A Little Peice of History

I found this on a really old hard drive.

The scout troop was out camping,
And we needed wood for the big campfire.
Typically,
We don't take wood from trees that are still standing.
But this one was obviously dead.
With most of it's branches fallen off.
Those few that remained wouldn't stay up there much longer.
So we proceeded to throw ropes over it and tear the branches off.
This was about the time I stayed making our fires particularly big.
That may be possibly why the guys took to calling me "Sparky" for some time.
Never stuck though.
(Actually, I've never had a nickname stick longer than a few weeks)

Anyway,
Because of these particularly big fires,
And the fact that we had some new lighting techniques we wanted to try,
(Blackpowder, we'll not talk about the amount)
I wanted more wood.
So while every one else went on to play capture the flag or something like that,
I got the troop axe out of the trailer and started working on the rest of the tree.
After about 2 hours,
I had broken the handle.
So the scout master got out his Axe.
A nice double sided one.
I proceeded to work on the tree.
I got about halve way through before I broke that handle.
Well...
By now,
The adults that had been watching me.
Were getting a bit ticked.
(At the tree, not me)

So,
One of them got his F-350 All Wheel Drive Pick diesel pick up truck,
And tied his tow rope to the top of the tree.
This rope was at least 4 inches in diameter.
The rope snapped.

So he got a chain.
And looped the from the tree to his truck.
And tore the tree down.
(It took a while though)

Long story short,
We figured we had put enough effort into tearing that tree down to Brand it with our "T98" brand.
This is a little clip of me doing just that.
(I hear this story continues to be retold at the troop still)



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