Why did the monkey cross the stream?

I don't remember for how many times or how many years I've been in Scouts, either as a kid or as an adult leader.  However, as an adult, it beats a whole lot of other church assignments.  I mean, I get my blessings for going camping once a month and starting fires and tying knots - how cool is that?!
A perennially popular activity is building a 'monkey bridge,' a nice, safe-looking stylized drawing of which structure is this:

What could possibly go wrong, right?

So, recently my hardy patrol of only three guys (reduced in number by end-of-summer family trips, general wimpiness, illness, etc.) and four adults headed for the woods with tents, ropes, chain saws and big plans in hand.  By the way, that ratio of four grownups to three Scouts was almost high enough to be comfortable - a few more adults and we would have felt fine.

We camped on the land of a friend an hour south of Raleigh.  After clearing the spent shotgun shells from the fire pit, the Scouts got a fire going.  A wilderness area it was not.

For rank advancement and general know-how, the boys have to cook meals.  This fellow had never seen spaghetti move by itself until that evening.

Meanwhile, the adults used the chain saws to cut small trees for the bridge trestles and the boys carried them off with appropriate grim tough-guy expressions.  I mean, look at the size of that log.

The next morning, the ropes were untangled, 

the hand lines attached to the big foot rope,

and the design of the rope bridge started to take shape.

The guys lashed together the supporting A-frames,

and helped plant them securely on either side of the Black'n'itchee Creek. so christened that day.

Pretty soon, the ropes were fastened securely and tightened,

and the first Scout started uneasily across.

So, maybe we hadn't figured everything exactly perfectly, and the first guy wisely bailed early.  At that point, we sent an adult across to adjust the lines.  He had fun anyway.

To say that the next couple of crossings were uneventful would not be giving full credit to the balance of the young men involved, but they made it.

Mostly.  To be fair, it should be pointed out that no one actually fell into the the roaring waters of the Black'n'itchee.  

I mean, 'almost' only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades and H-bombs, right?

It was also voted that a complete crossing didn't have to mean being upright at the end.

The sheer terror of walking the bridge 

was exceeded only by the relief of reaching the other side in one piece.

One grownup kid started across, but with the aphorism "lives to fight another day" going through his mind, he wisely turned around.

After disassembling The Bridge, the Scouts and dads picked up some more trash and spent shotgun shells, loaded up the ropes and headed home with some good stories with which to terrify their mothers and make their younger siblings jealous.

We hope that your church assignments are as much fun, but that your bridges are a bit less woggly.

Dave