I wondered why Claire was smiling as she looked through our e-mail. She laughed and explained that a friend of ours, an academic official at a Christian university where I had once taught a couple of courses, was asking for individuals to describe any experiences they had with the Boy Scouts. She turned and asked me, “Do you dare tell him yours?”
I started laughing too because in my oh-so-brief tenure as a Scout, two disasters stand out quite vividly. Now, be assured that I do not lay any blame for these fiascoes at the feet of my Scoutmasters — they were, as they had pledged to be, eminently trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent fellows. But then again, there are limits to what even the best mentors can accomplish when forced to work with real numskulls.
My first memorable moment came when my troop went up into the Colorado mountains to learn some outdoorsman skills, play a wide-ranging game of “Capture the Flag”, and cook our own dinner. We were also supposed to fill our canteens from the stream at the foot of the hill for our evening’s repast. Always on the lookout for an unconventional way of getting things done (especially if it was easier), I opted to open the spigot on a water tank at the south end of the building. Cool…at least until I took a big swig of the stuff to wash down my baked potato only to discover that I had filled my canteen with gasoline! I thought I was gonna’ die. Well, I didn’t but I did smell like a refinery for a week. And my taste buds didn’t really get back to normal for a month. Yipes.
The other disaster happened, I think, on the very next outing we went on. My troop (#448 — why I remember that when I can’t remember the names of neighbors, teachers, or cousins, I’ll never know) visited a place we called Paradise Valley where we planned to spend a whole weekend camping out. I can’t remember clearly but I think our Troop had four or five different patrols and I was one of the members of the Panther Patrol. That group, it turned out, included the “rogues’ gallery” of our neighborhood. True, one of those Panthers would eventually spend a successful career in law enforcement, but I know all too well that at least three of us would spend some time on the other side of the law. It may well be that the disastrous weekend was but a foreshadowing of things to come.
First of all, the Panthers were denied their choice spot of a campsite because the Beaver Patrol (our troop’s elite corps, comprised of older and more serious Scouts) was given rights to the spot by our Scout leaders. Feeling wronged, we decided on a plan of revenge. That night we used our little shovels to dig a trench from the stream straight into the Beaver Patrol’s tent. After witnessing some pretty satisfying results (our only real success of the weekend), we were named as the culprits. Who else? We were scolded, shamed, properly punished, and warned that we had only one more chance. We agreed.
But, like I hinted earlier, there are some boneheads that just aren’t cut out for the Scouting life. We behaved ourselves pretty well the next day but Saturday evening spelled our doom. The initial problem was that they tried to teach us how to make a small barricade of logs that would reflect our campfire’s heat back into our tent. Neat idea, but ours burnt up. Three times.
Next, we got to fooling around a little while making dinner and somehow I managed to brand Jimmy D. with a hot wiener. Ouch! Of course, it really was an accident. Scout’s honor. After all, Jimmy lived across the street from me back in the city. Who cared that he used to wear a nylon hose over his head (weighted with a bar of soap in the toe, no less) in order to train his hair to lay down a bit? He was still my buddy. Anyhow, Jimmy played the good Scout about the whole business and didn’t rat me out. What’s a flaming hot dog between pals?
But the comedic complications of the camping trip weren’t quite over for the troubled Panther Patrol. That night, it rained. Hard and plenty. And while the other patrols stayed dry and warm, our guys did not. We thought we had done everything right, but it seems that we had not only pitched our camp on a slope, we hadn’t secured the tent close against the ground. Thus, when the water came down, it came under our tent and ran beneath the polyethylene sheets we had lain under our sleeping bags. Before we knew it, the water had carried two of us down to the creek as nicely as if we were playing on a Slip n’ Slide. Bob B. and I both woke up in the stream!
That was the last straw for our Scout leaders and, if I remember correctly, most of the Panther Patrol was dismissed from Scout duty — permanently. In fact, what I heard later may be true; namely, that our names and photos were distributed to the national B.S.A. with the warning, “Under no circumstances should a troop undertake to make Scouts out of these rascals. They are a serious danger, both to others and to themselves.”
But before you conclude that the Boy Scout lore and training I received in my short jaunt was wasted, let me finish my Scout memoirs with this important observation. Ever since that time, I have been careful to never, ever let go of a sharp object (like a hatchet) until the person I’m handing it to tells me “Thank you” or gives some other acknowledgment that he does, in fact, have control of the object. It was my mentors from Troop 448 that stressed that helpful bit of advice and I’m pleased to say that I still have all ten toes.
The moral of the story? Even numskulls can learn a thing or two.
And about that letter to the Christian university official? Well, I sent it, telling him these same stories. But whether or not he ever used my testimony, (bless his heart) he was just too polite to say.