A Series on the RA Virtues: Honesty and Self-Discipline

Have you ever been sick? I mean real sick. The kind of sick where the dog won’t even give you the time of day. The kind of sick that makes you question your life choices and promise to never do again whatever it is you think you did that made you end up that way. That kind of sick.

That is the kind of sick I experienced one time as a young man. And it was my own fault.

It was the autumn of the year, Thanksgiving break as I recall, and a few of us boys had been out camping in the great wilds of Louisiana. We hunted each morning and evening, and generally goofed off and made no account of ourselves in between times. Various and sundry grown folks would come to check on us and make sure we were still in the general vicinity and had not run off to join the circus (not that the circus would have us) and to see if we needed provisions like snack cakes and soda. The grown folks didn’t linger long, as there was a certain odeur de boy that lingered in camp.

It so happened that Mr. Earl — our Royal Ambassadors (RA) leader — came by for such a visit. It was the last evening of our trip after we had all returned to camp. Mr. Earl had been in the area thinning the squirrel population with his .22 rifle (Mr. Earl believed most problems in life could be solved with a .22 rifle and a dip of snuff; he was exactly half right) and he came by to share his quarry with the less fortunate, namely us. Truth be told, he was probably snooping around to check on us, being one of the few grown men who could stomach the smell of full ripe, unbathed boys.

Under his supervision, we carefully cleaned and dressed his squirrels and ours. The meat promptly went into the skillet over the open fire, and we made sure to cook them the requisite amount of time to kill off whatever may be lurking in the meat waiting to get us sick. We made gravy and cornbread, along with a desert of some sort, and then sat down to enjoy our meal of gourmet squirrel, gravy, and fixin’s.

One of the boys asked Mr. Earl if he cared to have some water, as we had just brought some up from the creek.

“Did you filter that water,” Mr. Earl inquired, “Or use some chlorine tablets?”

“Oh no, sir,” responded the lad. “We’re too tired to filter the water and don’t none of us like how the chlorine makes the water taste. But we found a spot in the creek where the water is running fast and it’s really clear, so we figured it was safe.”

I’m sure if we could have clearly made out his facial expression in the campfire light, we would have seen that Mr. Earl was not amused. He preached the gospel of water purification to us at our RA meetings, second only to the gospel of Jesus. Safety and Sanitation were and are one of the “big 12” areas in the RA Campcraft curriculum.

Mr. Earl just shook his head and responded that no, he’d just drink what little water he had left.

He knew. The old man knew the water was bad. And he was right.

A few days later, as I lay in my bed sick as I had ever been in my life, missing the Thanksgiving festivities, too scared to walk, roll over, or even sneeze for fear of what may come forth from me, Mr. Earl came around. He had heard, he said, that I was feeling under the weather and was concerned I would miss the Thanksgiving food missions that weekend.

My foot. He came over to gloat.

“How you feeling, boy,” Mr. Earl sincerely inquired.

“Not too good,” I replied. “Been sick at my stomach. It started a few days after we got home from the camping trip. I can’t imagine what would have caused it.”

“Com’on, son, you know what caused it, don’t ya,” Mr. Earl pressed. “It was that bad water you boys drank. Oh sure, it was clear and smelled fine, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t bacteria or parasites living in the water. Why else are all you boys sick and I’m fine and dandy? I feel like a spring chicken and here you are laid up. That’s why you have to filter it or use chlorine tablets. Ain’ no telling what is in that water.”

That’s great. Here I lay, sick as a dog, my short life passing before me, and Mr. Earl was lecturing me on the merits of sanitizing water.

“I told you boys to always filter your water, didn’t I? Even showed you what kind of chlorine tablets to get. And now look at you, too sick to help us Saturday with the missions project because you were too lazy to filter and too haughty to chlorinate. So much for being clean and healthy in mind and body, huh? You boys are supposed to be leaders in the RA chapter. You’re supposed to set an example for the little fellers and show them how to live out the RA pledge.”

Mr. Earl was on a roll. A lecture on sanitized water and a “teachable moment.” I thought I couldn’t feel worse. I was wrong.

And, as with most things, he was right.