For years (up to the 50's, even the 60's) Camp Parsons has had a yearly patch; far much better than the little segments that we hand out weekly. The patches usually contained aspects of Camp Parsons such as the mountains, the hood canal or the signal tower......never a canoe and tent. The CP has also been somewhat unique in its design as well and never like this one depicted here. I have seen just about every variation of this patch from the beginning of camp to present and I can safely say that I have never seen this rendition above. Now that being said, this may have been made by a troop that wore it when they came to camp sometime in the past and has nothing to do with the summer program. We see that today with t-shirts. Many troops have a "summer camp" t-shirt that they design specifically for being at Camp Parsons that week. One troop asked permission to use our Thunderbird design for their shirts and did a very nice job of it so as not to have anyone confuse it to be a staff t-shirt. I guess I could e-mail the gentleman (or woman) who has this for sale on e-bay and find out the story, but it really is not that big of a deal for me....after all, it is just a patch.
A year or two ago, a Timberline award went up for sale on e-bay which caught my attention. Apparently the story behind it was that the woman who put it up for auction got it from her husband, who went on a trek in the early 80's. He was having some health issues so they were selling a number of items in order to raise money to pay their bills. Of course this story came out after she received scorching e-mails from numerous members of the OSM asking why and how this came up for sale and did she know what she was doing. I was a little annoyed at first, but after she gave her explanation, I could understand the reasoning behind it and again, it is a symbol of an achievement and only as good as the person who wears it. If someone wishes to collect that award, fine. If someone wants to wear it, well they will know that they didn't earn it, and that is all that matters to me. The interesting thing about this particular rank is that the year it was awarded was one of the years that I was running the ceremony and handing out awards. So I am sure I have seen that Timberline before.
Every year we admonish the staff about selling staff gear, particularly the staff patch let alone their marmot. I must admit, I am surprised I haven't seen more pop up on e-bay in the past. I know through the years we have had a number of staff members who don't really care about camp or the traditions that come with it. I would imagine it would be easy for anyone of those people to give or sell something away. Then again, maybe it means a little something to them after all......or maybe it is buried underneath a bunch of other junk; out of sight, out of mind.
A question came up about yesterday's post. My ruminations were exactly that; an observation that I noticed as I began piecing the staff together. Every year we have returning directors that come back to do their job for a second year, this year was just one of those years where I am going to get a lot of "new" directors even though they are veteran staff members. Selection letters have gone out for the most part, a few will be going out later. As usual, we have more applicants than positions. If someone has not received a letter, either selection or non-selection by the end of the week then they should call camp. As we get closer to camp, we may need to pick up more staff as at times, a few folks have to drop out for different reasons, so if someone is not selected now, we may be calling later. Scouts applying for CIT positons will be contacted in May to schedule a week, so don't worry about those.