Many of you have heard about people lying about their age to join the military.

On a much, much lesser scale, I fudged when I joined the Boy Scouts.

Back in the day, you were supposed to be 11 to join the scouts but I was only 10. Still, I signed up and went off to summer camp just barely in my double digits.

We had nice tents but it stormed every night down by Apache.

Camp George Thomas was the Boy Scout camp for the Hobart Troop 246 and it was nice.

But for my first time away from home it was an experience I will never forget.

The memories all flooded in when I was writing a note to my granddaughter so she could get a letter on the first mail call at church camp in Wellston this past week.

I was so homesick that on family night when all the parents and siblings came for a parent-night, I wanted to climb in the car with my mom, dad and sister and head back to Hobart.

However, some crafty advice from my dad helped me decide to stick it out.

One of our fellow scouts, Lynn Arington, did not stay and went home and now to this day he is a story within the story. That’s exactly what my dad told me would happen and he was spot on.

Sixty years later I have a 10-year-old granddaughter off at camp. Luckily, she wasn’t as homesick as I was.