Collin Bishop-Karney
speaker
139 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Nov 2024
Collin Bishop-Karney’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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This is a true story that happened to me when I was in middle school. My grandpa was an Eagle Scout when he was a young man, and after his stint with the Army during the Vietnam War, he became a Scoutmaster with Troop 210. He believed in helping young boys become young men and really connect with vintage skills and nature.
Rope tying, camping, hiking, respecting nature, and most importantly, giving back to the community were the teachings he tried to instill in everyone under his tutelage. When my grandmother died suddenly, it hit my grandpa really hard. He didn't push his kids away, but my dad, my aunt, and my uncle were all very concerned for him.
This is when my dad and stepmom convinced me to join the scouts again to spend time with him and keep an eye on how he was doing. I had participated in Cub Scouts before, and it wasn't something I enjoyed. When I quit, I had no intention of going back, but how could I argue with this? I loved my grandpa more than I hated Scouts.
I won't lie, I enjoyed getting to spend that time with my grandpa, and looking back, it is something I am grateful for. every extra moment i got to spend with him is a cherished memory however there was one experience i went through that lives in the dark parts of my memory something i've had nightmares about and still to this day get queasy thinking or talking about
I know this memory as the trip to Camp Woodruff. I'd never been a fan of the idea of a summer camp. Being sent away from my family to an unfamiliar location for an entire week had always unnerved me. Call me weird, but I didn't feel like being separated from all I knew to go sleep in the woods. It took a lot of convincing to get me to join my grandpa on the Scout summer camp trip to Camp Woodruff.
My dad and stepmom told me I had to go to make sure nothing happened to him. and my mom told me she thought it was a good idea. So it was three against one, and the guilt trip worked. I told myself he needed me, and that it wouldn't be as bad since I'd have a family member with me. I know how this part is going to sound, but the night before we left, I had terrible nightmares.
I kept having very vivid dreams of myself dying in various ways, each more gruesome than the last. The final nightmare I had that night seemed more like a warning than anything else. There was a figure cloaked in a dark cloud of mist or fog, and they kept pointing to signs hanging on trees with either the word warning or a hazard symbol depicted on them.
I wish I had paid attention to the dream, because over the next week, I almost died or got seriously injured four times. When we arrived at the camp, we were assigned preset tents. I found a photo online of the tents, and I'll put that here. Most of the tents had huge spiders on, or in them, and as someone with arachnophobia, it did not help me get great sleep at night.
Luckily, I brought a sort of bug net with me, and I could hang part of it above me, like a veil, while I slept so my face was protected from the spiders, and my sleeping bag protected the rest of me. However, I was still tired from staying awake, just because the thought of spiders being around terrified me. The first event happened pretty early on in the week.
The day after we arrived at the scout camp, it had been raining heavily that night, and the ground was soaked. But we went on a morning hike nonetheless. As we were walking on a trail near the top of a hill, the Georgian clay dirt gave way beneath my foot closest to the edge, and I slipped.
I rolled a good twenty feet, sliding on the wet, orangish-brown clay until I managed to grab onto the base of a thin tree. It took a good few minutes for me to catch my breath while lying there, hanging onto this tree, and another few minutes for me to slowly make my way back to the path.
I'll assume that you don't know much about that clay, but once it's wet, it sticks to your skin, your clothes, your shoes, and once it hardens, it takes a lot to get it off.
i walked away from that hike with a few cuts and bruises mostly on my legs but i still walked away alive the second event happened the next morning i woke up with a cold all that tumbling in wet dirt and not drying off quickly enough is what i reckon caused it
i was stuck in my tent all day drinking disgusting tea a scoutmaster brought me and screaming whenever a spider shuffled into the tent and up onto my sleeping bag i stayed awake for the next hour making sure it didn't happen again before i passed out and let exhaustion take me into my dreams
the dreams i had that day were of something in the woods watching us campers as we did our activities it leered at us as we learned to make knots on ropes spied on us as we shot rifles at the shooting range and observed me as i lay in my tent
i woke up in a sweat when my tent buddy got back from the day's events and was sent to fetch me for dinner in the main lodge i couldn't stomach the dinner they had that night which i believe was some type of sloppy joe but one of the cooks took pity on me and brought me a single serving of frosted flakes cereal and a carton of milk that night when i got up to use the restroom i felt like something was watching me as i walked to the bathroom station
While I was there doing my business, I swear I heard someone whispering to me. I stayed there for what felt like an hour, but was probably only a few minutes in reality. I only left when another camper entered the bathroom and I felt it was safe enough for me to leave. The third event was on day four.
On this day, it was our troop's turn to go to a nearby horse ranch, where we would pick a horse and go on a guided tour of a trail through the woods. I enjoyed getting to brush and feed the horse, but what happened on the trail has left me afraid of horses. The trail was about an hour-long loop through the woods, leading back to the ranch at the end.
We went in a single file line, and there was a horse rancher leading the front, and one leading the rear to make sure no one caused trouble, and that the horses stayed in line. For the most part, it was peaceful and relaxing. It was a bit hot, but there was a nice breeze keeping me cool, if not just a bit sweaty.
At one point on the trail, we stopped to cross a stream, but not before our horses had a chance to stop and drink some water. Once we got to the stream, my horse started getting a little antsy. I should have known better and tightened my grip on the reins, but when a snake passed in front of us in the water, it was too late. My horse bucked and I fell off.
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