CHEZ MARQUEZ

PRISON TACOS

At the most recent Troop 281 meeting, Thanksgiving break had already begun for those still in school, including the four visiting Cub Scouts who were with the Flaming Arrows for that night. So the skill session was appropriately all about Dutch Oven cooking and cleaning. Led by Ben M., it was a mostly digital presentation with PowerPoint detailing how to make a very basic but very good Dutch Oven dish: Prison Tacos. (Simple chili mixed in with Fritos after being cooked, sometimes also known as “Walking Tacos” to the older generation.) The skill session was very informative, as Dutch Oven cooking can be a confusing art, cleaning being an even more confusing art as it is a very bad idea to use soap at all to clean up, rather it has to be left all up to water, an un-soapy rag, and good old' elbow grease to clean the iron cooking pot.

The presentation was not over when the power point slides were, however, as outside the Scout Room there had been a Dutch Oven cooking the chili component of Prison Tacos! A large bag of Fritos was opened and everybody got to sample the Dutch Oven cuisine, there being absolutely no chili left at the end and making Ben’s job easier in terms of cleaning.

FLASHLIGHT TAG and MUD

There was still plenty of time after everybody had enjoyed their “Tacos”, thus it was time for the game. Continuing the trend of trying out new games the Troop hasn’t played in a long while (if ever); SPL Avery had selected the game to be “Flashlight Tag” of all things. For simplicity’s sake, the rules were pretty much rendered to be like normal tag, except instead of having to run after other people it was “having the light shone on you and both your hair and shoe color called out” to be tagged and taken out of the game. While in normal circumstances this might be an interesting twist, the game was held out on the church’s front lawn, which had more than a few bright lights lighting up the front of the church and the flagpole, making it rather easy to see people (especially Nick B, who for some reason was wearing a very reflective Rumpke hoodie).

To make matters worse, a pipe had busted under the field, so half the field was off limits because it was too muddy to easily run on without getting covered in mud. In the end, however, the game quickly broke down into a “free-for-all” version of tag, the flashlights all but forgotten. So for most of the game, scouts were chasing scouts who were also chasing scouts. It was fun for all the participants though and it was successful in that regard.

After the scouts were brought back in, the troop quickly sped through a few announcements before the time had once again come to “circle up”, to which Joel R. and Nick B. actually tried to make the group form a real circle. How effective their efforts were is still to be determined, as it quickly became something close to an amoeba shape again when everybody crossed their arms to hold other hands, clapping all at once again to end the meeting.

Ben Hallenbeck, Troop Historian