"Hurricane Hangers" (est. 1958-09-06 Sat.)

**jungleandy** · 08-16-2010, 17:09

One of my first Boy Scout camp outs was on a private ranch near the mid southern coast of Texas. Here they love hurricanes, because it's about the only rain they get, and second they never had a steer blow off the ranch. My father "Uncle" Billy Jack Voelkle was Assistant Scoutmaster of venerable Troop 27, assisted by "Uncle" Paul Harriman, led by legendary Texas sportsman "Uncle" Bob Stephenson.

When we planned a trip on the first weekend of each month, that was it. No cancellations, no whining. We left our mothers crying in front of the scout house and drove our old school bus, the blue "Eagle" off into the darkening storm. The rain had been falling all day. When we pulled out at 0700h it looked like a fine weekend coming up. We would practice our firemaking skills.

Uncle Jack, Uncle Paul and Uncle Bob were consummate Scoutmasters. Skills to the gills. Brave. Strong. Patient teachers. Hunters, fishermen, divers, good family men and respected community leaders. The mothers back on the dock would have stopped the trip, but fate was in control.

About 30 boys in four patrols, all equipped very well with surplus gear. Some would stay in big 8x12 wall tents and about a dozen of us in surplus hammocks.

It rained sideways at 50mph. We had to erect a big 8x14 canvas tarp over our miserable but effective cooking fire. The wood eventually caught and burned.

We were kids. I still am. Waiting for a hurricane to add to my list. Have a nice place up on my little 30ac jungle in "Cut and Shoot" Texas and my Korean vet buddy Frank and some others to join me. We have a new top secret tarp from Tom Claytor to test, and Frank assures me the Jack Daniels requires no cooking.

Let me know if you're so inclined. I have about 12,000 extra trees.

**BobR** · 08-17-2010, 14:43

Great stuff JA! Well written - makes me want to move to Texas (though we do get some hurricanes in the northeast, so I may join vicariously).

**TheWild** · 08-20-2010, 04:24

Sounds like a great trip after all....

Bad weather can actually make a trip even better - it tends to bring people a little closer

/Wild

**clb** · 08-21-2010, 09:03

Great story Andy,
When I was a girl scout I use to tell my mom I wanted to be in the boy scouts 'cause they had way more fun!!!
Leigh

**SGT Rock** · 08-21-2010, 10:28

Good story. We had a saying in the Army: "If it ain't raining, we ain't training"

Here is something I wrote with a similar experience from June of 2001:

I just got out of the field here at Fort Polk, LA. Spent the last couple of weeks doing field training and gunnery, and as always I took the Hennessy Ultralite to sleep in. Well, about the 2nd or 3rd Day we just started getting buckets of rain, lightning, high winds, etc. It was so bad at times we had to stop training. This lasted about 5 days straight. About the 3rd or 4th day of the storm someone told me we were getting dumped on by some hurricane.

Anyway, people in tents were sleeping in water, had water coming in every possible hole and crack of vehicles they tried to sleep in, and the mood was pretty wet and miserable...

Except for me in my Hennessy Hammock! I had set it up and left it up about a day before the rain started and because I anticipated rain I set it up in my "storm pitch" in case we got some bad rain. It stayed up for the entire 5 days of bad weather without getting anything inside wet or blowing down - except for the one time I kicked a stake out in the middle of the night when nature called. What really impressed me is I didn't get a chance to find the optimal pitching spot, but it still did well.

**jungleandy** · 08-22-2010, 00:11

I hope those guys learned something. A hammock is faster than a tent, too.

**babelfish5** · 08-22-2010, 11:02

Originally Posted by jungleandy

We were kids. I still am. Waiting for a hurricane to add to my list. Have a nice place up on my little 30ac jungle in "Cut and Shoot" Texas and my Korean vet buddy Frank and some others to join me. We have a new top secret tarp from Tom Claytor to test, and Frank assures me the Jack Daniels requires no cooking.

Let me know if you're so inclined. I have about 12,000 extra trees.

I am so inclined. I live in Conroe and am about 10 minutes away from Cut & Shoot. I don't drink though. That will leave more JD for those who do.

**Poppabear** · 08-22-2010, 11:16

Jungleandy nice story thanks for sharing. I wished I lived closer because I am so inclined. My wife is from Bell County Texas and we just returned from a two week visit. She is home sick to move back to Texas and would like to also. Perhaps sometime in the future we will be able to. But for now we living and working here in Southern Maryland.

**jungleandy** · 08-22-2010, 13:40

and hear new stories. My wife is from Newport News Virginia. I was born in Temple, Texas and grew up in Houston. My grandparents had been down here a long time.

My little jungle in Cut and Shoot is a paradise for an old Boy Scout like me. I'm looking forward to carving out an area for hanging with my friends. It's primitive East Texas piney woods.