Why I Suddenly Love Oatmeal

The Uinta Mountains, June 2003.

I groan and writhe inside my sleeping bag when the Scoutmaster's voice booms through camp. "Everybody up--let's go!"

My heart sinks. My whole body aches. I feel heavy and I don't remember dreaming.

I pry apart my eyelids and brush snow off of my sleeping bag. Filtered sunlight pokes in through a gap between two tarps I used for cover. I cram numb feet into wet hiking boots and join the other boys around the campfire.

Melting snow drips from the pines surrounding us as our small fire brings a pot of water to a boil. Tin cups and spoons rattle in our shaking hands, and fog rises from our mouths and nostrils while we wait for a hot breakfast.

We each get one small portion before we tear down camp and hit the trail. Each boy carries five paper oatmeal packets in his backpack--one for every day of camp. Wally, our leader, distributed them at random before we left the city; if you're lucky, you'll find something with a bit of flavor in your rations, like apple and cinnamon or maple.

I am not lucky.

I don't like oatmeal anyway, but this morning I get to choke down the flavorless "original" variety. 

Gag.

Just... no.
Image credit: CityWideSuperSlow

It's day two of my first fifty-mile hike with Wally Rupp. 

I'm cold. 

I'm wet. 

I'm smaller than my pack. 

Yesterday I threw up all along the trail.

I have never endured a worse ordeal than this hike. 

And yet, despite oatmeal for breakfast every morning, despite the aches and dirt and blisters, something will possess me to do it again. 

And again.

And again, until I look back on my teenage years and relish those hard summers with my Scout troop in the High Uinta Mountains. 

The Fifty-miler will become a highlight of each year--something I look forward to as school gets out and days grow long.

And I have Wally Rupp to thank for that.

He has led thirty-six long hikes over more than forty years as Scoutmaster. He's in his seventies when I first hike with him, and he's stronger than anyone. Through his leadership, friendship, and example, Wally will shape me throughout my adolescence into the very best version of myself.

And not just me; Wally will have more than 200 Eagle Scouts to his name before he retires from Scouting.

Now, thirteen years after that first Fifty-miler, I'm all grown up.

And much of the man I have become is thanks to Wally Rupp.

With all the training I've received in words and how to use them, I have no words to say how much I love my dear friend Wally. I'll never know how to describe my gratitude and joy at having known a man like him.

Almost three months have passed now since he died.

And dang if that wasn't the most awesome funeral I've attended. You had to show up early just to get a seat. Blue Eagle neckerchiefs all over the place. Old friends reunited--a whole roomful!

And naturally lots of tears . . . but even more laughter as we remembered our good, hard-working, generous, sometimes inappropriate, hilarious friend.

As one fellow Boy Scout put it, Wally put the fun in funeral.

He wouldn't have it any other way.

But I know you're dying to ask: what about the oatmeal?

That's why I'm writing this now.

Because, you see, the story doesn't end at Wally's funeral.

He's following me.

In packs of oatmeal.

Oatmeal reminds me of cold mornings, stiff legs, and interrupted sleep. I've never liked it. Ever since my last fifty-mile hike I've avoided any kind of oatmeal not in cookie form. 

And yet, just a little while ago, my grocery store had oatmeal on sale and I bought myself four boxes.

I don't know what came over me.

But it gets worse . . .

. . . because I ate it!

I willingly ate oatmeal. In my house. After a warm, soapy shower.

Savage.

And I loved it.

Granted, it wasn't that nasty plain stuff. But still--I loved it.

I eat oatmeal for breakfast at least once or twice a week now. Because as soon as that sweet maple flavor hits my tongue, for just a moment I can see a troop of tired Boy Scouts huddled around a fire, shivering with tin cups in hand before another long day on the trail.

And Wally's with them.

The people we love live on in how we use the things they taught us. But they also live on when we do nothing more than think of them.

When we take that drive through the old neighborhood.

When we tell our kids those stories.

When we have that bowl of oatmeal.

Oatmeal reminds me now that some of my most difficult experiences were also some of my happiest. It reminds me that the greatest destinations sometimes require the longest journeys. It reminds me that I can push myself, that I can grow, that I can be better and better every day. 

One of my favorite pictures. I worked hard to get it.

Oatmeal reminds me of Wally, who taught me all those things.

So I'll help myself to a nice hot bowl the next time I might need a boost.

Mmm . . . oatmeal.