial gesture, and yelling my name several times, telling me that I had to throw a rope with great urgency. He acted his part so well, instead of being stern or boring about the situation like so many other leaders I’d met.

            Beginning the advancement process with Brother Lambson helped ease me into the immense amount of work ahead of me. After a little over a year of nagging from my Mom to call merit badge councilors and motivation from people like Brother Holt who told me that I should be working without my mother’s help, and meeting with people at all sorts of places, even active bars, to get through the badge requirements, I came near to the last stretch: The Eagle Scout Project. At Brother Holt’s suggestion, I visited Ally Hardick, the coordinator of a community garden designed to help the local poor. Ally was very kind and told me many project ideas to improve the garden, and after considering ideas and having email conversations, she and I agreed on an irrigation installing project. Now I had to secure donations from local stores.

            I hated making phone calls, and at first tried my best to have my mom do them for me. Each week, on large part due to my mom’s persistent reminding me of my duties, I called and visited local hardware stores to request project donations. One local store, Kilgore’s, seemed promising for obtaining PVC pipe donations. Turned out that when I talked to their manager, he was happy to help, telling me to go grab as much PVC supplies as I possibly needed. The same day, Home Depot had called and promised me a “$25 gift card.” The next day, I went in my uniform and found out they had meant six “$25 gift card[s].” In the span of two days, I had secured more than I needed for the project!

With all the supplies lined up, the actual project day soon came. It was a Wednesday evening, and many people I’d recently called and worked with came and were ready to help finish my project. The setting wasn’t the greatest though, as it was a hot, humid summer day in southeast Texas and a rainstorm had just come through earlier that afternoon. Mosquitos were beginning to come out and a lawn mowing team was finishing up their job in the garden, leaving sticky wet grass everywhere. The greenhouse housed many yellowjackets, which I had to advise people to avoid. Everyone gathered around me in the garden and awaited my safely lecture and instructions, which I had to give over the roar of lawn mowers. I tried my best, and was told several times by my audience to speak up. So, after struggling to remember and yell everything I wanted to say, we began. There were so many people in attendance that I could hardly keep even the majority of them busy, especially since the task of installing irrigation tubing is a step by step process, so there weren’t many jobs available at once. I tried my best to keep everyone busy, telling people to cut hoses, to run irrigation through PVC pipes, to bury the pipes, to screw in faucet connections, and spread out the tubing. Even so, I was still constantly being asked what could be worked on.

After a bit over an hour, as the sun set and mosquitos were becoming rampant, we finished my list of tasks to complete. My scout leader came up to me and told me I had done an excellent job, which surprised me, as he was the one continually bossing me around to keep people busy. It turned out he was only being bossy to test my patience and leadership abilities, and apparently, I impressed him. Afterward many of us had ice cold lemonade in water bottles and homemade brownies I had made and brought for everyone’s enjoyment, and people loved the refreshments. I felt so much relief; I had gone way out of my comfort zone and successfully led in carrying out a community project.

Soon later, I made a special appointment with the Eagle Scout Board of Review members in my area since my birthday was coming before the next planned Eagle Board of Review meeting. When I called them, they seemed quite unimpressed about this, expressing their discontent with my unit constantly having late appointments. At the final meeting, I sat somewhat confident at the end of a long meeting table, with all three of the Board members across from me, and my scoutmaster in a corner of the room behind me. They asked me a lot of questions, mainly ones like “what did you learn from your scouting experience” and “how will you use what you have learned to do good.” I answered that I would be a better leader with the social experiences I had gone through and would serve others and be a positive example the best I could in college. Eventually, I stepped out of the room for them to discuss their decision. I soon found out that I made it! They accepted me into the rank of Eagle Scout! I was beaming with a smile and ran to my mom and Brother Holt to tell them the great news. After countless hours of work and human interaction, I had finally made my goal; I had finally earned my Eagle Scout Award.