Hurricane Matthew relief with the Civil Air Patrol part 4

You have to remember, Spork has never attended school. He has been home schooled since day one. We were billeting in a public school where folks from the community were staying in the gym. We, however, were given a hallway of classrooms to ourselves. When we walked in, I expected to stop and explain to the nice folks at the front who were were to gain access. They just smiled and waved us on. I forgot we were in uniform, the perks of being part of the team. The male cadets all went in one room. The few female cadets all went into another room across the hall. Cots were procured from the red cross and snacks were readily available.

I did remark to Spork that this was school, finally. The fact that he played football, and slept with a bunch of his friends, made school look pretty good. But the idea of being locked into one of these desk/chair things didn’t seem to have any appeal to him. Plus I couldn’t get him to take a shower in the gym shower. No shower curtain, but exposed to the locker room? Ahh middle school, it brought back memories.

Spork, while roaming outside looking for a phantom playground the cadets had heard about did get stopped by the police marking this as his first official run-in with “the man.” Being in uniform and part of the team limited the amount grief they received to “almost nothing” but it was another milestone.

We awoke to another day, got everyone up and cleaned up the school. Then it was another meeting at the EOC where, small world, I ran into the son of one of my former employees. That was a real treat. He had joined the Air Force and was now a Guardsman medic. He had been activated for support as well.

Then we had a trip to the warehouse with the guard to get supplies and onto another POD to serve another community. Once again, the kids were exemplary and a credit to teenagers everywhere. Once we finished for the day, it was back to the EOC for debrief and dinner, where we learned we were suddenly done. Spork and I jumped into the truck and headed West for home trying to get there before dark. We’d heard stories all day of washed out roads, flooded bridges, etc. We didn’t want to drive in these conditions in the dark. But thankfully we made it with no issues right on time.

We arrived after dark but before bedtime and finally had a chance to sleep in our own beds. But not before Spork asked if he could cancel his awesome class I had scheduled for him this weekend, and his airsoft adventure for next week. Instead he wanted to go to Lumberton to be part of the next POD and assist wherever he could. It’s true, the more you give, the more you want to give. I’m trying to work it out to see if we can get away again. We’ll see.