(Originally posted to social media on January 17, 2022)
The previous story about the greased pig (see blog post of January 18, 2018) reminded me that you never knew what to expect from Boy Scouts. Many years back there was a survival campout involving troop 400 from Richmond. Most of these kids were affluent young men who had never been in a survival situation. One of the leaders had gone out to a chicken farm in Ashland and brought about 40 live chickens. These chickens had spent most of their lives in a small space and they were not used to a survival situation either.
The basic concept was that each kid had to go out into the woods and build a survival structure or leanto to spend the night. They were each given one live chicken for supper and a small ax and 2 matches to start a fire. It began to get dark and the leaders could look out through the winter woods and see a number of fires burning. But nobody could smell any chicken cooking. That is because all of the chickens had been set free at some point. The chickens had run a short distance and had squatted down, trying to figure out what was going on. After a long night of freezing with an empty stomach those kids woke up and suddenly the idea of killing a chicken did not sound so horrible. The chickens looked up to see these deranged refugee children heading in their direction with an ax. They were starving to death. Even though the chickens were not used to running or flying they put two and two together and headed for the hills. The woods were swarming with starving kids and crazy running chickens. I don’t think that even one of those birds was actually killed. Axes were flying through the air and the woods were swarming with motivated chickens. In fact it was years before all of those birds vanished. I like to think that they migrated to Miami. I did notice that we had some of the biggest foxes in the county.
(Copyright by John Hankins; all rights reserved. Published here by permission of the author.)
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.)
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