You will find short stories on this site. Most are autobiographical. Some are fiction.

TROOP 69

Being a Boy Scout was fun for a brief time when I was ten. I enjoyed the troop meetings once a week in the gymnasium of Condon Grade School. I liked that part of the meetings where we would learn skills that could be put to use when camping.

On the afternoons of troop meetings I would leave home, dressed in my scout uniform, with 25 cents in my pocket to pay the scouting dues. I’d walk, or ride my bike, the two-thirds mile from home to the school. Occasionally I did not make it to the scout meeting. The interloper was the ice cream store in the same block as the school. I had to pass it on the way to the meeting. A double scoop cone cost a quarter. There were, occasionally, evenings when my quarter simply could not make it past the ice cream store. I would take my cone and spend the hour and a half, allocated to the scout meeting, alone in Washburn Park chasing frogs.

Our scoutmaster was a local laundry truck driver. His son had been an Eagle Scout. Which was said to be a very big deal. We didn’t learn this from our scoutmaster. He never mentioned his son. I was told about his son by other scouts, who whispered any mention of him. They said that his son had been an ardent outdoorsman and mountaineer. He had died in a fall while climbing Mt. Hood.

Our assistant scoutmaster was a man in his mid-20s named Chris Christensen. His stature among the boys came with his being an Eagle Scout and that he had ridden his motorcycle across the country from New York City to Eugene Oregon. He didn’t seem like the motorcycle type. He was not greasy or crude. He was a nice man who treated us kids kindly. He was always willing to give a hand, when we were learning new skills. He also entertained us by reciting Robert Service’s poetry. I was especially enthralled by his renditions of Dangerous Dan McGrew and The Cremation of Sam McGee.

I don’t know how it came up at a scout meeting, but I made no secret of the fact that I liked to camp, with my dog, Vicky, in the woods behind our house. On one such night, I had cleared a campsite in a thicket of Scotch Broom. There was room for my sleeping bag and a small fire. I had also cleared a spot for Vicky on the far side of the fire, though she was sure to be on my bag before the night was over. The fire had died down. I was in my bag ready to drift off to the sound of the summer breeze through the thicket and the crickets in the grasses beyond. These quiet sounds were interrupted by the sound of a motorcycle. It seemed to be coming up the road on the hill upon which I was camped. I remember thinking it was strange that the motorcycle had stopped. It could have been a couple looking for a remote spot to neck. A few minutes later Vicky growled as if alerted by some animal in the brush. It was then that Chris Christensen pushed his way through the brush and into the fading light of my fire. He sat by the fire. We talked for a while. He probably recited a poem. Pretty soon the conversation became strange. He wanted to talk about penises. He moved closer to my bag saying something about “how big is your penis?” He reached into my bag to feel it. I was frozen. I don’t remember being frightened but confused and very uncomfortable. Just as his hand grasped my penis, I heard a familiar voice say. “What’s going on here?” It was my dad. He must have been waiting just beyond the light of the fire, obscured by the Scotch Broom. Chris quickly withdrew his hand and stood up. Dad was in the circle of light now. He asked if I was alright. I said I was. He turned to Chris and said, “Mr. Christensen I’d like to talk with you.”

They walked away from my camp, and down towards the road. I could not hear what was said but I could tell that it was not much of a conversation. Dad did all the talking. Their conversation stopped. I heard Chris’ motorcycle start and drive away. Dad returned to my camp. He asked if I wanted to stay in my camp, assuring me that “Mr. Christiensen won’t be back.” I said I would stay the night since I was already in my bag. Before he left, Dad said he had talked with other fathers about Chris and that I would not see him again. It was true. He disappeared from Eugene.

In the years that followed, I would occasionally think of that night and wonder how it was my Dad had made an almost miraculous appearance at the very moment I was in trouble. I wish I had asked him how he knew that I needed him at that moment. He had never gone into the woods before that night. How was it, that he knew where I was camped and that his timing was so precise? After Dad died, I asked Mom about that night. She said that he had come home from work late, and upon entering the house, he asked “Where is Tosh?” She told him I had gone to sleep on the hill. She said that dad said “Oh no!”. And without explaining or saying where he was going, he rushed out of the house.

I also never learned any details about what Dad told Chris that had made him disappear as he did. I assumed that he had delivered the message from the community that Chris was to get out of town immediately. That was how this kind of person was dealt with in those days. It was the same way that the Catholic Church dealt with its pedophile priests. They would get them out of town. It did not seem to matter that these pedophile scoutmasters and priests, would go on to molest other boys. The attitude was that once he is gone, he is no longer our problem.

I dropped out of Troop 69, and never attended another scout meeting. A few months later, our scoutmaster abandoned his wife, his home, and his scouts. He ran away to Mexico with his girlfriend and the troop’s summer camp money.

(This story may seem contrived. But it is completely true with one exception. I changed one person’s name.)