When I was about fifteen years old, there was an older scout, Dave Vana, who was coordinating a small group of us to go for Computer merit badge together. We met after our regular Monday evening troop meeting and decided to get together the next weekend to review the requirements and contact the councilor. On Wednesday my folks asked me to sit down at the dining room table when I came home from school. They had just received a call to let them know that Dave had died.
This was pretty tough news. I had known only one other kid that had died before back in second or third grade. That friend had bone cancer when I met him so it wasn’t a surprise and you had time to prepare for the inevitable. But Dave was in great health so this came out of the blue. I went numb. I don’t know how apparent it was because I tried to continue on like nothing ever happened.
I later learned that Dave felt sick Tuesday night. He was dizzy and throwing up, but he didn’t have a fever so his folks were not overly concerned. But his condition quickly deteriorated late that night. He rose from his bed and started downs stairs where his folks were when he suddenly passed out and collapsed. The were unable to revive him and called an ambulance, but it was to late. Dave had died form an aneurysm, a blood vessel bursting in his brain.
Dave was an only child and his folks were older than most kids’ parents. They were in there late fifties or even older. I can’t imagine how tough it was on them. They knew how much he loved scouting so they had him buried in his uniform and asked the troop to provide pallbearers for the funeral. I was one of the scouts asked to be a pallbearer.
The ceremony was at a local funeral parlor went as well as could be expected. Afterwards, there was a reception back at the church. Tom, the janitor, set up the chairs in tables in the one of the basement rooms where we usually ran our games. All of the scouts that attended were sitting at one table. We were all pretty somber.
Then one of the ladies serving the cake and coffee came up to our table with a pitcher of milk. She asked if anyone wanted more. Dean Weikart held up his coffee cup, since they didn’t set out and glasses, and said, "Only half a cup. It keeps me up at night." We all broke out laughing. Gut wrenching, tears streaming down our cheeks laughing.
We stopped after a few minutes and felt self-conscience about laughing at such as serious and sad affair. But I think it allowed us to have an emotional release. We all had been keeping our feelings bottled up, out of fear or out of ignorance, but here we had a chance for a strong emotional release, and we took it.
By the way, no one in our group followed up and earn Computer merit badge.