Each summer that I live away from College Station, it becomes a little less searing. A little less conscious. It becomes less cerebral and more visceral. It shows up in the little details that used to instinctually insert themselves into who I was. The ability to walk in sand, after 12 hour days, one foot before the other. The ability to have my body demand sleep and simply tell it "No." I've lived away from Cut and Stack for a couple or three years now. Made a couple visits, hit Burn night last year.
I feel like I've lived a decade in those three years. I've put on eighty pounds. It isn't muscle. My once-callused hands are soft. The toughest thing they swing is a mouse these days. I drink less. Far less frequently. No more 10pm "I'm bored, let's grab a beer and dominoes at the Chicken." No more waking up with a head that is at once filled with cotton. but pounding with jackhammers as well. My back gets sore from things that were once routine. I don't go out every night wondering if I'll find some girl to go home with. I rush home every night because I have a wonderful woman to be with. My knees ache. My ankles ache. My back and neck ache. I've tweaked both my knees unexpectedly in the last 12 months, to the point where I have occasional recurring pain. The few times I let the pain through, people ask if I'm ok. I make noncommittal sounds and change the subject.
Not because it hurts. The pain reminds me of things in the not so distant past. Long, slow summers of fun followed by frenetic, frenzied falls that seemed to drag on forever and fly by all at once. I change the subject because I'm tired of explaining why I smile when my back and neck hurt. It's obvious I don't hit the gym, so people know it's not the after-workout high that comes from exercise endorphins. I'm tired of having to look at people whose ideas of tough include 9 hours in a chair or a mountain of email to wade through. I'm tired of having to be dishonest to people because their feelings have the potential to control my future. I'm tired of having to be nice to people that deserve a tongue lashing for their stupidity, their carelessness, or their incompetence. It eats at me. Because looking back, there's not a damned thing I would change to make things easier. Pain reminds me that lessons have consequences. Actions have repercussions. Swinging an axe or machete, carrying trees around on shoulders, humping into and out of wooded areas on sand. All those things lead to soreness. Blisters on the hands and feet. Sore muscles, pumping lactic acid that feels like fire through them the next day. Joints that ache on cold or rainy days.
Pain reminds me that character isn't built by doing the easy thing, nor is it built by avoiding tough spots. Character isn't built overnight, and it isn't built in a vacuum. It's built in the crucible of Man dealing with Himself and others. It's built by making decisions, then living with them. Avoidance doesn't breed character. It breeds sheep. Docile, facile little meatbags that get led around by sniffing the ass of whatever is in front of them. That's not to say there doesn't exist a time to follow others. There can only be so many leaders before there's too much weight at the top for the foundation to support the structure.
Bonfire distills leaders from the sour mash of 1500 individuals. It takes four or five kids and puts them in charge of groups numbering up to 200 at the dorm level. Of those 200, 15-60 participate on a regular basis. Out of those participants, next year's leaders will be selected and molded. Out of the dorms and Corps outfits participating, upper leadership are selected. Ten to twelve young men go out each fall, and undertake one of the single greatest endeavors of (primarily) manual labor of the 18-25 age group in the world. In decades past, Bonfires were large enough to light the night sky for miles around, rumored to have been bright enough to see from space. Though that may be a function of lighting off a massive fire in a predominantly rural part of east central Texas. Trees and timbers are felled by hand with axes. With the looped swinging motion, twisting of the back, and throwing of the hips, a metal wedge on the end of a wooden lever connects with a tree. The first swing is electric, and after a couple fires, it brings a renewed sense of purpose in the older, and invigorating challenge for the younger participants.
Our society throws around buzzwords, mottos, mission statements, visions and any of a variety of jargon-based rationalizations for behavior that is many times obfuscated, meandering, and pointless. However, there are some that come to mind with Bonfire. The US Navy SEALs use the phrase "The only easy day was yesterday!" The Marines use "Pain is weakness leaving the body." While not purporting to elevate Bonfire to the difficulty of BUD/S training, or acting like a crew from Moses Hall were a bunch of Force Recon Marines, I do have to admit there's validity in the two statements, and corollaries between the two and Bonfire.
"The only easy day was yesterday" -- Ask a fish on his first Sunday Cut if Saturday was easier. Ask a crew chief that's coming down towards Last Cut and is pushing to get his log count up, demanding more from his crew, having to dig deep to inspire and motivate kids to come out and kill trees for 20+ hours a weekend for FREE. Or try this one on: Midnight Yell (and partying) on Friday, Cut on Saturday (half day), football game on Saturday night (3-4 hours of standing on bleachers), Dorm Party on that Saturday Night, then Cut on Sunday morning. Oh, and convince an 18 year old to come out and do all that hard work for free.
"Pain is weakness leaving the body" -- There's no doubt at all that this one goes well with Bonfire. Ask a JRP about having to walk perimeter all night when it's 45 degrees F outside, with the wind blowing 30mph. Chafe walking, anyone? Watch a kid that goes to every Cut of the year, and you can see his mind shed the word "can't" while his body sheds pounds, becoming leaner and more determined as the year wears on. Ask a crew chief how much sleep he averages a weekend during Bonfire.
It's hard to encapsulate in a few meager paragraphs the lessons learned out in the woods or at Stack. I miss being able to walk Stack site, see the amazing level of effort put in by the youngest kids. I miss seeing that one crazy fish who is out there in his sleeveless grode shirt and no jacket, despite a miserably cold evening. The sight of guys (and gals) up in swings, wiring in the logs. I miss blowing my nose after a day at Cut, and seeing nothing but brown boogers from all the dust and sand kicked up. I miss the searing contact of that hot shower after 12 hours of hard work. I miss the smell of my grodes. They're still bagged up in the trunk of my car, though the pants had to go. I don't fit in them anymore, and the blown out knee that sported a duct tape kneepad/patch probably wouldn't be let back out on site. Cleaned out the trunk a couple of months ago, and I'll be damned if I didn't open up that bag, take a big ole hearty wiff, and just remember. My grode shirts are the Tshirt I used to ask my date to senior prom in high school, with my Class of 05 pull out shirt underneath because it's long sleeved.
It's funny, because they don't look like anything in the first picture. The top shirt is tattered, its shoulders spotted with holes. The bottom hem was ripped off and used to tie off Tracks's thumb when it got laid open to the bone and was bleeding pretty bad. The only part of the grodes that would be recognizable is that black Pull Out shirt from E-Walk in ought-4. Guess it stands to reason. There's little enough left of who I was in high school. Grown a bit, changed a lot, but I still resemble who I was at least superficially. Don't get me wrong, I'm wonderfully happy with my fiancee, and it's nice not living in a dorm room. I am blessed and thrilled to be getting married.
But the person who I am, the person I'll be for the rest of my life--that's the guy that went through Texas A&M University, Class of 2005. That's the guy who went out, built Bonfire, swung an axe, tore his hands up, tore his feet up, tore his back and knees up.
That's the guy who smiles when it hurts. That's the guy who chafes at playing nice, wiping noses, changing diapers, and picking up the slack for the coddled children out in the world. That's the guy who still looks someone in the eye, and is honest--especially when it hurts. That's the guy I was, and that's the guy I am. I am That Guy. I miss College Station. I miss my grodes. And I miss BTHOB.
[This message has been edited by ThatGuy05 (edited 8/14/2010 1:39a).]
I feel like I've lived a decade in those three years. I've put on eighty pounds. It isn't muscle. My once-callused hands are soft. The toughest thing they swing is a mouse these days. I drink less. Far less frequently. No more 10pm "I'm bored, let's grab a beer and dominoes at the Chicken." No more waking up with a head that is at once filled with cotton. but pounding with jackhammers as well. My back gets sore from things that were once routine. I don't go out every night wondering if I'll find some girl to go home with. I rush home every night because I have a wonderful woman to be with. My knees ache. My ankles ache. My back and neck ache. I've tweaked both my knees unexpectedly in the last 12 months, to the point where I have occasional recurring pain. The few times I let the pain through, people ask if I'm ok. I make noncommittal sounds and change the subject.
Not because it hurts. The pain reminds me of things in the not so distant past. Long, slow summers of fun followed by frenetic, frenzied falls that seemed to drag on forever and fly by all at once. I change the subject because I'm tired of explaining why I smile when my back and neck hurt. It's obvious I don't hit the gym, so people know it's not the after-workout high that comes from exercise endorphins. I'm tired of having to look at people whose ideas of tough include 9 hours in a chair or a mountain of email to wade through. I'm tired of having to be dishonest to people because their feelings have the potential to control my future. I'm tired of having to be nice to people that deserve a tongue lashing for their stupidity, their carelessness, or their incompetence. It eats at me. Because looking back, there's not a damned thing I would change to make things easier. Pain reminds me that lessons have consequences. Actions have repercussions. Swinging an axe or machete, carrying trees around on shoulders, humping into and out of wooded areas on sand. All those things lead to soreness. Blisters on the hands and feet. Sore muscles, pumping lactic acid that feels like fire through them the next day. Joints that ache on cold or rainy days.
Pain reminds me that character isn't built by doing the easy thing, nor is it built by avoiding tough spots. Character isn't built overnight, and it isn't built in a vacuum. It's built in the crucible of Man dealing with Himself and others. It's built by making decisions, then living with them. Avoidance doesn't breed character. It breeds sheep. Docile, facile little meatbags that get led around by sniffing the ass of whatever is in front of them. That's not to say there doesn't exist a time to follow others. There can only be so many leaders before there's too much weight at the top for the foundation to support the structure.
Bonfire distills leaders from the sour mash of 1500 individuals. It takes four or five kids and puts them in charge of groups numbering up to 200 at the dorm level. Of those 200, 15-60 participate on a regular basis. Out of those participants, next year's leaders will be selected and molded. Out of the dorms and Corps outfits participating, upper leadership are selected. Ten to twelve young men go out each fall, and undertake one of the single greatest endeavors of (primarily) manual labor of the 18-25 age group in the world. In decades past, Bonfires were large enough to light the night sky for miles around, rumored to have been bright enough to see from space. Though that may be a function of lighting off a massive fire in a predominantly rural part of east central Texas. Trees and timbers are felled by hand with axes. With the looped swinging motion, twisting of the back, and throwing of the hips, a metal wedge on the end of a wooden lever connects with a tree. The first swing is electric, and after a couple fires, it brings a renewed sense of purpose in the older, and invigorating challenge for the younger participants.
Our society throws around buzzwords, mottos, mission statements, visions and any of a variety of jargon-based rationalizations for behavior that is many times obfuscated, meandering, and pointless. However, there are some that come to mind with Bonfire. The US Navy SEALs use the phrase "The only easy day was yesterday!" The Marines use "Pain is weakness leaving the body." While not purporting to elevate Bonfire to the difficulty of BUD/S training, or acting like a crew from Moses Hall were a bunch of Force Recon Marines, I do have to admit there's validity in the two statements, and corollaries between the two and Bonfire.
"The only easy day was yesterday" -- Ask a fish on his first Sunday Cut if Saturday was easier. Ask a crew chief that's coming down towards Last Cut and is pushing to get his log count up, demanding more from his crew, having to dig deep to inspire and motivate kids to come out and kill trees for 20+ hours a weekend for FREE. Or try this one on: Midnight Yell (and partying) on Friday, Cut on Saturday (half day), football game on Saturday night (3-4 hours of standing on bleachers), Dorm Party on that Saturday Night, then Cut on Sunday morning. Oh, and convince an 18 year old to come out and do all that hard work for free.
"Pain is weakness leaving the body" -- There's no doubt at all that this one goes well with Bonfire. Ask a JRP about having to walk perimeter all night when it's 45 degrees F outside, with the wind blowing 30mph. Chafe walking, anyone? Watch a kid that goes to every Cut of the year, and you can see his mind shed the word "can't" while his body sheds pounds, becoming leaner and more determined as the year wears on. Ask a crew chief how much sleep he averages a weekend during Bonfire.
It's hard to encapsulate in a few meager paragraphs the lessons learned out in the woods or at Stack. I miss being able to walk Stack site, see the amazing level of effort put in by the youngest kids. I miss seeing that one crazy fish who is out there in his sleeveless grode shirt and no jacket, despite a miserably cold evening. The sight of guys (and gals) up in swings, wiring in the logs. I miss blowing my nose after a day at Cut, and seeing nothing but brown boogers from all the dust and sand kicked up. I miss the searing contact of that hot shower after 12 hours of hard work. I miss the smell of my grodes. They're still bagged up in the trunk of my car, though the pants had to go. I don't fit in them anymore, and the blown out knee that sported a duct tape kneepad/patch probably wouldn't be let back out on site. Cleaned out the trunk a couple of months ago, and I'll be damned if I didn't open up that bag, take a big ole hearty wiff, and just remember. My grode shirts are the Tshirt I used to ask my date to senior prom in high school, with my Class of 05 pull out shirt underneath because it's long sleeved.
It's funny, because they don't look like anything in the first picture. The top shirt is tattered, its shoulders spotted with holes. The bottom hem was ripped off and used to tie off Tracks's thumb when it got laid open to the bone and was bleeding pretty bad. The only part of the grodes that would be recognizable is that black Pull Out shirt from E-Walk in ought-4. Guess it stands to reason. There's little enough left of who I was in high school. Grown a bit, changed a lot, but I still resemble who I was at least superficially. Don't get me wrong, I'm wonderfully happy with my fiancee, and it's nice not living in a dorm room. I am blessed and thrilled to be getting married.
But the person who I am, the person I'll be for the rest of my life--that's the guy that went through Texas A&M University, Class of 2005. That's the guy who went out, built Bonfire, swung an axe, tore his hands up, tore his feet up, tore his back and knees up.
That's the guy who smiles when it hurts. That's the guy who chafes at playing nice, wiping noses, changing diapers, and picking up the slack for the coddled children out in the world. That's the guy who still looks someone in the eye, and is honest--especially when it hurts. That's the guy I was, and that's the guy I am. I am That Guy. I miss College Station. I miss my grodes. And I miss BTHOB.
[This message has been edited by ThatGuy05 (edited 8/14/2010 1:39a).]