Cold Breakfast

Cold Breakfast

Noel Laflin

3-29-18

(from a longer piece - now just the beginning)

We called the camp cook Motorcycle Bill, partly because we never bothered to remember his last name and chiefly because he drove a large motorcycle.  He had a habit of spending his nights off in the back bar at Lloyds, in Running Springs - some five miles away - and then weaving the big bike dangerously through the hairpin curves back to camp in the wee hours of the morning.  

I don’t think he cared for kids, nor the daunting task of cooking in cramped, under-equipped kitchen quarters and then having to transport the often under-cooked, burnt, cold, or hard-as-a-rock grub to a bunch of Boy Scouts taunting him with dog food songs at every meal. 

We both had our points of view I guess.  We hated his cooking and he resented all of us, as well as the circumstances under which he had to perform his dreary task three times a day.  

No wonder we all sang and jeered.  

No wonder he drank.

It was a mutual dislike.

But then came the morning when we all showed up for breakfast, but none was forthcoming right off.

It seems Bill had met his demise by plowing his bike into a large tree on the way back from the bar hours earlier.

Two hundred heads bowed in a moment of silence when the announcement was made to both troops and staff.

A cold breakfast of milk and cereal was then produced.

It was a vast improvement over previous meals.