| Fruit |
| Cross the River |
| Christmas Grab Bag |
One of our troop’s favorites was Fruit. All off the scouts except one would sit in folding chairs arranged in a circle. The lone scout would stand in the middle of the circle. He had a official Scout knee stocking in his hand with extra socks stuffed down in the foot. The stocking had stretched out about a foot longer than it was originally from years of use.
To start the game, each player, including the center Scout, would chose a name of a fruit. I always chose "tomato" because most folks didn’t know it was technically a fruit. The object was to memorize everyone’s fruit name as you went around the circle.
The center scout would select one of the scouts at random to begin the game. "Watermelon." The scout who had chosen watermelon would then call out another’s fruit name, such as "banana!" The center scout now tries to whack the scout who had chosen banana before that scout could call out another fruit name. This continues until the center scout whacks the called scout before he calls out another name.
I remember one time when Eddie Kolonic got so flustered that he couldn’t remember any fruit names. He stuttered "um. Um. Um…" as he leaned back on his chair in anticipation of the impending hit. "Whack! Kablam!" The hit came simultaneously as he fell backward and the chair collapsed. Eddie was easily flustered.
This sounds like an extremely violent game, but I don’t remember anyone getting hurt. The sock was pretty soft plus you always knew when it was coming so you’d put up you arm to ward off the brunt of the blow.
This was another favorite, and it did get rough at times. The troop is divided up into two equal teams that line up across the room from each other. The referee would call out "Cross the river!" Everyone would run across the room, "the river," to get to the other side.
You would try to grab opposing team members and drag them across to your side, where they would then be part of your team. When the referee calls out "All free," any one in the grasp but not quite across the line is free to return to his team’s side. The team that ends up with all of the players is declared the winner.
The game can get rough near the end when there’s only one or two players on one side. They develop a kamikaze attitude as they try to beat the odds and cross against twenty or scouts on the opposing team.
One time my brother, Steve, got hurt real bad. He had started back towards a teammate that was being dragged across by two other scouts. As he started towards them, another two scouts noticed him and started to come towards him to drag him across. So Steve quickly pivoted and started to run back towards his side. Only he ran headfirst into the metal support post that holds up the first floor of the church. Bam!
I was nearby so I saw it happen. He sat up and his face was full of blood. Mr. Weikart and I raced him into the bathroom to clean him up and stop the bleeding. There was blood everywhere.
He had a huge cut on his forehead that was bleeding profusely. His nose was bleeding too and draining blood down is face and onto his mouth. His teeth had also cut the inside of his lip so his mouth was filling up with blood, which e would sit out into the sink.
Blood. Blood. Blood.
The bleeding wouldn’t stop so Mr. Weikart decided that we had to rush him to Resurrection Hospital. With arms an paper towels every which way, we dashed into Mr. Weikart’s station wagon and sped towards the hospital. They admitted him into the emergency room and treated him right away. The doctor came out and told us that they had stopped the bleeding and were waiting for the x-rays to be developed.
In the rush to get out the door, we had grabbed Dean Weikart’s boots instead of Steve’s. They looked alike so it was an honest mistake. The doctor said we could go into his room and switch the boots. Both Dean and I were aghast. We were telling him that it didn’t look so bad but in our minds we were both thinking, "What a dent!"
He had put a triangular dent about two inches across and an eight on an inch deep into the left front of his forehead. It turned out that he had a concussion and a fractured skull so they kept him overnight for observation.
We didn’t play Cross the River for several months after that episode.
Every Christmas our troop held a grab bag for those who wanted to exchange gifts. But we added a twist to the event that turned it into a game. Normally, a grab bag is when you buy a small gift, wrap it up and put it in the pile. Then everyone takes turns and selects a gift, other than their own gift, as their present.
What we did was draw numbers out of a hat and sit on the floor in a row in that order. So if you picked number "1," you would be first in the row. Then number "2" and so on. The first scout would pick one of the presents and sit back down. The second scout could either pick one of the remaining presents or pick the one from scout number "1." If he selected the gift from scout number "1," number "1" would go pick another gift from the pile. Then number "3" would pick. He could take from the pile or from either scout number "1" or number "2." If he picked from another scout, then that scout would pick again from the pile or from another scout.
So if Number "3" took first scout’s new present, then that scout could pick his original present back from number "2," who now has to go pick again. The limiting factor was that any gift could only be chosen three times. It was considered frozen after the third pick.
It sounds confusing and it is. That’s half the fun. You would pick a present based on its shape or size, or maybe your buddy told you what he wanted, although most didn’t just to ad to the excitement. One year I made a pyramid shaped box out of shirt cardboard and tape. I bought a foam Nerf ball and shoved it in the box, which was about half the ball’s size. It was the hot item that year because everybody wanted to know what it was.
The best story, however, is the Maurice Lonell cookie box. Someone’s mom picked it out. Greg Weikart selected the box without knowing what was in it, it just sounded good when he shook it. There was a lot of posturing and wheeling-dealing, "Okay. You take so-and-so’s, then he takes mine…," to make sure he got it on the third pick so no one else could take it from him. He was really bummed out when he opened it and found out it was cookies. Maurice Lonell cookies are not the kind of gift a young boy desires.
So the next year, Greg walks in with a wrapped box that looks, fells and sounds suspicious. He saved he box and just re-wrapped it for the next year’s grab bag. Now the picking got serious! No one wanted that box. Cookies are bad enough, but year old cookies are worse! I don’t remember who got stuck with them, but that box made its return two more years. It became an unwritten troop tradition. I think the scoutmaster finally put an end to by taking the box away and throwing it in the trash. Bah humbug!
