Rough Edges

What happens when the guy who runs the kids camp for the city has a past?

John Barry: ST. PETERSBURG - "Mr. Lynn" is a 5-foot-7, 215-pound square of muscle with a graying ponytail that falls out of a feather-festooned leather cap. He has thick, gnarly hands from sawing, snapping and slicing wood and steel. A strip of flint for starting campfires hangs from his belt.

He runs Pioneer Camp for the city of St. Petersburg. He teaches kids as young as 7 how to build shelters, to make fire by rubbing sticks, to cook with a dutch oven. He even shows them how to blacksmith, how to make steel tools, and how to turn their soda cans into molten aluminum.

Every day Mr. Lynn sends them home, dirty, soaking wet and exhilarated. He is the most powerful, capable man most of the kids have ever seen.

Lynn Marshall had 17 arrests between 1972 and 2005. He has done jail time. He says he has been clean and sober for eight months.

Every time he starts believing he's the powerful Mr. Lynn, he finds out that he's the weakest one at Pioneer Camp.