All of us gathered near the creek at the edge of camp, Scouts and leaders both, not really sure why we had been called over. Mr. Bill, our Scoutmaster, picked up the blue bucket without saying anything and carried it to the water. He tipped it slowly, letting the stones slide out with little splashes and clunks until they piled up in the shallow current.
Then he grabbed the red bucket and did the same thing. Still no speech. No dramatic Scoutmaster moment. Just rocks going into the creek while the rest of us stood there wondering if Mr. Bill had finally been in the sun too long.
You see, it was the end of our weekend campout. At opening flags on Friday night, Mr. Bill had told us we were going to try something a little different. Every time one of us felt upset, annoyed, frustrated, angry, or said something we probably should not have said, we were supposed to put a small stone in the blue bucket. That was it.
No announcement. No explanation. No standing in front of the troop saying, “Hello, my name is Kevin and I yelled at my tent pole.” Just a stone in the bucket.
At first, we all shifted around and looked at each other. It felt weird. Then, when we started getting restless during flags, Mr. Bill snapped at us a little harder than he meant to. He stopped, looked at the bucket, picked up the first stone, and dropped it in, with a loud thunk.
That got our attention. He said, “It does not have to be anything big. No ceremony. No shame. Just notice it, move a stone, and keep going. Now go make dinner, after all we all know the 13th point of the Scout Law is Hungry.” We all chuckled and wandered off to our patrol kitchens.
“Hey Chris,” yells Tommy, one of the younger Scouts in my patrol, “where are the hamburger buns? I can’t find them anywhere.” I am Chris, thirteen years old, and somehow I was elected patrol leader the same night I passed my First Class board of review. This might sound impressive until you realize it mostly means everyone now looks at me when the buns are missing, the pancakes burn, or someone decides ketchup counts as a vegetable. Being responsible for my guys is a little nerve-wracking, though I am absolutely not saying that out loud. Wait. Did I just say that to all of you?
“Chris, what happened? Why are you holding your face with your hand and shaking your head?” Tommy blurts out, not realizing he is making it worse.
After looking through countless bags and boxes, I couldn’t find a single package of buns. Seems they were forgotten or maybe blew out of the truck. “Uhm, guys, guess we are going to have naked burgers, or maybe use lunch bread instead.”
The stones started slow. One for burnt pancakes Saturday morning. A few for a patrol argument over who forgot the spatula. One for a Scout who wanted to swim right now, even though the leaders were still doing the boring safety stuff that apparently keeps us from becoming paperwork.
A few leaders dropped stones in too. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes with a loud little thunk that made us look over and grin. One leader moved two after a flaming marshmallow landed on his boot and he said something that was definitely not in the Scout Law.
By Sunday, the buckets were heavier than anyone expected. So there we stood by the creek, watching Mr. Bill pour out the weekend.
The stones piled up and the water started to slow. Leaves caught on them. A bit of grass drifted in and stuck. The creek did not stop, but it had to work around everything we had dumped into it.
After a few awkward moments, that honestly felt more like a half hour, than the 2 or 3 minutes it probably really was, Mr. Bill spoke softly, “That is what happens when we let things pile up.” He never raised the Scout sign, he just spoke loudly enough we could hear, and with a tone that said this matters. Nobody joked.
He pointed at the little dam. “Being frustrated is not the problem. Getting angry is not the problem. Having a rough moment is not the problem. The problem is when we never notice it, never deal with it, and just keep adding rocks.”
Then he moved a few stones aside with his boot. The water found the gap right away and started flowing through again.
“Sometimes all it takes is noticing. Taking a breath. Apologizing. Asking for help. Laughing at yourself. Moving one rock before it becomes a whole dam.”
After that, we cleaned every stone back out of the creek, because Mr. Bill said leaving your feelings in the water still counts as littering. That part made us laugh.
Yet, it still felt a bit like a service project, as we used the pebbles and rocks to line the creek bed. This helps to protect the banks when the snow melts, and the creek’s life gets rough.
We finished packing up the cars and headed home. No weird Scoutmaster lecture, and yet we all felt like something important just happened, though none of us could quite say what. Nothing special happened on the drive home. Some of us were rowdy and loud like always, while others were tired and napped the whole way back to town. As long as we didn’t get too crazy, no one cared. Yet, as odd as it may sound, it was still a wonderful weekend. What Scouting trip isn’t?