Our country was fighting World War II. Military surplus stores sold pup tents. Sydney and I were sharing one in the New Mexico mountains. I was 15 years old and Sydney was only 12.
We were camped at Philturn—name then of the Philmont ranch that Oklahoma oilman Wade Phillips gave to the Boy Scouts of America. We pitched our tents next to a mountain stream. I was the senior patrol leader so the scoutmaster assigned Sydney, the youngest, to my care.
When I wasn’t looking, two of his Second Class buddies introduced Tenderfoot Sydney to a skunk they had cornered. “Sydney, hold the skunk up by his tail and he can’t spray you.” You know how that worked. Yep, we pitched a separate tent just for Sydney, downwind.
Before you tell me “should have soaked his clothes in tomato juice,” we soaked his clothes—and Sydney—in the shallow mountain stream. Even if we had known, we were camped a long way from the nearest tomato juice.
Last I heard about Sydney, he was president of an Abilene bank. Probably well prepared for smelling out a risky loan application.
Image by skeeze from Pixabay
