I spent many a summer with my Boy Scout troop roughing it at Camp Tanah Keeta. Though we were taught about knot-tying, fish and wildlife preservation, archery, hiking and camping, there were some skills that were acquired only from sending a group of pre-teen boys out into the woods to survive.

Merit badges that I would have earned, had they existed, would include: “Ghost Storytelling,” “Hawking Loogeys,” “Frog Punching,” “Soda Chugging (and Belching),” “Mouth Farts” and “Fire Extinguishing Using Only Your Pee.”

One merit badge that none would receive was “Towel Snapping”, a sport often played after swimming in the river. This was strongly discouraged by our camp counselor. “Because”, he’d said, “a few years back, Jimmy Thompson got a rat tail snapped right on his nutsack. It tore open and one of his balls fell out. Poor kid was holding his own nut, trying to brush the sand and pine needles off of it before the ambulance arrived.”

I don’t know if that story was true or not, but it was enough to keep a rowdy troop of boy scouts from pretending to be Indiana Jones.