When I first became a scoutmaster I was introduced to Bill Birch and Chuck Loveless who were always telling stories and carving bolo’s while telling them, they could keep boys spellbound for hours. Anyway I decided that I wanted to learn as well and so one day began carving and much to my dismay it looked nothing like a face that they would carve, but through perseverance I began doing a pretty good job especially since I used one of theirs to copy the first time after that failed attempt. Later though after making over a 100 of those faces I decided to try doing ones on a stave. I had wood burned staves several times but had never carved on one. However the things that I had learned with the small pieces still applied here and I was able to have as much fun with them as with the others. I ended up carving over 30 staves and possibly more. I would give most of them away to the leaders that were helping me. I often have people whom I have given a stave tell me that they still have it and I often have forgotten that I had even given them one. I carved one stave with animal faces since we had been living with a bear near camp that year. My first face however was done because of a bad day that Tia was having at girl’s camp. Marie had gone to camp that year with her and I took Loren and Brittany and we stayed near the area in a motor home that had been given to me by Dave Nemelka. I took both of them into camp with me each day and would help the Sister’s with whatever they needed. Britt loved it but told one of the girl’s that Tia was her secret friend and that ruined it for Tia. Well that made Tia mad and she was mad at me so I went to the road where I had seen some wood that had been pushed over as they cleaned the road earlier that year. I took a long one from the group and stripped the bark from it. It was a very hard wood and not like the aspen that I had been carving to that point which was quite easy. I went ahead and carved it anyway. She liked it and it made a hit with the other girls and leaders so for the next 12 years as I attended girls camp each year I would do several staves and give to the stake leaders. It was a lot of fun.
