Polar bears

One day a baby polar bear approaches his mother with a confused expression on his face and says, "Mom? Am I a polar bear?"

I arrived at the campground to find my only child sprawled on the ground, surrounded by a gaggle of 7-year-olds, his sneakers smoldering.

As I carefully removed his charred socks and then applied a rag soaked in icewater to the blisters on his ankles, he sobbed out the story.

Apparently he and three of his friends had been playing by the lake shore when they saw a large depression filled with grey powder. It looked interesting -- or maybe something on the other side did -- so they waded right through it, Patrick in the lead.

Later he said he thought the stuff drifting off the top was dust stirred-up by the wind. I suppose smoke might look like wind-blown dust. Or ash.

Either way, it was the last time he was truly warm the entire weekend.

"Well of course son!"
The cub replied, "You're sure I'm not a panda bear or a black bear?"

"Pack 20 Polar Bear Campout." The title of the event alone should have warned me away.

By sundown the wind whipping off the lake was truly cutting. The "observatory," which for some reason I had imagined as a heated, domed building with a sliding roof -- maybe with an open bar and a fireplace -- turned out to be a bunch of telescopes set up in a field at the top of a hill.

Brrr.

Later, after the campfire had been lit, various adults repeatedly warned the 70-some-odd elementary kids not to stray inside the logs laid around the fire. You could see that it was probably warmer in there, but you couldn't get quite close enough to tell for sure.

"No, of course not. Now run outside and play."
But the baby polar bear is still confused so he approaches his father.
The cub asks, "Dad, am I a polar bear?"

By 9 p.m., the wine was gone and there was nothing left to do but go to bed. Suddenly the "0-degree" sleeping bags Cabela's sent me looked inviting.

I tried for a few minutes to read by flashlight, but to do that I also had to leave my arms outside the bag. No good.

"Why of course son!" the papa polar bear gruffly replies.
The cub continues, "I don't have any grizzly bear or Koala bear in my bloodlines?"

10:30: I've inadvertently unzipped my bag in my restless sleep, and the cold is flooding in across my left ass cheek. I zip the bag up again and roll over.

11:23: I awake to the wailing of some Cub Scout's little brother, somewhere on the other side of the camp. The banshee-like screams continue until 11:47.

12:13: Patrick has rolled into the tent pole and I awake with a layer of nylon across my face. Our breath has condensed and formed ice on the inside of the tent.

2:21: I awake again and realize that I have to pee. I ponder this until about 2:29, when I decide it's just not worth it.

3:40: I really have to pee. I struggle out of my sleeping bag, don my hiking boots and jacket, and unzip the tent. It's freezing, probably because the evening's cloud cover has blown away. A million stars spangle the night sky. I hear something clattering on the ground as I go about my business. I'm pretty sure it's my urine, turning to ice.

4:17: Patrick rolls over and says: "I always wake up at this time when we're camping." Patrick, I say, it's 4:17 in the morning. "Oh," he replies. The diffused starlight through the top of the tent, refracted by the ice that has again formed there, looked like the gray light of dawn.

5:10: I awake from a nightmare in which the surgeon who performed my back surgery in June is standing over me, frowning and wagging his finger. I roll over and try to ease the ache that's spreading from my lower back into my thighs.

"No son. I'm a polar bear, your mother is a polar bear, and by god you too are one hundred percent purebred polar bear!! Why in the world do you ask?"
"Because I'm freezing my BUTT off!"

6:30: I wake-up again, and hear the voices of kids running across the campground. Maybe, I think, someone has coffee on. I stumble out of the tent and head across the campground. Still rubbing sleep out of my eyes, I stop and stare at the dad who apparently is standing in the fire. Sparks swirl and dance around him. I push through the two ranks of sleepy campers who are toasting their hands over the flames and ask him if there's room for two.

7:05: Sitting in my truck with the heat on high, trying to gather the courage to get back out and pack up.

7:27: Packing sleeping bags and the tent one-handed, as I desparetly clutch a cup of hot coffee in the other. Nick, the Cub Scout pack's grand poobah, walks over and hands Patrick a patch.

The patch shows three polar bears walking across an ice flow with the words: "It froze in Texas."

What?! These guys knew it was gonna do this? They knew far enough in advance to have patches made?

That's it.

For the second time in my life I'm quitting Cub Scouts. After I take a hot shower. And a nap.

Photos courtesy Pack 20.