Two-year Campout

Nineteen years young,
My songs yet unsung,
And Wahoo! I’m off to Japan!
With nothing to speak of
But the gospel I love
And a dog-eared old lesson plan.

I wasn’t too holy,
The language came slowly;
Like sap oozing out of a tree.
But line upon line,
The verbs came in time
As those tough conjugations prized free.

Though its hard, some would say,
Day after day,
Training the tongue and the ear
Worse yet; the conditions
(Oh, how I petitioned!)
We’d endure for the space of two years!

I wonder no more
Why a decade before
They started us all out in scouting.
They knew in advance,
It was our only chance
To survive this quaint mission outing!

Those times in the woods,
When I pulled up my hood
And slept on the ground, nothing more.
How could I know then,
There would be a time when
I would just sleep on the floor?

A scout’s keen desire
To cook on a fire
Prepared us for those times to come
When we’d turn on the gas
To make French Toast (How crass!)
To feed our companions and then some.

Battling bugs
That hide in the rugs,
And always we toiled two-by-two.
We were always taught
When out tying knots
To stay with our buddy! It’s true!

We did chores from a roster,
And no one can foster
A more equitable system than that!
We ate bad cuisine
Without making a scene,
And we bathed from a gas-heated vat!

The toilets; no plumbing!
The rains kept on coming!
I wanted to throw in the towel!
But we all made it through,
Thanks to, you all know who;
The Savior, and Lord Baden-Powell!