Hankins Tales: Life Moves Pretty Fast

(Originally posted to social media on August 28, 2020)

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around every once in a while you could miss it” Ferris Beuller’s Day Off…..

Ferris was right on the money. We are so busy living life that we sometimes fail to notice what is going on around us. Life consists of millions of tiny seemingly everyday moments that are easy to miss.

I remember way back in 1978 when I was working at Logging Days on the High Knoll Trail Camp. It was the middle of the summer and a crew came into camp from Puncheon Camp. These guys were from the Newport News area and I gave them the same show that I put on for each of the crews that summer.

They set up camp and we climbed poles with spikes and we threw full axes and Handled Rattlesnakes and did the walk of death and cut trees and the list was endless. That night I cooked a giant pizza for the crew in a huge pan that was about 3 feet across. Then we got into the tipi and I told stories for hours. They did not want to stop. I had a long conversation with one of the adult leaders who took an interest in what I was doing. I mentioned to him that I had applied for the Ranger’s job at camp Powhatan and he wished me good luck.

What I did not know was that this man was the Council president of the Peninsula Council which was based out of Newport News. They had a Camp in Williamsburg called camp Chickahominy. The position at Powhatan was getting bogged down and nobody could seem to make any solid decisions. I had just been married and I needed to pick a direction to go in. One day out of the blue I got a letter from the Scout Executive in Newport News that they would like to interview me for the Rangers job at camp. That man that I had met briefly on the trail had thrown my name into the pool of candidates.

The rest is history. I went and I interviewed and they offered me the job the following day. It was a great first step. The job at Powhatan was bogged down for a long time. It just goes to show that sometimes the most basic moments in life are far more important than we realize. Take the time to stop and smell the coffee, you won’t regret it.

With permission of the author, these stories by noted scouter and storyteller John Hankins are featured here at Natahwop.Org. He shares these as part of the history and lore of Camp Powhatan, Camp Ottari, and the High Knoll Trail, where he spent many years of his youth. John has an incomperable first-hand knowledge of this scout reservation, as he blazed most of the original trails for High Knoll, and has hiked the rest of them several times over.

John Hankins grew up in Troop 50 (Woodlawn United Methodist Church) in Roanoke, VA. He attended Camp Powhatan as a young scout, then worked at Philmont Ranch as a ranger. He returned to the reservation to serve on camp staff from 1968 to 1978. He was a legendary naturalist who could interpret the outdoors unlike any other. As a teacher, John often relied on the element of excitement to get his point across. His weekly lectures at the nature lodge, for example, introduced scouts to either a live rattlesnake or copperhead – usually dangling on a stick within a few feet of the front row.

John and several others first envisioned the now-legendary High Knoll trail system. They took it to council leadership for prospective funding, where the idea gained several key advocates (but no funding). John recalls how – in those days – they couldn’t pay the staff with money, so they gave them patches. The High Knoll Trail would go on to become one of the best outdoor programs in the country.

John applied in 1979 for the open job of Camp Ranger, but the council said he needed more experience in that post. With his rejection letter in hand, he was immediately hired by Camp Chickohominy, and then by Camp Brady Saunders where he served for 33 years as Camp Ranger. John moved with his wife, Cheri, to West Virginia where they enjoyed the spoils of retirement: grandchildren, travel, and the great outdoors. As of 2024, they are living on the outskirts of Richmond where they can be closer to family.

(“Hankins Tales” are shared here by permission of the author. Each story is copyrighted by John Hankins, and may not be reproduced in any form without his express written permission.)

The Natahwop

Hankins Tales: Life Moves Pretty Fast

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