Echoes in the night......

Scouting activities have been a large part of my family's life, as our sons grew up and their father took on various roles within the scouting organization. I have sewn on countless patches and merit badges, dropped boys off at camp and waited for them to come home from trips, worried about them in cold or rainy weather and felt a deep and enduring pride in their achievements. This weekend the scouts are having their camporee amongst the Indian mounds in Moundville. My husband went there straight from work, and my younger son drove home from college to attend. For convoluted vehicular logistical reasons, I drove him down to Moundville to drop him off. If you have visited the park in daytime, with few people there, you may have felt what I feel - the presence of a vanished people whose reverence for the place is almost palpable. It's hard to get that feeling when the park is crowded and noisy and bright. Tonight, it was already dark by the time we got there. We were driving very slowly around the mounds, watching for stray young boys in the road, and looking for familiar campsites. We finally found the one my son was looking for, and I waited in the car for him to find his friends and come back for his gear. I sat in the dark, and saw the glow of campsites set up, listened to boys running and playing and calling to each other, watched groups of boys and their leaders walking by in groups and singly, heading for the big campfire around the next bend. It aroused a curious blend of feelings - close your eyes and imagine these people are the original inhabitants, readying for a celebration, letting the young ones burn off some energy in their running and chasing games. The night air is crisp and cool, the moon is bright, the laughter of Indian children was surely the same as ours - a magical night when time loops upon itself to catch all the echoes of youth, to save and savor and add to the riches of memory.