An American Youth -Part 13

A letter to my sons

Boy Scout Handbook as it appeared in my day-amazon.com

I am an American who lived and worked in Bahrain for twenty-five years and both of my sons were born there. I sent the eldest to boarding school in the UK when he was eleven. The younger spent two years in Edinburgh from twelve to fourteen and then was back in Bahrain until he left for Los Angeles when he was sixteen. Since neither of them grew up in the United States I wrote them this extended letter so they might have some idea as to what it was like to grow up in the US.

At this point I’d like to digress and cover an experience that lasted over several years: The Boy Scouts. The Boy Scouts is one of the world’s greatest organizations for youngsters. I thoroughly loved it and I’ve always felt it was a great shame that you boys were never able to participate and enjoy everything that Scouting has to offer.

I joined the Scouts at 11 and was involved with them until I was 16. I was fortunate to get to go to Philmont, the 100,000 plus acre scout ranch in New Mexico twice. Philmont is one of the most fantastic places on earth and I’ll describe it in detail later on.

A bunch of us kids from College Park joined the Scouts at the same time. We were members of troop 228 based out of the Episcopal Church in College Park. Wayne, Andy, Dan Mcleod and the rest of us formed a new patrol called the Wolverines.

Our troop badge-property of author

To a large extent the experience that one has in the Scouts is dependent on who is the Scoutmaster. In my first year in the Scouts, we had a somewhat quaint old fellow named Mr. Bemis. He always showed up in full uniform and wore a Smokey Bear hat. He always had a pipe in his mouth and had a bushy mustache. He looked a bit like Baden Powell himself and seemed to have stepped straight out of the first decade of the 20th century. None of us really warmed to him but he got us through the basics.

One of the things you had to do to make Tenderfoot was to cook for your patrol. I chose pork chops which is not really the best kind of meat to cook over an open wood fire. The grease in the pan went up in flames spectacularly and the chops were done in no time. They tasted great, however, and everybody loved them. I was known for a long time thereafter as the ‘Pork Chop Kid’.

I loved camping and the trips that were organized for us. I vividly remember one of the first trips we went on where the adults that accompanied us really organized a great evening. We were camping somewhere down in Virginia and after dark they took us on a snipe hunt. We were out in some rural area and came upon an old abandoned wood frame house. The house had one of those storm cellars with the double doors close to the ground.

The adults debated whether they should check the house out to see if there was anything of interest in it. Finally one of them went in and we could see his flashlight moving around inside the house. It was all very spooky standing there in the overgrown grass outside the house while the flashlight beam bobbled around the windows casting weird shadows.

Suddenly there was a scream from inside the house and a minute later the fellow came stumbling up the cellar stairs with his hand and forearm covered in a dark liquid. We nearly fainted. It was all a set up. They had planned it in advance, scoped out the house planted the stage blood and did it all to give us a good fright. We were all thrilled and went to bed very satisfied that night.

I loved the variety of activities we had. We went canoeing on the C&O canal, hiking on the Appalachian train and camping in various parks. We hiked the Lincoln trail which was a big deal as it was about 12 miles in one day starting somewhere in Maryland and ending at Ford’s Theatre. You got a medal for doing it which we all wore proudly.

Someone’s father had a piece of land with some woods on it somewhere near Ft. Meade which was dubbed Camp Cronin. We had a campout there once a month. I loved Camp Cronin and went as often as possible.

Each patrol had its own designated campsite to which we made various improvements. There was also a central assembly area with a campfire pit and benches we had built out of logs. Besides activities geared towards advancing your rank we had various games such as capture the flag. The best one was a night battle using flour bombs, a handful of flour tied up in a paper napkin. The troop was divided into two teams and would fight it out in the woods in the dark. It was great fun, sort of an early low tech version of paintball.

At the evening campfire we put on skits. These were fairly lame and were along the lines of the following:

Napoleon is standing with his staff. A wounded general stumbles in from the right and says, “Mon Emperor they’ve wiped out the right flank” and falls dead at Napoleon’s feet. Another general comes in from the left and says, “Mon Emperor they’ve wiped out the left flank.”. Finally, a fellow comes running through the assembly area covered in toilet paper “Mon Emperor, they’ve wiped up the rear” Very droll. There were others. I won’t repeat them.

One weekend we had a survival campout. We had to build lean to’s out of saplings tied together with vines to sleep in. It rained all weekend. We were thoroughly soaked, hungry and exhausted. I slept in 3 inches of water. People slept through their night watches and the fire went out. It was horrible, but still fun in a way. It made us feel tough.

Sassafras-alchetron.com

Another favorite pastime on those campouts was making Sassafras tea. We’d dig the plants which were abundant in the woods and brew up tea from them. It was a diuretic and made you piss a lot but we enjoyed the whole process and the taste of the tea.

I also loved the Boy Scout handbook and poured through it from time to time. We found the section on masturbation particularly amusing. I believe they’ve updated it since those days.

There’s one final incident that I’d like to mention as I’m still tickled by it. At one of our patrol meetings, we were in the basement of someone’s house which had quite a low ceiling. I challenged Wayne to a contest to see who could jump and touch the ceiling with their head. I was about 3–4 inches taller than Wayne but I knew he was so competitive he’d go all out to win. I made a few lame jumps and sure enough, as I surmised, Wayne made an almighty effort and cracked his head on the ceiling. It hurt but he was delighted to have beaten me.

… To Be Continued

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Glenn M Stewart

Pugilist, polemicist, Oxford Arabist, financial mastermind, international man of mystery, film producer, playwright, part-time-poet, full-time provocateur…