(Originally posted to social media on April 20 – 30, 2023)
April 20, 2023
I am still on the program to tell a story at the OA Conclave in just a few days. But the campfire program leadership has shifted me from the end of the program to the beginning. I am even before the beginning in the transition between the elections and the beginning of the official program. I know there are a number of people who are hoping to video that story but if you are not careful you will miss it completely. My time slot is also beginning to narrow and if the elections go long then my slot will be eliminated.
I am not used to telling a story in broad daylight but that will be the case since I am on right around 7 o’clock. I am returning to camp for one main reason and that is to honor the anniversary of the forming of Tutelo Lodge. 50 years back I was on Staff at Powhatan and I was deeply involved in that transition. I designed the first Tutelo flap and I still have a couple of them stashed somewhere in the closets. Any time two lodges merge to form a new lodge there are a lot of people who are going to be upset. However, I was all for it. It meant an influx of new members, new resources, new outlook. I will be telling a story about my first week at camp in 1964. I think that a lot of people can relate to certain parts of that story and it burns like a flame in my memory.
I was part of the crew that took down Old Camp Monacan, I still remember how heavy those tent platforms were. The members of Powhatan Lodge were losing a name but the guys from Lynchburg were losing a home.
April 23, 2023
As a Camp Ranger for more than 36 years and a frequent speaker at countless campfires, my heart goes out to the Tutelo Lodge. If the weatherman is even slightly close it looks like they are in for a rainy weekend. At this point it will start on Wed. and go through Monday. It does not look like a hurricane type of rain but it is more of a relentless, cold and steady downpour.
Now it is a fact that the weather can change at the drop of a hat in Virginia but this is a pretty widespread system. I have a new, original and semi accurate story that I was set to tell on Saturday night. There are going to be thousands of people on site. I am going to make the journey for two reasons. It will do my soul good to see Camp Powhatan again, even in the rain. Secondly I have made a commitment to a number of people who are counting on me. If I do not go then the stars will pop out and the angels will begin to sing and people will question, “Where is Hankins?”
I have been in contact with the people who are running the campfire program and they are looking at a plan B. Plan B is to have a program in the dining hall which does not have the capacity to handle everyone at one time. The dining hall is a big open echo chamber where sound bounces around like a kangaroo rat. It is a nightmare scenario for someone trying to tell a simple story and getting it recorded. Every cough or moved chair is going to reverberate like thunder in a limited space.
At this point if they go to plan B I will politely decline. Hopefully there will be a gift from God and he will give us a couple of clear hours on Saturday night. I have tried to perform in that dining hall in the past and it sounded like a mariachi band falling down a well.
There is no elevated stage area and you are stuck in a space with hundreds of exhausted sweaty wet children. It is a recipe for anarchy.
This will very likely be my last opportunity to tell a story at Powhatan. But we have to yield to the weather. I once stated that you cannot entertain people when they are cold or wet or too hot.
I stand by that statement. Either way , my stories will linger in that sacred space for a long time to come. I will make the journey, all I ask is a crowd to hear my truth………..
April 26, 2023
I will be at the Conclave on Saturday, rain or shine. The current forecast looks like we might get very lucky on Saturday night. It changes every five minutes. I will be in that weird twilight period between the Section elections and the beginning of the official program. At this point I am going to make that work. However that time frame is going to be low light at best. There are video crews coming out to film the story but if they cannot see my face clearly the story will lose impact.
Aim them at my face. Do not go aiming at bats or cattails on the lake. I do not want yet another lost performance because conditions were wrong. I am hoping to recruit a few people when I arrive. But it will be a fast strike for me. Get there, tell a story, and leave. The kids who planned the main program have put a lot of time and effort into it and I hope they get some clear conditions.
April 28, 2023
Ken Lyons has posted some pictures from Camp Powhatan that show the last low-water bridge under water. They must have been hit with the same system that hit us last night up here in WV. The good news is that the fire danger is now very low. There are a lot of us who can remember having to evacuate the camp Population out over Jersey Ridge to get out after severe flooding. This is just a simple high water event. Conclaves have a way of attracting strange weather systems. They are lucky they did not get a snow storm. I will see it for myself in the morning. I am hoping to get a story told in the time slot right after Section elections. There will probably be a typhoon or at least a moderate tidal wave at some point.
April 30, 2023
Six hours round trip to Camp Powhatan and back today. I am just getting home at right about midnight. This trip was a great gift to my soul today because the endless mountains were putting on a real show. I left the early spring of WV and rode south and west into the almost summer of western Virginia. Now I am pumped up on about 15 cups of coffee so I am going to write a little just to calm down, Deer were standing all over the road and the sky was lit with lightning. I came through a brief rain near Union but I think that the program at camp was able to go the distance. I left right after my story which went very well and it was well received.
I think I accidentally stunned the crowd a little bit at first and they were unsure how to react. I have seen that before where people want to laugh but they are afraid to laugh. They think I will rush out and pull off their head. When they do start laughing it is that suppressed snorting that is hard to stop. I cut my story short because they had run long with the section elections. I will post the entire written version. I am pretty sure we got a few good recordings of the story, we will just have to wait and see. Marshall Chaney spent a lot of time setting up and I expect good things. Steven Warren was also very close so you will be able to see the hairs in my nose.
At the end of the story I walked back to the parking lot and I was greeted by a highly vocal Whipporwill. It is one of those favorite sounds that we do not hear much of in this area. Tree frogs were putting on a separate concert near the lake and it brought me back to another place and time. I want to thank Tutelo for allowing me to share a story from my early days as a scout. I took a few liberties with the truth but most of it was spot on. This was the first activity I have attended with young girls who are now helping to fill the scouting ranks. They are certainly holding their own and they seemed to be loving the experience.
The ride up the camp road filled me like an empty vase being filled to overflowing. I saw a lot of old friends and I think I made a few new ones along the way. I would expect to see some story footage very soon.
PS, nobody actually got shot in that kitchen and 1500 pound kid was probably closer to 650. Leon still remains a mythical figure in my twisted mind.
I got to Powhatan early enough to do some exploring and I ran into a lot of old friends. Almost every one of them asked how my wife was doing and then asked about my son Harrison. I sometimes forget how connected I am through Facebook and these are people who have been following my stories. My son was the Ranger at camp for about 5 years before he moved to Goochland to become a police officer. He still has a lot of fans back on the mountain. The answer is that they are both doing well and thriving.
I want to say thank you to the Show Staff for allowing me to eat up a few minutes of the Conclave program. The Elections went long as they are prone to do and they were getting nervous. Setting up for this kind of an event is a thankless job and they were dealing with high winds at times that kept blowing over the canopies. I was the first thing out of the box, normally I am a closer but I am glad it worked out the way it did. Otherwise I would have been on the road until 2 in the morning and the rain would have caught up with me.
Thanks to Seth and his team for the coordinated effort and the long line of communication before the event. I think it was a Camp Powhatan miracle that we did not get dumped on. I am always available for Conclaves and massive council events. A lot of people think that I died a few years ago but I am still standing, still telling stories in the dark.
(Copyright by John Hankins; all rights reserved. Published here by permission of the author.)
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