Question of the Week: Songs on the Road
In 1972, at the age of 15, I was one of several hundred other
American Boy Scouts going to the World Jamboree in Japan. The
Jamboree was at Osagari Heights on the slopes of Mt. Fuji.
I was too immature for such an adventure. I had not traveled by
jet ever. The only foreign experience I had was either to
Canada or Tijuana, Mexico. Normally boys so young were not
allowed to go to World Jamborees. But the Japanese Boy Scout
organization was worried that they would not financially break
even on the event, and so asked the Americans to send as many
boys as possible.
You can imagine how strange it was for me. First, you are with
50 teenage boys and there were only four adults managing the
group. Second, the food was weird and I refused to eat it.
(I lived off of the corn dog stands that existed outside every
temple we visited.) Third, the toilets were different! And
finally, you could be in one of the baths getting clean and
women would come in totally naked and bathe with you! How
bizarre could it be?
To top it off, the jamboree was hit by a typhoon. When the pit
toilets overflowed and raw sewage began to run through the
campsites, the Western Scouts were evacuated. We were sent to
the gym of a girl's school with about 250 other boys. We were
issued a green wool military blanket, given about six square
feet of floor space to live on, and fed seaweed/rice cakes for
two days.
When it finally came time to go home, and I was so ready to go
home, the driver of the bus turned on Armed Forces Radio. The
first song they played was John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country
Roads." The whole bus cheered. I am reminded of how great it
is to return home every time I hear John's song.
Jim
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