Tribute to Mom : Allegany Boys Camp

Written by Supervisor Kevin Maust for our 2019 Mother Son Banquet

It’s been said that little girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice, and little boys are made of snakes and snails and puppy dog tails. There may be no other place where that is more true than here at camp. In fact, if you listened in on recent conversations around camp you could have heard a discussion such as this:

“I got mud in my mouth”
“It’s the hard taste of mud for a hardworking man”
“Oh yeah, we live on mud”
“I did come to camp to work hard and build muscle”
“Remember, we are not little girls with high pitched voices. We are young men with low pitched voices”

Our chiefs at camp are amazing. If America would come and get all the chiefs and put them in the military, we would win.

They do all kinds of things, like learn us to speak proper English and stuff.

They are kind of like a mom and a dad.

As one chief learning to be a chief once said, “I need to learn to be a mom.”

However, there is absolutely no one who can take the place of mom.

It is a brave mom who entrusts her son to a place like camp for a portion of his adolescent and teenage life to live with a group of boys his own age and their 2 chiefs who most likely are not very far out of their teens themselves.

We young men may be running low on the sugar and spice and everything nice. The roses so red and the violets so blue do not necessarily speak to our masculine side.

In preparation for this event the statement was made and it had been observed that it is very difficult to relax when you are a young man at a mother son banquet.

Each of the boys made a sugar scrub for their mom.

It would be much more relaxing for us young men, with our low-pitched voices, to put on our swimming trunks, grab our fishing rods, and head down to the swimming hole.

But tonight, is not about us.

It is for you, our moms.

And here is a compilation of our collaborative thoughts and feelings on what it means to have you as mom, and what a real mom is made of.

You are truly amazing,

both funny, and fun,

loving,

Pioneer Chiefs

sweet and generous,

good,

loyal,

honest,

beautiful,

and God’s wonderful creation.

Woodsmen Chiefs

You are nice and kind, to at least the 10th power.

You are caring, both to me and to other people, even when it is taken advantage of, over and over again.

Navigator Chiefs

You are patient, and forgiving.

You are awesome,

cool,

amazing,

and absolutely the best.

Mountaineer Chiefs

You’ve made me feel like a somebody, when I felt like a nobody.

You sacrifice for me, and spend money on me.

Sometimes, you buy me things that I don’t need, because you love me.
And you don’t buy me things that I think I need sometimes, when you know I don’t,

because you love me.

You are a good cook.
You feed me, even when I don’t like the food.
Your meatloaf is the best and your cakes are amazing.

You care for me when I’m feeling bad.

You never strangled me, even when I deserved it.

You teach me right from wrong.

You put up with me and stick with me in the hard times even when I messed up your stuff.

You still love me when you are mad at me.

I have not always been the young man I was supposed to be,

but I am trying to become the man I was meant to be.

You never gave up on me. I know you pray for me every day.

It is you that makes home feel like home.

You made me feel loved all the times you woke up when I had a bad dream or was scared and prayed with me.

You sacrificed for me even though I cost so much and have not been the most behaved and have done a lot of bad things like lying, stealing, destroying things, and when I’ve been extremely stubborn and loud and extra bad sometimes.

I liked the times you took me fishing and the time we went to Dairy Queen.

You helped me with my chores when you didn’t have to.

You took care of my dog when I broke my arm.

Quite a few of us at camp are adopted.
It is you mom who came to my rescue and took me in.

You could have chosen someone else to be your son,

but you picked me.

You put up with me through all the hard stuff.

You are patient with me even though I caused you so much trouble.
You believe in me even when I do not believe in myself.

There are things that you made me do that I did not like that I am grateful for now.
Like brushing my teeth,
eating my vegetables,
giving me a timeout
or a spanking
(even though your spankings didn’t really hurt).

You gave me long talks, and what I thought was too much advice, that I really wish now I would have listened to more.

Even coming to camp was hard but most days I am glad you had me come. And I realize more that you did not choose camp because you didn’t like me or were tired of me, but it was because you loved me and it was one of the hardest days of your life the day you dropped me off and drove away,

because you loved me so much.

There are a lot of things that I regret and would do over again if I could. It’s hard to talk about those things but I feel bad about all the mean things I’ve done.

I have not respected you like I should or showed appreciation for all the things that you do for me. I wish I would have listened more and learned to care about you and respect you earlier.

Too many times I’ve gotten mad and taken my frustration out on you and treated you like you don’t do anything right. Because of that it has broken trust and hurt our relationship.

As a young man with a low-pitched voice it is hard to talk about my feelings.
It’s easier to express my feelings by making noise, getting dirty, being obnoxious and doing other things that can drive moms crazy.
But I do have feelings, and there are several things that I do want you to know.