The Storm That Made Us Men (standard:Creative non-fiction, 1771 words)
Author: CL Schilling	Added: Nov 16 2011	Views/Reads: 4396/2725	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A short, non-fiction story about two youth who find out the first night of summer camp to be a little harder than they thought.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

and the older scouts present, but merely a dying fire was starting to 
become extinguished from the raindrops that were beginning to fall from 
the dark eerie looking sky. And with the wind beginning to pick up 
speed, the canopies over the picnic tables began to flap loudly as the 
strength of the poles holding them up remained in question. 

Just then there was a bright light and a loud boom. 

“Holy crap!” I said as Art and we made a run for our tent. Suddenly we
felt as if we were in a fight for our lives as we dashed across the 
dirt ground and leaped into our old army tent and tied the front down 
as a way to keep out the rain. 

Sitting on our beds, Art and I reassured each other this storm would
quickly pass as all summer storms tend to do in Western Pennsylvania. 
But as the minutes began to pass and we found ourselves on our metal 
cots looking up at our tent that was shaking from the wind and rain 
that kept on getting more intense, we both came to the conclusion that 
something didn't seem right. 

BOOM! POW! CRACK! 

Outside the storm continued to roar as trees around us were beginning to
fall and the bright lightening would light up the dark campground. 
Moments later, Art and I saw the picnic table canopies rip right out 
the ground and become sucked into the deep woods by the raging wind. 

Then we heard what we thought was the sound of a train. 

“Let's get under our cots!” I shouted to Art over the loud roars from
the wind and thunder. It might be a tornado!” 

As Art and I laid on the wood slate with our stomachs against the wood
and held on to the feet of our old metal cots (something in hindsight 
might have been bad to do) we looked through the bottom gap that showed 
us what was going on outside as our campground became ravished by the 
storm. 

While I was always quick to get afraid, I began to grow even more
terrified when I saw that Art, who had a great deal of more confidence 
than I did, looked scared out of his wits. 

“Do you think we are going to die?” Art asked me as our tent was slowly
being pulled from the ground and water was now slowly seeping in from 
the ceiling and soaking our sleeping bags. 

“I don't know. I think so.” I shouted back while trying to keep my head
down. 

“Do you believe in God?” I asked Art between the claps of thunder and
the bolts of lightening. 

“Yeah, I do. I mean, you do, right?” he asked back. 

“Yeah, Yeah I do!” I said looking over to Art while the flashes of
lightening reflected off Art's glasses. Looking back, our conversation 
about life and death was pretty deep for two 11-year-old boys. Going 
back and fourth we discussed our love for our families, what it would 
be like when we would get to heaven, and what God would look like. 

But as Art and I reassured each other of our friendship in what seemed
to be the final moment for the both of us at the time, the next thing I 
can remember was the silence. 

“Hey Chris, are you awake,” Art whispered as both of us somehow were
back on our cots. “Yeah, but my bed is soaked from the rain,” I 
replied. 

“Mine too,” Art said. “All my clean clothes are soaked! Everything is
soaked!” 

As I held my dying flashlight over our camping gear, we started to hear
buzzing that broke the silence following the storm. 

Suddenly the buzz became a high-pitched sound as I felt something biting
my neck. 

“There are mosquitoes in here!” I shouted while slapping my face.
Shinning my flashlight to the bottom of our ravished tent, we saw 
misquotes coming up from the wooden slates below us and were beginning 
to feast on our skin. 

“Ah man, this stinks,” I said. “Let's go tell the scoutmaster. We can't
camp in this tent!” 

Walking over to the tent the scoutmaster was sleeping in, (which we
could identify from the loud snoring) Art and I shook the corner of his 
tent awaking him from his deep sleep. 

“What is it boys,” he asked us from still inside the tent and in a
groggy voice. 

“Our sleeping bags, our clean clothes, and even the clothes on us are
soaked! We can't sleep like this,” Art said to him. 

“Boys, go back to sleep,” he replied before starting to snore again. 

Walking back to our tents, Art and I got back in our water logged
sleeping bags and tried to sleep. However, we spent most of the night 
complaining to each other and regretting going camping in the first 
place. 

The next morning as we woke up and saw the bright summer sun and older
boys raising the canopies that were knocked down by the storm, we also 
saw the assistant scoutmaster surveying the damage. With his US Marine 
look complete with his camouflage pants, fireman's T-shirt, and a crew 
cut hair style, Assistant Scoutmaster Charlie walked around the 
campground surveying the damage while listening to his fire radio . 
“Quite a storm last night,” he said to us as we stood drenched and 
looking miserable. 

“This was a pretty bad one and there were even reports of a tornado. You
two fellas got quite the introduction to Boy Scouts. Lot different than 
camping in Cub Scouts with your mothers,” he said. 

“Yeah, we didn't think we were going to make it,” I replied. 

“Well, you both did. And if you could handle that storm, you can handle
the rest of this week,” he said while brushing his mustache with his 
fingertips. 

“You're young men now. And welcome to the Boy Scouts,” he said smiling. 

Copyright © 2011 Christopher L. Schilling


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