The early years

I've heard a lot of comedians make jokes about this sort of thing, but when I was 13, my family moved across town while I was at Scout camp. I got a ride back to the old house and just had to hope someone would pick me up (they did). I didn't even have the new address! Sheesh.

That was a nice trip, though. Broad Creek Scout Camp in in the NE part of Maryland, near the PA border. Back then, it was a really quiet place. I've heard since that it's still there. Maybe someday I'll get back there to take a look at it. Maybe take some pictures.

I was going to start a whole new post on this next one, but why? When I was a sophomore in HS, we had a field trip up to Montreal for Expo '67. (I should scan in some of those pics and post 'em on my Web site.) That was a real blast. Not just getting out of town and out of state, but out of the country! The only real problem was that half the stuff you see in Quebec is in French, which even back then was pretty much a dead language. Of course, we got our jollies making fun of the Canadian "Monopoly money", but when you think about it, different-colored money actually makes sense.

We went up there in two big tour buses, and I remember that one of our tour guides was a Marine named Max. (He was no longer on active duty, but once a Marine, always a Marine. Semper Fi.) We totally trashed the interior of that bus. It looked like a rolling garbage dump. Of course, we also had to clean it out. And when I say "we", I mean the rest of the guys. I was raised better than that.

The trip was way too short, but a lot of fun. The coolest thing was the monorail, which you could ride for free. The weirdest thing was seeing people eat french fries w/ vinegar. Ugh! After all these years, I still haven't tried that one, although I have tried potato chips flavored w/ vinegar.

We probably slept most of the way back to Baltimore, 'cause I don't remember any of it.
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