Keeping Us Safe

 

Keeping Us Safe

Noel Laflin

2-26-24

 

My former Scoutmaster, Dale Wilcox died on Valentine's Day - He was nearly 91 years old.

 

I have many fond memories of the man, but perhaps my favorite happened on a dark July night at Camp Ahwahnee in 1966. I was thirteen at the time.

 

We had left the comfort of our campsite that particular afternoon and hiked to the wilderness portion of camp know as Bracken Fern. As the place was crazy with the ferns for which it had been named, we all built individual lean-tos covered with the hardy plant.

 

But as evening turned to night, two older camp staff members found our campfire hidden away in the woods and quietly joined the rest of us as we sat around the flames seeking its comforting warmth.

 

Jokes and stories were bandied about, as teenage boys are bound to do when there’s a campfire dancing playfully before them, not to mention a massive star-filled night above.

 

But as the evening grew late and the two staff men were departing, one suddenly stopped and said he hoped we would all survive the night as we were in Muzuki territory.

 

Of course, that led someone to ask what that meant exactly, but the fellow who had dropped the line said not to worry, it was just an old legend that had spread over the years, and not to take it as true.

 

Well, that spurred us on to asking about the ‘old legend,’ naturally, which is all the impetus the fellow needed to tell us about the madman Muzuki who lived in a cave not far from where we camped (a cave that had yet to be found, they said), and was known to creep into lonely settings like this, kidnap sleeping boys, and drag them back to his lair – never to be heard from again. It was out of retribution, or so was said, for something bad that had happened to the madman eons ago.

 

Of course, the two played off of one another with their description of Muzuki – the crazy eyes, the tattered rags he wore for clothes, the yellow fangs, the rotten smell of the man, etc.

 

“Well,” the oldest lad finally concluded, “sleep well!” And on that ominous note, he and his buddy quietly disappeared into the woods from which they came.

 

The fire, by this time was burning low, so Dale said it was time to turn in.

 

I said, “Where’s your lean-to, Mr. Wilcox?”

 

“Oh, I didn’t build one; thought I would just sleep here in front of the fire instead.”

 

And then, as if on cue, twelve of us ran to our laboriously created shelters built just hours before, grabbed our sleeping bags, and hightailed it back to the campfire. Everyone threw on more sticks, pinecones, logs, or anything else that would keep the fire burning bright.

 

I didn’t think it was possible to fit a dozen kids around the man the way we did that night – sleeping like sardines in a tin can, but simply and instinctively trusting that Mr. Wilcox would keep us safe – just in case an ancient, crafty, depraved, drooling madman crept out of the woods that night.

 

And yours truly was the closest to our Scoutmaster all night long. Some senior patrol leader I proved to be. But I figured that rank had its privileges, so I cashed in.

But the good news was, of course, we were all accounted for in the morning.

 

Noel Laflin

Eagle Scout Emeritus – and faithful keeper of campfire tales from long ago