The whole thing started at our reunion way back in January. Bob, Mike, Dale and I, along with our wives and sweethearts, got together to re-hash old times in our high-school rock-and-roll band Batwipe and the Dead Fish. Oh, we did the obligatory catching up, finding out who worked where and how many kids we all had and what they were up to. However, the evening's main event was the reliving some of the crazy (and quite possibly illegal) fun stunts we pulled off back in the day.

A lot of our walks down memory lane had to be kept short, as our knees and wind aren't what they used to be. Several of them centered around various gigs we'd played in the band's early days. Someone recalled an afternoon matinee performance we did for the ladies at the local Methodist church. I think my mom arranged that one, and now it makes sense that we were excommunicated. To say that the band was untalented doesn't begin to cover our ineptitude and ignorance of little things like volume control. Mike shouted lyrics into an overdriven microphone. We not only didn't play in the same key, we weren't even on the same key ring!

Dynamics and tuning aside, we all believed in our little hearts that we were destined to become The Next Big Thing of 1973. By the end of '74, though, reality had crept in and we all moved on to other things. Other bands, whose members obviously never heard us, took on various Batwipes. Occasionally we played together in twos and threes, and even got together to jam once about 1978. For the most part, Batwipe and the Dead Fish was history...until dessert that night at Applebee's.

I think it was Dale who said that it would be fun to play together one more time. And we all agreed that it would be nice, in the same way that I think it would be nice if I could fly. But then Bob mentioned that he often played down at the Vets' Facility with his bluegrass band and he could get us in there. I felt my jaw go slightly slack as the possibility of getting the band back together hit me. I looked across the table at Mike. "Sure, I'll do it," he said. "It would be fun." We said our goodnights just ahead of the manager's coming to throw us out of the restaurant, and went back home to our grown-up lives. But the seed was sown. Over the next couple of weeks we settled on Sunday, February 25th as the date of our reunion concert.

We met again over breakfast at a local restaurant on a Saturday morning in early February to plan the event. This time only the four of us showed up. That was probably a good thing; at one time all four couples could have fit in one booth but owing to the ravages of time and greasy food, or possibly restaurant owners stinting on booth sizes, only four could fit. We wrote up a list of about 25 songs that we all knew, or at least we all played at one time. Bob, Mike and Dale threw in some country songs from some of their post-Batwipe bands. I was more for staying with the original band's format but no one else wanted to play Alice Cooper anymore. Go figure. By the time we finished breakfast we were on our mark; now we had to get set.

The first hint that maybe this reunion wasn't such a wonderful idea came when Dale unearthed his bass. After his dad died, Dale pretty much forsaked music and followed his heart into revamping and landscaping his back yard. In 13 years he'd built three koi ponds, a gazebo, a fountain and several waterfalls. He may have done all that to get out of cutting his lawn, but I digress. The bass and its amp came out of storage and Dale sat down to play. But he jumped right back up when the head started smoking! Years of disuse had caused massive internal corrosion and deterioration to the point that it couldn't stand the sudden plunge back into service. (Please note that I'm referring to the electronic head of Dale's amplifier, not his personal head.) A local musical-equipment repair shop estimated the cost to fix the head would be more than Batwipe and the Dead Fish ever brought in, by about a factor of three. We all wondered whether Dale's amp's self-destruction was an isolated incident or a warning. Perhaps the Muses were trying to tell us something. And yet we persisted. Bob lent Dale a spare amp, and Dale practiced on.

Weather forecasts for the weekend of the 25th grew increasingly dire as the week passed. Each day brought warnings of heavy snows and high winds. Throughout the week we maintained the machismo that led us to do some very foolhardy things as teenagers. "Let 'er come!" we cajoled each other. "It'll take more than a few snowflakes to stop the Batwipes!" We should have known not to tempt fate: Friday night ended with a blizzard and by Saturday morning lower Michigan was smothered under ten inches of solid-packed snow! Nothing moved across the whole state, except for Bob, who somehow made it to the Vets' Facility to tell them we weren't coming. We convinced ourselves that we cancelled for the sake of our fans' safety and that all of us wanted to get out there and play. But I knew, as I believe the others did, that we all have smart women in our lives who wouldn't let us act like a bunch of idiot 17-year-olds and pile ourselves up on those icy highways!

Bob rescheduled us for March 31st. I wanted to do something special to mark the occasion, as Dale had when he created some colorized copies of the backstage picture from our 1974 Teen Center triumph. (At least we thought it was triumphant, as someone outside of our immediate families applauded.) I copied Dale's rendition of the band's logo and added a bar with the words "The Reunion Tour 2007" below it. I saved the design as a t-shirt transfer and ironed it on to some economy-priced t-shirts. Not to be outdone, Dale whipped up some "backstage passes," lanyards with plastic sleeves containing the colorized picture, with our names below and an enlarged photo of our teenaged faces alongside. If we hadn't gotten any more musical talent along the way, at least we'd gotten craftier in our middle age.

The month of March hadn't passed so slowly since I was ten. Perhaps the anticipation of playing in front of a live audience caused a huge, month-long anxiety attack. I think may have been caused by the minute-by-minute countdown with which we all time-stamped our e-mails. But then April Fools' Eve was upon us, and I loaded my drums into my truck and was off. I wound my way up the driveway into the facility and, after a few wrong turns, found Bob and Dale unloading gear at the rear of the building. I parked at the curb and started lugging equipment. When they were done I backed in and we took the drums inside. Aside from our being older and thicker in the middle the event was starting just like 1973. We laughed and cajoled each other through pre-concert jitters; Mike was nowhere in sight.

Once or twice back in the day, Bob, Dale and I combined our setup work with loud wonderings about what we'd do for a lead player if Mike didn't show up. Mike always had a good excuse, usually involving his current girlfriend; and he usually had a valid reason for not arriving earlier, such as difficulty hitching a ride back from whatever event they'd been at. I went back to my truck for some drum parts and found a message on my cell phone. It was Mike: "Umm, fellows, I hope you get this. I'm driving aimlessly around the Vets' Facility looking for you."

I stuffed the drum part in my pocket, called Mike back and talked him in. The rest of us gave him the requisite needling for showing up late (again) and then we got down to business. Dale, Bob and Mike tuned up and checked our sound levels. From my little vantage point in the back I was already impressed; those guys had learned quite a bit in 33 years; maybe we'd get through this escapade after all. We settled in and put in a full half-hour's honest practice before we left to have dinner at a nearby pizza joint.

Friends and family gathered shortly after we returned, which took care of any hope we had of getting more practice. Our siblings and their mates, along with our nieces and nephews, stood at the edge of the room and we had a big reunion. Bob's dad and mine showed up. Dale placed a special tribute to his dad on the stage: The famous "Lou" guitar, his dad's pride and joy. Carolyn came and took on the job of recording us on video. Around 6:30 the facility's residents, the guests of honor, took their places in the front rows. Batwipe and the Dead Fish took its place on the stage, Bob introduced us, and the show went on!

Batwipe was and still is a cover band. We served up songs by Johnny Cash, Lee Greenwood, CCR, Buddy Holly, and the Animals. Everybody hit the key changes and breaks spot-on. Once or twice I noticed Mike stomping his foot. I thought it had gone to sleep on him until I realized he wanted us to speed up. I picked up the tempo and the guys followed along. The evening went on its way to becoming an unparalleled musical triumph for our little band. Then Bob spoiled it all by calling for Wipeout.

On our best days, back when we were skinny kids in prime condition with hours of practice together, I could whip out a fairly good rendition. In the band's waning days I was actually darn good. Sadly, years of sitting at a desk with nothing to pound but a keyboard had pretty well atrophied my Wipeout muscles. Oh, I gave it a fair shot, and we got through the first chorus with no trouble. Things flew apart as I started my first solo. Both my biceps started cramping just at as the guys stung their chord. I could hear the notes coming farther apart, but I strove on. But it was no use; I flopped like one of Dale's koi out of its pond. I had only one recourse...I dropped my sticks and laughed. I looked up at Mike and just broke up. What the heck was I thinking, trying to dive into Wipeout cold like that? Mike asked if anyone in the audience had a Viagra; I said I didn't think it would help if your arms went limp.

The guys gave me a moment to compose myself and we tried it again. I stuck to a straight 4/4 60's rock-and-roll beat until the final solo part. By then my arms had rested and were ready to kick out the jams one last time. Which they did. I finished the song to the wild(ly sympathetic) applause of the crowd. Mike, Dale and Bob then took pity on me and let me redeem myself with another drummer's favorite, CCR's Travelin' Band. Back in the day I wanted to be Doug Clifford. Just for that song, I was. We did a few more songs and then it was over. The residents had to turn in at 8:30, so we played our big finally number and ended with God Bless America.

Epilogue: Four 50-year-old men sat on a rickety stone bridge in a darkened park on the Vets' Facility grounds. It's a special place near a waterfall where, after long practices on hot sticky summer nights, the goofball teenagers of Batwipe and the Dead Fish would strip to their shorts and cool off in the falls, all the while eluding the guards who patrolled the area. It's a place of great and dear memories, and on a March night so many years later the grown Batwipe members made a new one, only this time they did it inside. No one wanted to go home. It was a Peter Pan moment and we wanted to stay in Never Land. We agreed that we'd do it again, for the fun of playing together and to honor the veterans. Bob still plays there on a regular basis, and I've joined him once or twice. So far, though, Batwipe hasn't returned. Responsibilites, schedules and conflicts have trumped our wishes and desire. And I wonder, with a bit of fear: Could reality come around and kill the band a second time? I don't want to wait another 33 years for a reunion; it was too much fun to put off that long, and I probably won't feel like hauling those drums around when I'm 84.

I've been a leader of Scouts of the both the Cub and Boy varieties for about the last third of my life. I enjoy the avocation very much. I've done quite a bit of camping, a few canoe trips, a little hiking, traveled to some fun places and seen some neat things. Along the way I've met folks whom Carolyn and I count among our dearest friends. I admit it's a lot of responsibility, leading a group of fifteen or twenty adolescent boys into the woods. That's especially true in Scouting, since they're armed with knives, axes and fire. Fortunately the boys I've led are for the most part trustworthy, loyal, helpful, and all the rest of the things that Scouts are. I and my assistants never endured a Lord Of The Flies experience, but along the trail one or two things happened that made me wonder if perhaps I shouldn't seek a less risky hobby. But as a Mr. Sorenson, one of my wise Scouter friends observed, last year's disaster campout is this year's great story.

The first memorable moment happened not long into my tenure as a Den Leader in our son's Cub Scout pack. It happened when Patrick was in second grade. Our pack participated in a project called Scouting For Food. It's a nationwide outreach of the Boy Scouts of America in which Cub packs and Scout troops collect food for local charities. That particular year our local council provided white plastic grocery bags imprinted in green with the Scouting For Food logo and instructions for would-be donors. The bags' instructions requested that they be filled with non-perishible food items and placed on the homeowners' front steps for collection on Saturday morning. On one den-meeting night, we loaded the boys down with armloads of bags and they spent the evening tying bags to the front doorknobs of every house in the neighborhood.

Saturday came and Den 4 gathered at our meeting place, the local Congregational church. Several other Cub Scouts and leaders from the pack's other dens joined us. The leaders split the neighborhood into different sections and each den collected from their section. Pat and I rode with Cubmaster Tim, his son Kevin, and a couple of my other charges. Kevin was in my den so I knew Tim and his wife fairly well. As we made our way along quiet Wyoming streets, the boys fetched bags from porches and steps with the full-on gusto that only eight-year-olds can muster. I hunkered in the back of Tim's Bronco, sorting various kinds of food into separate boxes. Soups went into one box, canned vegetables into another, and boxed goods into a third.

Our system worked well for several blocks. The boys ran from house to house like trick-or-treaters in their blue-and-gold uniforms, neckerchiefs flying behind like Superman's cape. Kevin swung one bag up to me and then he was off again. I reached in it and pulled out a box full of doorknobs!

What the...? I looked down at the bag. It was green and white but it sported the logo of a local home-improvement store! I called for Tim to stop the truck and beckoned Kevin over. I showed him the bag and asked him which house it came from. Kevin then gave me my first answer I really didn't want to hear.

"I don't know."

I stuffed the doorknobs back in their bag and disembarked. Kevin and I retraced his steps until we came to the house where he thought he'd picked them up. I knocked on the door. No one answered. I left the bag on the porch and we hurried back to our duties, hoping that we wouldn't be picked up for doorknob-napping! Maybe I should have just put an ad in the paper and let the owner contact me.

Let us fast-forward a few years to around the turn of the century. I was then the Scoutmaster of Troop 102, and the troop was heading to a fall camporee. We drove our sponsoring church's old, well-used 12-passenger Ford van. (I don't want to say anything against that poor old van...I might be old and slow someday too!) It was the first campout I led as Scoutmaster that I didn't have my predecessor with me in case anything went haywire. The trip started out with a wrong turn. I arrived at the designated campground, but I turned one driveway too early and had to turn the church van around. That would not have been a difficult undertaking under normal circumstances. Unfortunately the two-track road we were on dead-ended in the campground and turning around involved backing down a boat launch. That wouldn't have been any harder than backing down a steep driveway, except that I had the troop's gear trailer hitched to the back of the van. Even that wouldn't have been completely unnerving, but I had nine agitated boys watching my every move. Our vehicle was just short enough that I made the turnaround with only a couple of close calls; everybody slept dry that night.

Saturday's activities erased the Scouts' memories of jockeying around in the boat launch. Before long evening approached and dinnertime advanced on us. I sent two fairly-new boys, whose names were Ryan and Tommy, to fetch water for cooking. They picked up the blue two-gallon water jugs and headed off. The other boys unpacked food and set up the stoves. The evening had turned cool and damp. Ryan and Tommy returned presently, carrying the jugs between them on long sticks they'd found in the woods. The boys proudly delivered their cargo and announced that they'd found two water outlets from which they'd filled up.

As I picked up a jug to fill a pot that would soon hold spaghetti, Ryan looked up at me and innocently said the second thing that I really didn't want to hear:

"Mr. C, what does 'non-potable' mean?"

Contrary to the way this story's been embellished at various scout-leader gatherings and around many campfires, I did not lose it. I merely told Ryan that it was special water for putting out campfires. I also announced that he and Tommy would get special training in sanitizing water jugs at the next Scout meeting.

There are six words that I never want to hear in combination ever again. I heard them one July in the wee hours of the morning at a Scout camp in northern Michigan. Going to summer camp is the pinnacle of the year for everyone involved in Boy Scouts. The boys spend their days earning merit badges, swimming and diving in the lake, shooting .22s on the rifle range, hiking through the woods, making crafts and learning woodlore. Scoutmasters do all of the above except for earning merit badges; sometimes we end up teaching them. Our greatest reward for the week is seeing the boys grow as self-sufficient young men and watching them revel in their accomplishments. The second-greatest reward is a whole week away from work!

It takes a little while to adjust to camp life. At home I'd cuddle up next to my wife in our own comfy bed. At camp I share my tent with a buddy and sleep alone on a squeaky iron cot. It takes a night or two to get used to the new environment, and Tuesday night is usually a Scoutmaster's first night of really good sleep. Such was my case. By Tuesday night I had trained myself to lie still in the cot and relax so that the iron springs didn't squeak at all. I was deep asleep, just reveling in my repose when I heard the sound of footsteps outside my tent. They weren't the footsteps of forest creatures; they were definitely human, and they belonged to a young Scout named Paul. It was Paul who brought me the six words I never want to hear together ever again:

"Mr. C?" Paul spoke soft and low.

"Yeah?" I groaned, trying to shake the cobwebs loose.

"There's a...skunk in our tent!"

Paul said it like he couldn't quite believe it either. Earlier in the week we found a skunk resting in an unused tent, and when he realized that we weren't going to feed him he went on his way. But now, possibly smelling some illicit snacks stashed in someone's gear, he'd returned. I almost told Paul that if the skunk could take it in their tent he could too, and to go back to bed. By that time my tentmate Steve had awakened, and we decided we'd better look at the situation.

Steve and I grabbed our flashlights and followed Paul back to his tent. Sure enough, there was the skunk, a full-sized one, laying under Paul's bunk like a big fuzzy slipper. On our arrival at camp our guide told us that if any skunks came into our campsite we could convince them to leave by shining a flashlight on them. Steve and I stood at opposite ends of the tent and shined the skunk. The skunk, who had missed the meeting, didn't know his part. He held his ground, his beady milky eye staring vacantly at nothing.

There is nothing written at all in the Scoutmaster Handbook about evicting skunks. We owned this problem ourselves. Steve and I consulted as Paul and his tentmates hunkered on their bunks and stared at the intruder. We decided that perhaps the skunk didn't know how to get out, and maybe if I lifted the side of the tent he'd reorient himself and wander away. I went to the side of the tent and, sticking my fingers well past the skunk's last known position, I slowly lifted the canvas. From inside I heard four unusually high-pitched voices hiss "Back off! Back off!"

I dropped the tent and looked in the door. Steve told me that the skunk didn't like the motion of the tent-raising and threatened to blow his cool. He was going to blow something anyway, and Steve and the three boys found themselves looking at the pink of his...well, suffice to say they stared down the barrel of a loaded skunk!

Steve and I went back to shining our flashlights at him until the skunk, who only wanted peace and quiet, ducked under the tent and disappeared...into the Cooper brothers' tent! The Cooper boys were pretty calm as a rule, to the point where occasionally I'd hold a mirror under the younger one's nose to make sure he was still with us. It was a trait that served them well as their leaders flung their tent open at 3 AM and whispered, "Don't move! There's a skunk in your tent!"

The skunk finally tired of the game. He lit out of the Coopers' tent and made an end run around Steve...and then made a beeline for our tent! By that time I'd had enough of the skunk, tents, camping, and everything else connected with them! I threw my flashlight at the interloper and yelled "Scram!" He waddled off into the woods; on our last day at camp he gave us a parting shot. But the experience didn't dissuade the boys from Scouting. Paul, his tentmates, and the Cooper boys all made Eagle Scout.

Obviously, a Scout leader's job is not for the faint of heart. It has its frustrations, and a time or two I declared that anybody who wanted the job could have it that night. But the rewards far outweigh the aggravations. I've seen the sunrise from a campsite on a high bluff and watched as the woods across the river turned bright amber. I've heard the loon's call echoing across a lake after sunset and seen shooting stars fly across the sky above our campsite. I got to camp out on a submarine. Most importantly, I've had the chance to do some good for the boys and young men in my charge. Nothing will ever replace the joy I've seen on a boy's face as I've crunched down the burnt offering that was his first try at cooking breakfast over a campfire. And I've had the privilege of pinning a red, white and blue medal on a brand-new Eagle Scout. I had some trouble getting it pinned, and his mom thought the boy's shirt was falling apart. But his shirt was fine; it was his Scoutmaster that was coming apart.