The Honors by Ransom Tingler

The Order of the Arrow is a Boy Scout honor society that only the best gets in. When I got voted for it I was pretty surprised. I never thought that I would actually get in this honor society because it is so hard to get into it. Here is what happened leading up and my ordeal I had to go through to prove myself worthy.

            Honor Court is a Boy Scout meeting were the troop recognizes a scouts achievements. Though, at Spring Honor Court two years ago, was the first time I got no badges since the Fall Honor Court. This means I was probably the only Boy Scout to not receive a single reward that whole court. While we were sitting down listing to all the names that were being called to come up and get rewards, Jackson Hayes (A friend), randomly said “Just you wait.” I reply with a confused voice for this bizarre comment with a simple “What?” About five seconds later he says it again. “Just you wait.” When Honor Court was about to end a little while later, our scout master got up on an old wooden chair and shouts “Wait! We still have to do our yearly Order of the Arrow elections.” Right after that, white voting slips were passes out with pens to get the voting over with. As I looked over on who were the nominees this year, I noticed one name right in the middle of the list. And surprisingly it was my name. Apparently I had a lot of respect among my fellow scouts and was nominated to be in the voting pool to be a candidate for an OA member. If I got voted in I would not be a member yet. I would have to go through my ordeal to become one. As soon as all of the voting slips were turned in. Our scout master said that we will not know till the last day of summer camp.

            Three months later on the last day of summer camp, me and a group of scouts were playing cards. Then, over the ridge and down by the lake we heard a clunk. We looked over the ridge and down into the valley where the lake is nestled and on the shore, we saw a bunch of staff building the closing ceremony fire. The closing ceremony is where they give camp awards to troops, do skits, and do a ceremony to see who was voted. Later that night, they were doing the ceremony on who got into the OA. I was so happy when my name was called that I have been voted in. This means that I would have to go to my ordeal in the cold fall to prove myself that I am worthy enough.

            When I arrived to the Fall Ordeal we were grouped around torches and were assigned leaders for the whole Ordeal. The groups then proceeded into the dark woods to where three staff stopped us and told us we will go through trials to prove ourselves worthy of the Order of the Arrow. They then said that we are not allowed to talk for the rest of the Ordeal and we would sleep on the hill beside us. We were not allowed to use tents for sleep. We were just allowed to use our tarp and our sleeping bag. The whole tarp thing was a trap. You would slide down the hill as soon as you got on top with your sleeping bag causing you to slide downhill. What I ended up doing is putting my legs around a tree to keep me from sliding. In the morning we had to wake everyone up who were still asleep and headed to breakfast. They only gave us half a biscuit each and water. They then said that our other challenge is restricted food. They then preceded to say that our last challenge is manual labor all day to go along with you being tired and you starving. Our leader then gave us two jobs, building a path and pulling weeds. The path was easy to build but was hard to do with lack of communication. The weeding was a bit easier to do because it required less communication but took forever because of how much we had to weed. At the end of the day they said that we could talk. As soon as they said that the whole place exploded with held back conversations. They then said our closing ceremony will be tonight after a feast. The feast contained a big turkey breast with mashed potatoes and was actually good for camp food. After the feast, we went to the campfire ring to do our awards ceremony. We were giving sashes called “Ordeal” because we were just fresh out of the Ordeal. Currently I am the 2^nd rank out of three called brother hood were you are an experienced member of the OA.

            Through these trials and those leading up to it. I learned about two things. Never pre assume about something that you have a chance of it not happening. And always try your hardest to get the best possible result.