Charcoal Stripes

Relate an encounter with Nature when/where you found value in the experience.

One time, back in my Boy Scout days, I went to a summer camp with my troop. With me was my best friend (at the time) Ben. Now Ben and I went against the typical "boy scout grain" in most situations and we were there more to cause trouble more than learning about knots. The second night we decided to do something exciting and fun rather than abide by the curfew and proceeded to take off our shirts, paint our bodies with charcoal stripes, and sneak to the rest of our troop's camp to wreak havoc.

See Ben and I were in the older guys camp whereas the rest of our troop was at a different camp through this patch of woods. To sneak up on them we went alongside this lake with tall stalks of some plant growing on its beach. Our charcoal stripes and the plants fit together so perfectly that from five feet away we were next to invisible. While we were sneaking along, we tried to be absolutely silent. That left a lot of room for nature to speak and it was both surreal and very peaceful (given the circumstance) to listen to all of the sounds nature had to offer.

That night and the night following we pulled all the pranks we could with our limited supplies. We rubbed toothpaste on a sleeping kid's head, we stuck a bunch of forks in the ground outside another boy's tent (point down, the boy was unharmed) and never got caught by the parents staying there. The pranks were dumb but I will never forget sneaking through the tall grass being as quiet as possible and listening to all the sounds of the woods.