This song was used as the music for Psalm 65, and is referenced by Song 80 – The Road of Life. The song about Rob’s week-long scout camp out with me at the El Rancho Cima scout camp near San Marcos, Texas was the first of the ~20 Boy Scout and other camp out ballads I wrote. I think it captures the freedom felt by boys growing up in “suburban ghettos” as they “learn to be un-haltered.” At a place where they can go “swimming in the river like salmon going home,” experience “pulling out a sliver,” have “pillow fights just for fun,” and feel the fear of “thunderstorms and lightning fire.” There was “an ancient oyster bed,” just like is up Fiddler’s Canyon or over by Milt’s in Cedar Canyon. I do enjoy teaching kids about geology. At El Rancho Cima the Austin Limestone outcrops and running water creates giant carsts or cavern sized holes in the formation. One of these is called “the toilet bowl,” where we hiked to and had fun doing campfire skits. One of the values of these songs (ballads) to me is they help me remember and to see in my mind, as if I was still there, experiences from the past, including when we “find a scorpion” or all of the “dirty socks.” And these experiences remind me “life keeps going on.”
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