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seminary
Continuing the "Misadventures" series.
Episode 5: Crossing the Plains with Doberman Pinschers.
It was a stereotypically boring day in seminary, tenth grade, and I arrived late as usual. I sat near my friends, and spent the first part doodling on my notebook - waiting for class to end. When suddenly Bro. Brandt said we were going to do an activity, so we should break into teams.
My friend Matt and I made a team (And Pablo, I think), and if I'd been in third grade I might have said "Team Locked" to avoid any undesirables from joining--such as seminary gurus and diehards. (But none of them wanted to anyway.)
Brandt then passed out sheets to each team, and said that we were each a company of pioneers that would have to make the trek from (somewhere in the east, Iowa?) to Salt Lake City. The sheet was designed to let us plot out our journey over several months, and also gave us a limited amount of money - in addition to a list of items from the "shop" that we could buy.
Going down the list I spotted "Dog" for $5. I pointed out to Matt that we could buy 200 dogs. And then I realized that wasn't a bad idea. I told Matt my thoughts and he laughed, we had a strategy.
The next day, the game began and the teacher asked each group what supplies they had purchased. Arriving at us last.
"What wagon did you buy?"
"None."
"What handcart did you buy?"
"None."
"Horses?"
"Nope."
"Well then, what did you buy?"
"200 Doberman Pinschers."
"And what else?"
"That's it."
I remember thinking Doberman's were cool dogs, from watching Oliver and Company as a kid.
"Uh ... okay. So what's your plan, then?" He wasn't a fool - he knew we were making fun of the assignment. But we assured him we did indeed have a plan, and that we could make it Salt lake City.
"We're going to run alongside the dogs all the way to Salt Lake. And maybe even ride them"
"You can't ride them."
"Fine, we'll run alongside them"
"You'll starve, and so will the dogs."
"No, we'll eat the extra dogs, and feed dog meat to the other dogs as we go. We can even have the dogs hunt."
"You can't eat dog meat."
"Tell that to the Vietnamese."
"Well, you're not Vietnamese. So, you don't have the stomach for it."
"All right then we'll only buy 150 dogs and gets some bags, ropes, and flour to eat."
"And what will the dogs eat?"
"Also flour."
"Just pure flour?"
"Yes. Carbs, man. It's the bottom of the food pyramid."
"How will you carry all of this without a wagon or handcart?"
"We'll tie the sacks of flour to the dogs. And then run alongside them."
"Ok... so what happens when the dogs run away?"
"Doberman Pinchers don't run away, they are extremely loyal and defensive of their masters." (I had printed out an article to prove this.) "And we can tie them all to each other."
"And you're just going to run alongside them?"
"Yes."
"I don't think you'll be able to last through the winter without better provisions."
"Won't have to. We're going to sleep 7 hours a day and spend the other 17 jogging, running, or walking briskly. We should manage 50 miles a day. So, it says here the trail is 1300 miles long--we will arrive in 26 days."
"What about honoring the sabbath day?"
"We can do that later. we have to beat the winter."
"Okay..."
And so the class began this game, with several traditional teams pulling handcarts and riding on wagons, making very slow time, and one team blitzing way ahead.
Occassionally Bro Brandt would try to simulate the experience by adding in challenges.
"You are attacked by indians who steal your flour"
"No we're not! We have 150 doberman pinscher attack dogs, the indians would get wasted."
At one point bro brandt pointed out:
"You're going to run out of food - you're not carrying enough flour", and after doing the math we realized he was right. (We were eating a pound of flour per day per person/dog)
"Ok so here's what we're going to do..."
We decided that once a dog was no longer carrying flour (because it had run out) we would release that dog into the wild - it was of no further use to us. And so we trekked onward, populating the midwest with doberman pinschers.
Before finally arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, after just 26 days, with 20 lbs of flour and four dogs. Months and months before the rest of the teams would get there.
And it was there that we spent the winter - and there that we died.
But as far as we were concerned, it didn't matter - we'd won the race.
Episode 5: Crossing the Plains with Doberman Pinschers.
It was a stereotypically boring day in seminary, tenth grade, and I arrived late as usual. I sat near my friends, and spent the first part doodling on my notebook - waiting for class to end. When suddenly Bro. Brandt said we were going to do an activity, so we should break into teams.
My friend Matt and I made a team (And Pablo, I think), and if I'd been in third grade I might have said "Team Locked" to avoid any undesirables from joining--such as seminary gurus and diehards. (But none of them wanted to anyway.)
Brandt then passed out sheets to each team, and said that we were each a company of pioneers that would have to make the trek from (somewhere in the east, Iowa?) to Salt Lake City. The sheet was designed to let us plot out our journey over several months, and also gave us a limited amount of money - in addition to a list of items from the "shop" that we could buy.
Going down the list I spotted "Dog" for $5. I pointed out to Matt that we could buy 200 dogs. And then I realized that wasn't a bad idea. I told Matt my thoughts and he laughed, we had a strategy.
The next day, the game began and the teacher asked each group what supplies they had purchased. Arriving at us last.
"What wagon did you buy?"
"None."
"What handcart did you buy?"
"None."
"Horses?"
"Nope."
"Well then, what did you buy?"
"200 Doberman Pinschers."
"And what else?"
"That's it."
I remember thinking Doberman's were cool dogs, from watching Oliver and Company as a kid.
"Uh ... okay. So what's your plan, then?" He wasn't a fool - he knew we were making fun of the assignment. But we assured him we did indeed have a plan, and that we could make it Salt lake City.
"We're going to run alongside the dogs all the way to Salt Lake. And maybe even ride them"
"You can't ride them."
"Fine, we'll run alongside them"
"You'll starve, and so will the dogs."
"No, we'll eat the extra dogs, and feed dog meat to the other dogs as we go. We can even have the dogs hunt."
"You can't eat dog meat."
"Tell that to the Vietnamese."
"Well, you're not Vietnamese. So, you don't have the stomach for it."
"All right then we'll only buy 150 dogs and gets some bags, ropes, and flour to eat."
"And what will the dogs eat?"
"Also flour."
"Just pure flour?"
"Yes. Carbs, man. It's the bottom of the food pyramid."
"How will you carry all of this without a wagon or handcart?"
"We'll tie the sacks of flour to the dogs. And then run alongside them."
"Ok... so what happens when the dogs run away?"
"Doberman Pinchers don't run away, they are extremely loyal and defensive of their masters." (I had printed out an article to prove this.) "And we can tie them all to each other."
"And you're just going to run alongside them?"
"Yes."
"I don't think you'll be able to last through the winter without better provisions."
"Won't have to. We're going to sleep 7 hours a day and spend the other 17 jogging, running, or walking briskly. We should manage 50 miles a day. So, it says here the trail is 1300 miles long--we will arrive in 26 days."
"What about honoring the sabbath day?"
"We can do that later. we have to beat the winter."
"Okay..."
And so the class began this game, with several traditional teams pulling handcarts and riding on wagons, making very slow time, and one team blitzing way ahead.
Occassionally Bro Brandt would try to simulate the experience by adding in challenges.
"You are attacked by indians who steal your flour"
"No we're not! We have 150 doberman pinscher attack dogs, the indians would get wasted."
At one point bro brandt pointed out:
"You're going to run out of food - you're not carrying enough flour", and after doing the math we realized he was right. (We were eating a pound of flour per day per person/dog)
"Ok so here's what we're going to do..."
We decided that once a dog was no longer carrying flour (because it had run out) we would release that dog into the wild - it was of no further use to us. And so we trekked onward, populating the midwest with doberman pinschers.
Before finally arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, after just 26 days, with 20 lbs of flour and four dogs. Months and months before the rest of the teams would get there.
And it was there that we spent the winter - and there that we died.
But as far as we were concerned, it didn't matter - we'd won the race.
