Ohh...what Memories....
That is right all of you folks in Howard County, NE
The old boy scout cabin area south of the St Paul golf course has been SOLD by Mike McCann with Mach1 Realty!! 
Ohh... what memories! Thank you to my old scout leaders and the now new seller.
Congrats to the new buyers, Don, Nick, and Kyle!!
What a run I had on that land. I hope they have one just as great or better!
I believe they are only the 4th or 5th owner of this land in 125 years. Gib and Bettie Mae Wegner owned it for over 60 years...and their daughter sold it my seller 2 years ago...and I was within a whisker of being able to buy it from him...if only this year was last year.
I was fortunate enough to not only spend a ton of time on this private land many years as a child and early teenager, one year at a senior party...but decades later...to spend a week hunting it with my son and daughter in 2018!
Ohh... what memories.
As a child I learned to hunt Snipes. All of us first time camping scouts went through the Snipe hunting ritual. If you did..do you remember? The gunny sack...the cold air...the darkness...the stillness...the whistle and calling..."here snipe"...the tug on the corner of the bag...and the look on our face when it was empty...and the secret we held until next years new crop of Scouts went snipe hunting...only to come up empty!
Many times, as one of the older Scouts, over the years I took new scouts out "snipe" hunting.
Ohhh...what memories.
The campfire food was always better out of a great big iron kettle and banged up bowls.
I do not remember everything I am sure...but I do remember the eggs and sausage in the cold morning air...the hunters goulash we ate at night...
ONe of my greatest lessons: The raising and lowering of the US Flag each day...The Pledge of Allegiance and the Scout Code...Folding the Flag...and Taps on the Bugle played by an older scout...
the sleeping bag smell...the canvas tent flapping in the wind...the Loup River water nearby gurgling 24 hours a day...the sound of the wind through the cottonwoods...the coyotes howling...an owls calling out in the dark...eagles flying in the distance...chopping wood...carving wood...using our hands to build...hawks squawking high above...the campfire songs and stories...the rain...and the trench not deep enough around the tent...the snow and collapsed tents...the darkness of the woods...the skunk who almost visited us one night and left a calling card...the old wood outhouse...the rabbit and the shotgun blast that somehow missed everyone....(DB...if you are reading this...we know)...including the rabbit...target practice with rifles and bow. (Actual scout outhouse is in photo!)
Yes...the outhouse and any remnants were washed away in the flood and we never found a single piece of it. In fact the area where my daughter
and I are standing is now river bottom.
We did not know it back then...but we were being taught life lessons. I remember almost all of those lessons.
Most of those I have passed on to both my son
and daughter as well as other young scouts when I was a pack leader years later.
I know my fellow Scouts did as well.
To say I was excited to spend a week hunting this great property with my adult children is an understatement and hard to describe. God provided us the opportunity to have a successful hunt and to spend time in such a unique environment. One my hunting life's greatest highlights. Do you see the eagle in the photo?
I drove out there last Wednesday...August 5th...a couple days before closing and walked down to where the flag pole that we stood around, now rises out of the river water. Sadly, most of the scout camp was lost in the 2019 flood. But nature rebounds and life goes on.
The now new owners had been given permission to cut a path with a large machine where one had never been before prior to closing. I drove down that path to the river in a place I had never seen since childhood. That excited me and also made me sad...I 
know time marches on...but I would be okay if it slowed down a bit.
Yes...I SOLD the old Scout Cabin area...but somehow I feel like I sold a part of my life... of my history...my past...but it will be okay because I did not sell my memories that I have both on paper and in my mind. I will however...miss it for the rest of my life.
The buyers are awesome folks and multi-generational use will occur with them. I am happy for them and jealous I could not buy it.
As we stood up and shook hands...I asked them one favor...to please pull the flag pole out of the water and place it where their new camp was going to be...and to remember that hundreds of young boys and men saluted that pole and the flag that I hoped one day would fly from it again.
They assured me they would.
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