I'm feeling very nostalgic today. I went to a funeral for a great man, and saw people I haven't seen for 20 years. Dennis was my scoutmaster when I was young, and I couldn't help but be swept away in the memories from my youth.
I remember that after scouts, all the boys would stay and play "night games" around his house, like hide & seek, kick the can, tag, or some variant of all of the above. He owned several houses all surrounding his business, so there was lots of space to play. We would play for hours, until late into the night. When we did finally get around to leaving, Dennis would often either give us a ride home or at least follow us as we rode our bikes to make sure we got home safely.
We also had adventurous campouts. They usually resulted in a boy named Brad Jensen getting hurt somehow. One of my personal favorites was when we went on a winter campout, and after we set up the springbar tents, we were riding tubes down a hill. Brad wanted to go even faster and higher, so he went farther up the hill, not paying attention to the fact that his path now took him directly into the tents. With everyone yelling at him to stop, Brad jumped on and laid as flat as he could, to pick up speed. He shot down the hill and as expected, straight into the back of one of the tents and disappeared underneath. We ran around to the front of the tent to see if he had come out the other side, and through the open door of the tent, we could see a Brad shape on top of the outline of the inner tube, poking up through the tent floor.
On another campout we went to the headwaters for the Duchesne Tunnel, a small shallow diversion reservoir. When we went, it was very empty because it was later in the summer. Dennis's son Tim, another boy named Matt & I set up our tent quickly, and waded out into the pond well in advance of the other boys. We walked carefully and found an underwater trench a few feet across, but very deep, running underwater across the pond in otherwise knee-deep water. We had jumped across the trench when the other boys led by Brad Jensen took off running towards us. We stood right at the far edge of the trench, saying "look, it's not deep at all!" With Brad in the lead, all the boys ran right into the trench, disappearing for a moment under the water before finding the edge of the trench and climbing out.
These memories and many more came back as I greeted Tim at his father's funeral. Dennis had taught us so many things that had made 'his' boys into men.
As I left his funeral, I drove through the old neighborhood again, looking at the houses where I had spent my youth, remembering old faces and places. It only seems like a lifetime ago because it really has been that long.
It made me realize that although I now call somewhere else home, I will always be one of those kids from the wrong side of the tracks in Provo.
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