When My Father Roars...

A true story. While still several years away from being a teenager, I was a young and promising Boy Scout, adventurous and always ready to go exploring with my friends. Early in the Fall, our troop prepared for a weekend camp-out at Breakheart Reservation. We would hike the six or seven miles and stay Friday night until Sunday morning. All treks seems to start in high spirits; this one was no exception, and our arrival at the campsite was exciting---several other troops from surrounding towns were also there.
Ritchie was the prankster among us, and of course, he came prepared. Around nine-thirty that evening he brought out the device, always a favorite of boys that age: a new water squirt gun, fully loaded. With no hesitation, he began to baptize anyone within its ten foot range. What a way to liven up a bunch of adolescent boys! But our troop leader was not pleased, and Ritchie wouldn't put "it" away. After several warnings, the leader had had enough. His barking, "you, you, and you... pack up your gear and head home!" Silence: instantly, palpable silence replaced noise. Those of us around Ritchie were stunned. We all looked at one another, like is this for real? No doubt about it. Again, this time pointing right at us: "you, you, you...all of you, pack it up." We could hardly believe it. It was already 10:30 p.m. However, in fifteen minutes, we were all outside with full packs, in the dark, headed home. No conversation now, just slow trudging out of the Reservation, onto the highway. We were together, we were friends, but each of us trudged along alone in our own silence. About 1:30 a.m. in the morning, one by one, we broke off to go down our own street. I was the last one, I had come the farthest, and now was the last of the nighttime trekkers. Parker Street wasn't very long in the daylight, but that night it seemed a long darkness punctuated by widely separated street lamps.
My home was a dark hulk, two and a half storeys barely discernible at that hour. Tired and anxious, I didn't wake my family at two-thirty in the morning; I just curled up against my pack on the back porch and slept. There my mother found me when she went out to pick up the early morning milk delivery. I could hear her calling my father, upset and wondering, and questioning me all the while I was trying to get in the house. I told my father what had happened, then went upstairs to bed.
Sometime during my half-sleep, I heard my father on the phone roaring....roaring his anger..."you let my son walk half the night home alone...!" One conversation after another he moved up the Boy Scout chain of command. The father of one of my friends was superintendent of schools. There was definitely going to be an accounting if my father had his way. And he did. When my Father roared, He was heard, and no one withstood His Word.