Kyle, Joe and I decided to visit Bill Schilling in his camp oubliette and we arrived early at Giant to meet up with him so we hit Wawa for superfluous energy drinks.  Joe and I seem completely unaffected by  them but we enjoy the trainwreck-like pull of their flavors ranging from something akin to burnt Mountain Dew to fermented bull urine.  Needing to kill more time we pick an appropriate mix to go with our Rockstar drinks, which I think is made largely of caffeine and drummer sweat.  So what line and so is blairing on the radio when I roll down my window to talk to Bill? “I’m all out of love, I’m so lost without you…“  from All Out of Love by Air Supply.  Timing, I has it.  To regain our lost masculinity we watched Prescilla, Queen of the Desert and debated proper appletini technique.

The lodge banquet went surprisingly well. Why you may ask? Well, THE FIREPLACE IN FOSTER HALL ACTUALLY CONTAINED A REAL FIRE.  That was the first time it’s ever been lit for a public event without the building having been smoked out.

The food was unimpressive and the quality has dropped each year but there were some redeeming aspects.  Dave Hasel, the council executive, made a delightful little speech about the importance of the Order of the Arrow, so short in fact, that Bill Schilling and I didn’t have enough time to make a complete Buzzword Bingo board including such phrases as “this is their Philmont” and “the average time a boy spends in Scouting is”.  He did bring up the cliche of “it doesn’t matter how much money you have when you die as long as you helped a child” crap, this statement obviously ignores the deceased’s children as well as their family’s financial needs but after the “I have nothing profound to say” affair I’ve kept my mouth shut at Scout funerals.  Bill Schilling whispered to me “God, this speech is so boring the fire’s falling asleep” and I agreed.

Then, I saw a whole bunch of people get angry as Dave left before Bill Kuhn’s memorial.  It was the first time I’d seen the Broken Arrow ceremony done and it was impressive as the folks standing directly in front of the fire didn’t say anything as their pants nearly caught on fire and the ceremony was done from memory.

Towards the end, I had an idea.  Every major Order of the Arrow event attended by Unami Lodge #1 involves their stupid film canisters full of dirt from the first ceremonial site.  Now that they’ve gone underwater so many times I think they should now give people flood water from the first ceremonial site.

Anthony’s Birthday shindig elicited two wonderful quotes:

Tom Leitz about Matan Shavit spending his first year in the Trading post as Rob Scafidi’s assistant: ‘Matan is not there to be your predecessor.’

Bill Schilling on his dog’s ability to eat: ‘My dog downs more wood than a Chicago prostitute’

Anthony turned 21 on Friday and wanted to celebrate. We met at Applebee’s and as I arrived first I ordered a round of drinks where Tom Leitz requested that Anthony not get a girly drink so I got him a Philadelphia Black and Tan in a 23 oz. glass. Everyone arrived and I was quite relieve that when Tom said “Bill was coming” that it was Schilling and not Mischke.

Anyway, Anthony’s glass’s fluid level slowly dropped but I’m certain that this was largely due to evaporation. I accosted him about this to which he responded “I had a number of daquiri’s on my birthday and I’m still recovering”. He didn’t finish his drink so I did what any reasonable person would, I made him steal it so he could finish it at camp. He declined, so I stole it (after paying for it which I suppose makes it not stealing) and I now a curvy iced tea glass.  On the plus side, it would have been hell to try to hold his hair back as he worshiped the porcelain god.