by Jim Huckabee

Created on: August 04, 2009   Last Updated: November 18, 2011

When my daughter was a Brownie Scout about thirty years ago, we went on the yearly camp out. Fort Custard in southeastern Michigan has a great camp ground and since it is a state park we thought it would be a great choice. When the band of merry travelers met at the local school to start our journey one of the girls parents told us they couldn't go. But they didn't want their child to miss out. The girl protested but the parents insisted. They had made arrangements for a substitute chaperone. We waited as long as we could for the replacement chaperone. We departed one chaperone short.

If this was the only leak in the bucket we would have a great weekend and the girls would learn about Natural History and camping. Well...about fifteen miles down the road the girl whose parents couldn't go began to cry for her mother non stop for the next eighty miles.

We finally arrived at the gate house of our destination. Scouting troops according to the state park rules can camp free of charge. The park ranger in charge explained they were exempt from the free camping clause. We had two choices. We could turn around and go home or we could pay the camping fees ourselves. The available funds didn't allow for this so I paid for the camping.

Okay two challenges in only a few hours had to be the end of our misfortunes. Well you know how it goes; things happen in threes. After we had pitched our tents and all was ready for the weekend it was time to build a camp fire for the evening and to cook the diner. We began the hunt for dead-fall. The pile of fire wood was building as some of the girls reported they had found the best piece of fire wood. It was a pine stump which I let the girls talk me into dragging back to camp.

The camp fire was lit and as the flames grew one of the girls yelled ants. I had never seen so many ants in one place as there were fleeing the fire. The ants had a colony in the stump. We killed ants for what seemed an eternally. Finally all as again well. The girls had their diner and all the evening chores completed. Everyone enjoyed the story telling and singing until the time came to zip up the tents for a nice long peaceful night.

Did I say things happen in threes? Maybe it is fours because one of the girls had to use the out house. So she and her partner went to the out house where un-godly screams split the night like a siren in an abbey. I and my wife, at the time left our sleeping bags on a dead run. It wasn't a mass murderer or even the devil; it was

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