Hello. This is Nate FitzSimons, here at the National Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. Here at Jamboree, the temperature stands at a cool 103 degrees in the sun and the population stands at 45,000 people.

The first thing you all need to know about Jamboree is that it is BIG. Really, really big. It is so utterly huge that AT&T created enormous cell towers to keep phones operating in case of emergency.

The cool part is that Jamboree is also enormous in a figurative sense. There is the sheer numbers of Scouts attending, and then there is how Jamboree seems to bring out the full extent of Boy Scout spirit in any boy who is exposed to it. There is the enormous radio tower that broadcasts information and music all day long on 102.9 FM, and then there is how it is all produced, performed, and broadcast by Scouts for fun. There are the roads and then there are the courteous bus drivers who help Scouts get from place to place in their yellow chariots.

There are so many things that exemplify the Scout oath and law at Jamboree that it is hard to choose just one.

Patch trading! Now there is a Scout activity. Patch trading has been a wonderful way to meet people at the Jamboree and an enjoyable activity. People from completely different backgrounds, absolutely different places, entirely different worlds all seem to lose their boundaries when they have a couple of patches in their pocket.

For example, as I was hiking over to the Hometown News Tent I ran into around 20 Scouts showing their wares on the sides of roads with five to 10 other Scouts crowding around offering up their patches as bargaining tender for the rare patches. There are patches from all around the world in circulation at the jamboree, from Alaska to India to jolly old England.

Jamboree has been amazingly awesome so far, despite heat and distance between things saying differently. As I sit here, however, I am missing activities, and what is life meant for but to live it up. As much as I miss Pop Tarts, sleeping late and the good old air conditioning in my house, I still feel that this is a once-in-a-lifetime activity and am enjoying my time as a Hometown News Reporter for Chapel Hill.

So to all you people at home, I say one thing: You jealous yet?

Nate FitzSimons is a Life Scout of Troop 39 in Chapel Hill and Jamboree Troop 1721. He is attending the Boy Scouts of America National Jamboree in Fort A.P. Hill this week. Everything he says is true and only slightly exaggerated.