Our only glitch may be getting volunteers to come help. His Scoutmaster has a family reunion that weekend, and it is the weekend following the Fourth of July, so many Scout families may not be around to help. As it is, I’ll have to go to Treasure Mountain Scout Camp to retrieve Isaac – and likely his brother and sister – to help with the project, unless I can coax Michelle into coming home Friday night rather than Saturday afternoon. I might be able to wing that.
And you know what? I don’t think Isaac cares whether or not many of the members of his Scout troop come or not. We just want to get the project done. He’s got an odd relationship with Scouting. He loves Scout Camp and hanging out with the boys in the context that he’s kind a cool being on camp staff, but when it comes to doing things with his own troop, he gets frustrated since they’re working with younger Scouts on stuff that he’s already finished. I can’t help that, and I wish I could get across to him that he could be a role model and a help to the younger Scouts in his troop. Also part of it might be that he’s disappointed that I wasn’t Scoutmaster for his tenure in the troop; he only got to be with me for a year, not the two years he anticipated.
Best news about this is that we know the other Scout, who has to complete sanding and peeling of the benches before Isaac and crew can stain them, is on the same approval track that we are – we both ended up meeting with the folks from Camp Cumorah Tuesday night for a little signature party. That Scout will do his project on July 5 – we’ll head up on the 7th.
So that means I gotta make a Home Depot run to get some tools and supplies. We’ll provide the tools – the camp will provide the stain, which is great, since the stain is pretty spendy. And I don’t mind buying the tools. We learned doing Liam’s Eagle project a few years ago that the local hardware stores get inundated with requests for donations from Eagle Scout candidates, so it’s not even worth asking for donations. That goes for the mom and pop shops (we do have a few) and the national chains. But I’ve already got some turpentine and spending a little money on gloves and rollers and such won’t break the bank, and it’ll meet the No. 1 goal of the project: Getting it done.
The only real variable we’re working with here is wondering whether the eight gallons of stain the camp has will be enough to do the benches. It all depends on how much stain the benches soak up as we work. I guess we’ll paint until we run out of benches or stain, and then see where we stand if the stain runs out first. Hopefully these pine benches aren’t as thirsty as my cedar fence is in the back yard.
Depending on how quickly the follow-up paperwork goes, Isaac could get his Eagle before he turns 14 in August – something he’d like to do, just for the bragging rights of getting his Eagle while he’s at Scout Camp to be showered with adoration from his fans there. And it would mean Mom and Dad no longer have to be pushing to get a project completed. We’ll see how it goes.
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