July 28th, 2010 - Day 5

Everyone had to wake really early this morning to assemble for our first arena show. Most alarms were set for 6 AM with the senior leaders waking even before that. Before every in camp meal the patrol cooks and the troop Quartermaster travel to the commissary tent to retrieve the for the patrol’s meal. This morning the cook’s job was really easy because there was no cooking involved. Danishes and cereal was what was on the menu for this morning, so clean up would be easy enough to give us the time to be prepared to assemble for the show.

We lined up just outside our campsite around 7:30 to begin our walk to the arena. The hike is about a mile from our campsite, but the time it takes for this walk is a great deal longer than normal when there are 45,000+ people all going to the same place at the same time. The stop and go traffic on the road was expected, but from my own past experiences I can say the organization of this march was much better than in years past. Roughly an hour later we arrived to the arena and found our seats to the show.

The show took most of the morning and only allowed for the scouts to take part in afternoon activities. The show featured special guests like Secretary of Defense – Robert Gates, Chief Scout Executive – Bob Mazzuca, WWE’s Sergeant Slaughter, Virginia State Governor – Bob McDonnell, Miss America – Caressa Cameron, National Boy Scout Commissioner – Tico Perez, National Order of the Arrow Chief – Brad Lachota, and a few others wrapped up the rather lengthy show. The several hour show lasted much longer than it should have and the boys began to loose interest and getting anxious to get up and leave to participate in more of the fun activities that the Jamboree has. It was our understanding that the President Obama was scheduled to make his appearance at this first show but due to a scheduling conflict was unable to attend and speak to the boys. Several rumors as to why he didn’t attend have been floating around the Jamboree ranging anywhere from he was at a wedding to he was on The View that morning. I can’t tell for sure what the case was but if he was on The View that morning instead of at the National Jamboree than I personally would say I have lost all respect for him.

Today’s lunch was roast beef on a bun, Ritz bits crackers, mixed fruit, grandma’s oatmeal raisin cookies and a Capri sun. Several guys picked these up just after the show ended at a near by kiosk. Others went straight to activities in order to earn their patch segments and just plain have a blast. One of the more interesting stories I heard of the day was that a few of our guys met the Chief Scout Executive – Bob Mazzuca and were able to take pictures and talk with a little before he had a meeting to get to. Bob handed out a few special commemorative jamboree patches to those that met him, making a great memento of the jamboree. Other area’s like Boy’s Life, Merit Badge Midway and the activity centers continue to be big hit amongst the boys.

Later that evening we settled down to jambalaya for supper with some entertainment by our very own Tristan Meyer. Tristan lost his wallet and a gracious adult leader from another troop returned it, so I’m a little teapot song was in order. Supper clean up was done in the fastest time yet and my guess it was because our upcoming Mic-O-Say dance. The boys were excited to get in costume for the first time and perform for the public for the first time as well. Several bystanders came by to watch and take pictures of the boys dancing. Several comments about how well the dancers performed were the talk after we finished and everyone seemed to be pleased we brought our costumes.