Overdue Thank You

Overdue Thank You

Noel Laflin

October, 2017

I’d like to find Bob Kirkpatrick again.

Being a few years older than me, and much cooler, he was one of the guys I looked up to during my early years at Camp Ahwahnee.
He was running the Senior Patrol Leader area in 1969, up until he had some sort of disagreement with management and left the mountain. I missed him upon his leaving.

However, before he left, I clearly remember the two of us walking on the road above the camp craft area one day. We stopped to watch some kids lashing together a monkey bridge.

Turning to me, he told me about his impending departure and how he really only had one regret at that point. He regretted that he would never have a chance to direct pioneering merit badge candidates in the building of a real log cabin.

“Think of it,” Bob said, “kids getting the chance to build their own cabin! It would probably take all summer, but it could be done. They’d carve their names in the logs, along with the date, and drag their folks over to see their handiwork every Saturday morning before they headed down the hill. It would sure beat the lashing together of a monkey bridge or tower.”

Bob was gone by the next day, but his words to me that afternoon took root.

Isn’t it funny how one passing comment by a long lost friend can stick with you for a length of time and then become your own dream later on?

I owe so much to a host of staff mentors at Ahwahnee. And I have been able to thank most of them over the decades.

 
But I never did see Bob again unfortunately.

 
Should our paths ever cross once more, however, boy do I have a story for him – not to mention a long overdue, ‘Thank You.’