This song was used as the music for Psalm 79. By January of 2001, I had had some success in writing scout campout songs I liked. So, it only made sense to write a song about another campout I went on with Matt, as his Dad. Bill Hagen moved into Nottingham Country Ward a couple of years before Andrea and her kids moved to Houston, and moved out of the ward about the same time Andrea and I moved back to Utah. Bill had grown up in Maplewood II Ward, which is where my family went to church during our first 3 years in Houston, when we lived in Missouri City, and before we moved to Katy (with a Houston address). Bill and I knew a lot of the same people. Bill is a cattleman at heart. He had this ranch about an hour west of Katy, where he built a cabin about the same size as Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond. I had spent several years working with Anders Saustrup on my urban planning ideas. Anders was the key researcher behind Michener’s book “Texas.” Anders taught me a lot about Colorado County, Texas, where I was hoping to prototype the urban planning ideas Ray Gardner and I have spent decades developing. This song ties together many of these ideas: I-10 was Davy Crocket and Stephen F. Austin’s route. Borden was where dried milk was invented. A Colorado County rice farmer took communism to China, and is the only oriental man buried with honors on Red Square in Russia. This was a beginning scout skills camp for Matt, and so he learned about building fires, tinfoil dinners, orienteering, lashing, knots, and first aid. Again, as I sing the words, I find myself reliving the experience. Good times. Fun times. Good friends. Bill Hagen became one of Matt’s mentors and friends.
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