1/28/2024 0 Comments A hat in time mumble badgeNone of us had earned any Palms, though, since none of us had gotten more than the twenty-one merit badges needed to get to Eagle, but all of us were going for twenty-two, since Ginty’s dad had brought two canoes. There were seven of us, first-generation immigrant children like all the boys and girls at the camp, and we were all Eagle Scouts. There were more of us than Bigfoot, or whatever his name was, for sure. “His name is Sasquatch,” the cammo-clad scout told us, looking like he thought we were retards. We thought, if we did find him, and he was friendly, we would ask him where he lived and what he did all day. What we were going to do with him once we got him, none of us knew. He was the hide and seek world champion, but we knew he was somewhere around the lake. We were going to look for Bigfoot and nab him if we could. They read what somebody else dreamed up about fun. Sticking our noses in a book at summer camp was the last thing anybody except the bookworms wanted to do. It was the only book-learning merit badge on the program. One of us read from the only available Red Cross manual, while he was the hands-on guy. It was taught by an older scout who wore leopard-print camouflage pants and shirt. It was why everyone who had not gotten their first aid merit badge and was going to get in on mumble the peg at camp, took the class at the park ranger cabin a half mile away. If you stuck the knife into your own foot you won on the spot, although nobody ever wanted to win that way. Whoever stuck his knife closest to his own foot, and the other guy chickened out, was the winner. The first toss was always in the middle, but when the other guy got closer, you had to get closer, and the closer and closer it went. Taking turns, we would flip and try to stick our knife into the ground as close to our own foot as possible. The other way we played was to stand opposite each other with our legs shoulder-width. You had to get on your hands and knees and pull the twig out of the ground with your teeth. If you failed, then you had to mumble the peg. Whatever the other scout did, if he threw it backward over his head, and it stuck, you had to do it, too. We threw our knives at the ground, flipping from the palm, back of the hand, twist of the fist, and every which way. One way we played mumble the peg was to first pound a twig, a peg, into the ground. We weren’t supposed to, even though all of us had jackknives and some of us had fixed-blade sheath knives. “No mumbledy peg,” our scoutmaster told us in no uncertain terms, in uncertain English, in his strong Lithuanian accent, speaking through his Chiclet teeth. The week we went to our last Boy Scout camp at Lake Pymatuning State Park wasn’t any seven days longer than any other summer camp we had gone to, but since it was going to be our last camp, my friends and I were determined to make the most of it, stay up most of the time, lengthen the days and nights, mess around in the woods and water, raid the girl’s side, and play mumble the peg.
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