Time is a funny thing.  It can slide away without notice; and before you know, it is no longer tomorrow or even next week.  Time, however, has a way of improving memories and raising the best ones to the top.  When the Baltimore Grotto took a handful of youth and adult leaders from Boy Scout Troop 612 into Jones Quarry Cave in West Virginia on June 16, they did more than give these impressionable young men a fantastic experience; they built a memory.

This summer was packed with many exciting activities for these boys.  Right on the heels of the cave came a week at summer camp, a day of water skiing, and for two of them – a once in a lifetime chance to camp out with 42,000 other Scouts at the World Scout Jamboree in England.  The interesting thing, however, is that 15 year old John has never mentioned anything about England other than how he traded uniforms with a foreign Scout.  However, he has almost reverently described that day in the cave as “awesome,” more than once.

A Boy Scout troop is supposed to be run by the boys, so the weekly meetings are only as good as the effort the boy leaders put into planning good activities.  According to the boys, the slideshow that Carol and Craig presented the week before our trip was, without a doubt, the best meeting of the year.  It certainly gave a thrilling image of what they could expect, and it was no surprise that several of them decided that narrow, dark, wet spaces were not for them.  Better to know that ahead of time before crawling into a cave and panicking (according to 17 year old Tim, who declined to go).

Troop members John, John, John (a very popular name), Andrew, Austin, Bob , Jason, Pat, Will, Molly, Bill, and myself (Bert) want to express our sincere thanks to the Grotto members Carol, Craig, Kim, Ben, and John who gave up their day to make this trip possible.  We met them at the West Virginia information center on I-81 before moving on to the cave, all decked out in our semi-disposable cloths, flashlights taped to our helmets, and looking like Smurfs (lots of blue).  Photographs are fun.  They remind us just how ridiculous we looked.

Other than the slideshow the week before, we really had no idea what to expect.  Climbing up a muddy hill and through a cage door that was slammed shut locking us into the underworld was certainly not it, however.  That’s not a bad thing; it merely set the stage for adventure and the unknown. 

The Grotto members were fantastic inside the cave, Craig in particular.  Rather than doing the classic “follow me boys,” he allowed the boys to explore, make mistakes, run down to dead ends, and generally figure things out for themselves.  At this point, I can only describe my own, personal experience in the cave.  Slithering in mud, a wet butt, hauling Bob and Austin up through a narrow passage, crawling up a very slippery and steep slope only to give it up and slide down again, getting squashed by Molly as she slid past me . . . .  OK, that doesn’t come across as a positive day, but it was.  I had only been into one other cave when Dick Tretter from the Grotto took our boys underground somewhere close to Harpers Ferry many years ago.  While I don’t think I’ll take up caving as my passion, I wouldn’t hesitate to give the same experience to another group of boys in the future. 

Each boy has his own memories.  I hope you are able to share the photographs that I’ll be sending along.  There is a general look of amazement and awe that you’ll see in their faces.  It is no wonder that John keeps referring to the trip as his best experience in Scouting.

We are visiting with a Cub Pack next week to try recruiting new members with a slide presentation of our own.  Our day in the cave is one of the featured experiences to show the youngsters the kinds of adventures they can hope for when they bridge over into Boy Scouting.

We can’t thank the Baltimore Grotto enough for making that possible.