It is the wrong side of minus thirty-five degrees. Nobody knows how cold it is with the wind chill factor. In Winnipeg Manitoba, you don’t want to know how much colder the perpetual winter wind is making things. It’s information that would befuddle your mind, making you wonder why anybody would live in such a place. It’s certainly not weather for trekking through the snow from house to house to deliver fliers for the local supermarket. So I do the sensible thing. I throw my heavy bundle of fliers in the rubbish bin and head home. After all – that’s where they will end up anyway – so I’m actually performing a public service. Less junk mail for the good citizens of Crescent Wood. It is about a week later when I get a phone call from my Scout Master. Did I throw out my fliers that I was delivering to raise money for our Scout troop to go to the National Summer Jamboree? Uh – no – of course not. Interesting. A large bundle of fliers was found in a bin on the street where I was meant to be delivering them. Oh. Oh yeah. Actually, I just remembered – I think I did throw out what was left of my bundle. It was such a cold day and who reads those fliers anyway. Not the point. We’ll deal with this at the next meeting. So at the meeting I endure the Scout version of a teen trial. I tell my side of the story. The Scout master and my fellow Scouts then confer. I’m brought back in and told that it’s been decided that, for this very unScout-like behaviour, I am to miss the upcoming Manitoba Jamboree that spring. On the upside, I am still permitted to attend the National Jamboree in Prince Edward Island that summer. I am both relieved and ashamed. Over the next few months, the allure of being a Scout fades. By the time my troop heads off to the Manitoba Jamboree, I am no longer part of that fraternity. Yet that following winter I am again trekking through the snow from door to door in minus thirty-five degree weather. Now, instead of paper fliers, I have an even heavier basket of frozen chickens and sausages. I am selling them for my new boarding school – aka ‘Canadian Concentration Camp’. But this time, should I decide to ditch my goods in a bin, the punishment will come via a wooden paddle making painful contact with my backside. Ouch. I keep on trekking.