(If you haven’t read my post about Oshkosh 2014, go do that now. I’m not rereading it, because it’s too embarrassing, but you’re going to need the context.)
In August of 2019 I had the chance to take on Wisconsin for the third time. A lot went into making this possible. International Pathfinder Camporees happen every five years, and my life has changed wildly since the last one. I finished high school, accidentally ended up in the veterinary industry, and left my family behind to move from Abu Dhabi to Maryland. By the time August rolled around, I still hadn’t found a church yet, which meant I didn’t have a Pathfinder club, so I hitched a ride on an overnight bus with a club in the area and camped with the wonderful club I grew up in and staffed in high school. (Many kids I remembered as being Little Lambs are now taller than me. It was wild.)
Logistically all of this was a lot of work, but it was 100% worth it. Camporee #3 was no less amazing than the previous two. Part of me always worries that I’m misremembering, or that the magic is in the circumstances—maybe it won’t be as fun as I remember it because I’m older now, maybe the evening programs aren’t as good as I remember them. I’ve been proven wrong twice, so I think it’s time to just accept that I love Oshkosh and I always will.
I bought my ticket for Chosen in 2016. If you’re in the first 2,500 tickets purchased you get a free backstage tour, and I realized that if I’m the kind of person who makes foam fingers for the evening programs, I’m also the kind of person who is going to buy my Oshkosh ticket years in advance so I can go backstage. My mom was a little bit upset with me. I was still living in Abu Dhabi at the time, and she said I didn’t know where I was going to be in 2019. Except I did know—I was going to be in Wisconsin. And I was!
Two important things happened before I left. The first was that I decided to do a camporee podcast called Oshkosh or Bust. I made one episode per day, recording the daily goings on and sounds and experiences of Oshkosh, then edited and posted them the next morning. I created my own intro and outro music on Garageband during the bus ride there. It was nowhere near professional, but I had a good time.
The second was that I realized I couldn’t let the legacy of the Ashpenaz is #1 foam finger die. I couldn’t bring it with me—it’s still in Abu Dhabi, waiting to be reunited with me so that I can display it in my new home—but I could escalate a little bit.
If you’ve never been to Oshkosh, there are two main places you spend your time: during the day, activities and honors are held in big air hangars, and then in the evening you go to the stage and watch the evening programs. I’ve never been much for doing the honors. In my first two years going, I did two honors total (pin trading and Maori lore, neither of which I have the patch for yet).
My favorite part has always been the programs. Have you noticed that about me? I love those musicals. The Esther production blew my tiny 13-year-old brain, and Daniel had me itching to write my own musical filling in the gap of how Daniel, Iltani and Ashpenaz handled the kingdom while Nebuchadnezzar was off being a cow for 7 years. I e-mailed Sitler and Strong Productions a couple of times, once to ask if they had access to the music separate from the vocals so I could make mashups. (Sadly, they do not.) I get really into these things, guys.
So I was happy to take groups of kids to whichever activities they wanted to go to, as long as I got to go to my tour, we all got to the evening programs on time, and I had time to hunt down this year’s soundtrack.
Day one, I walked through Hangar A and found the booth, much to my joy. I’d looked all week the previous Oshkosh and was finally told by someone that they didn’t know why it wasn’t being sold but they assumed it had fallen through the cracks. It wasn’t on their website, either. Years later I found the audio files online, but it was still a bummer. I want to give these guys money, you know?
Content that it was easily accessible, I went about my day. I said hi to my housemate who is a fancy professional and was there for work. I wandered around with children. I got lots of steps in.
Day two, I got my tour. It was definitely worth buying my ticket three years in advance.
Day three, I took my kids back to Hangar A to get some free pins. We literally could not walk five feet without stopping to trade pins. I released them in Hangar A to look for free things while I went by the Sitler and Strong booth to pick up this year’s CD and ask the guy at the booth why there was no Daniel soundtrack for my podcast.
I do not know why it never occurred to me that the writers would come to this thing. They do all the writing and pre-recording and producing beforehand. It just never crossed my mind that they would be in Wisconsin at the same time as I was, and that I could talk to them.
I was wrong. The guy manning the booth was Brian Sitler of Sitler and Strong Productions himself, the songwriter and co-scriptwriter. I didn’t realize that until I was already in the middle of a conversation with him. (He should wear a name tag or something.)
So, the reason there’s no Daniel soundtrack is nobody knows. They just didn’t let them sell it. They’re hoping they will be allowed to sell it in the future. I am also hoping this.
More importantly, once I realized who I was talking to I mentioned that I had e-mailed them a couple of times. When I mentioned what the subject of my e-mails had been about, it turned out that he remembered me, that he had read my blog (horrifying), and that he had sent it to the Carolina Conference Youth Director because he thought it was cool. Let us remember now that I am from the Carolina Conference. Let us remember all the jokes I made in high school about wanting to take my conference youth director’s job because the thought of doing Pathfinders professionally was the dream. (Were they jokes? I still would love to have that job.) That guy saw my blog, apparently. The guy who’s job I wanted to steal.
Then it gets worse.
You liked Ashpenaz, Mr. Sitler says.
I did, yes, I say, fear growing in my heart.
He reveals to me that while they have not changed their name, Sitler and Strong Productions has done some hiring since the last camporee. Their new employee, whom they have become friends with in the years since 2014, is named Kevin, and he is the actor who portrayed Ashpenaz. I just happened to come by the booth when he was on his lunch break.
You’ll have to come by and get another picture with him, Mr. Sitler says.
I had no inkling I was going to find myself in a position to get Ashpenaz Selfie Round Two. Thankfully I had already prepared for it.
Friday, I was child-free. It poured that morning, and I went up to the hangars by myself in the rain to get the last of my shopping done. I got some shirts from Advent Source, a few pins from The Pin King, and a Chosen hoodie from the pathfindershirtsonline.com table. Finally I gathered the courage to go by the Sitler and Strong table again.
Here’s a side-by-side comparison:
What a difference five years makes. I lost my blue hair, for one.
Kevin was so nice, you guys. As I said, I haven’t reread last Oshkosh’s blog post, because I can still clearly remember how embarrassing I was. Apparently he found it while googling himself at some point, so basically everyone has read my blog now. I got the chance to apologize for myself in person, and he was very cool. He also told me I could keep my head, which was very kind of him. (If you still haven’t seen this video, please rectify that immediately.)
Over the entire week I had an absolutely wonderful time, and made some very cool connections. I met a woman from Australia who asked about my microphone and learned she’s part of a Christian writers group in Australia who has been asked to start up a blog and podcast for them. I met a pastor from my area who was able to recommend a church close to me, which I’ve since begun to attend. I bought a how-to book on ventriloquy by the guy who did the ventriloquism portions of the evening programs. Am I going to do a career pivot and become a ventriloquist? That really depends on how good a teacher this guy is.
But one of the most exciting is that I am now personal (facebook) friends with Brian Sitler of Sitler and Strong Productions, and that I am on the front page of their website in a picture with Ashpenaz “Kevin” King Of The Eunuchs. This is probably my greatest accomplishment of the 2019.
Now if I’m going to keep it going, I need to start planning for next time. Where do you go from a t-shirt? Maybe Ashpenaz pins? Maybe I have to write Ashpenaz: The Musical for real now. I’m not sure yet, but thankfully, I have a little less than five years to prepare.
Daisy M. Hall 