Cobbler like Dad’s
Okay, so not writer’s block as it’s described in literature… but I have not wanted to write for a couple days except on Facebook and in my journal. I think it’s because I’ve been dealing with a lot of grief, a heavy load. My son went to priesthood camp, a bunch of young men from church, ages 11-18, doing service and outdoor activities, hiking, swimming, biking, and of course cooking in the wild. My son asked his leaders if they could have Dutch oven cobbler on the menu one night. They said no, because s’mores are so much easier. My son persisted to the point that when he offered to bring all the ingredients and the Dutch oven and cook it himself, they said okay. One of the leaders would bring charcoal briquets for heating the Dutch oven. I took my son to the store after he assembled a list of ingredients. I gave him a 20 dollar bill; he came back with cake mix, butter, and pie filling. He packed all the ingredients into a box I supplied, along with the iron lid lifter, a hefty bar with a hook for taking the lid off of a hot Dutch oven. Our family’s Dutch oven, a really nice one, was all clean from my eldest son cleaning and seasoning it with oil the last time he visited. My youngest son took the Dutch oven and the box of stuff to camp with him, saying he wanted to make cobbler “like Dad made”.
I felt all the feels. My husband was not an outdoorsman when we met. He ran track in high school, long distances, but didn’t do more than maintain military fitness until he retired from the National Guard. In Wisconsin, when our two eldest sons were in the Boy Scout troop in our church branch, he led the troop committee. True to form, he studied everything he could about Scouts. He learned the rules and recommendations. He ran the troop committee as close to by the book as he could get us parents. When the branch troop shrank to three boys, two of them ours, he found a troop in town for them, sponsored by the American Legion, meeting in the Lutheran church across the street from our house.
My husband and my two eldest sons were very involved; I attended the Courts of Honor where merit badges were awarded and went to some parent committee meetings. My husband went on trips with the boys, went to leader training, camped, and went on high adventure trips with them. He encouraged them to go to advanced training, NYLT, National Youth Leadership Training. He helped them progress through ranks to Eagle. Our youngest son was born in those years.
My husband took to cooking on Scout trips. He said that Scouts, when asked what they wanted on the menu for campouts, always picked things they knew, things they were familiar with. He tried to expand their horizons. He bought the really nice Dutch oven and practiced using it. He made pizza in it. He made cobbler. He roasted a whole chicken in foil.
When we moved to Fort Wayne, he continued in Scouting; our two eldest sons aged out and our youngest son started in Cubs. I led in Cub Scouts; my husband did not. Instead he planned and went on high adventure bike trips with the Scouts in our ward. When he was released as Young Men’s president, he looked around for a local troop to get involved with. We both knew our youngest son might not have an LDS troop to grow into, as the issues over gender and international growth in the church led them away from Boy Scouts of America.
My husband asked the Scout Executive for our area, who recommended a troop meeting at The Ridge Church. That troop was young, with new leaders who needed a steady, experienced hand. One of the parents was the Scoutmaster, and while he had an Eagle Scout son, he needed a good assistant. My husband fit there. He learned ever more about how Scouting works; he ran high adventure trips and went camping with them. Our youngest son was 10 years old, a Webelo just a year from advancing into that troop, when my husband died.
Our youngest son never got to go to Boy Scout camp with his dad. He did Cub Scout day camp with me. He did father-son campouts with his father and his sisters. But when it came time to work directly with his father in Scouts, his father wasn’t there.
When my son said he wanted to make cobbler like Dad’s, I felt a heavy weight settle on my chest. It felt crushing. I wanted to do anything to distract me. I couldn’t concentrate on his preparations for his camping trip. I wanted to curl up and cry.
Somehow I got my son to camp. He stayed three days; when it ended I drove to pick him up. He was crabby, tired, and sunburnt. He was cheerful about the cobbler, though. He said it turned out really good and there was enough for everyone in his ward group to have some. On Sunday I thanked the leader who had brought the charcoal. He thanked me and said it was really good.
