Another Scoutmaster Minute - Building Bridges
Dewitte A. Baisch (dbaisch@DATASYS.NET)
Thu, 11 Feb 1999 23:52:32 -0500
Howdy, Scouts-L gang!
Since using John Wayne's "What the Scout Law Means to Me" recently
during my Scoutmaster Minute, I've begun noticing terrific "Minute"
material all over the place. A local special correspondent to our
Mailbox Post (a weekly news/advertisement paper), Johnny B. Lastinger,
last week wrote an article entitled "My Dad Built A Bridge For Me." It
contained two Minute-like items: a prayer his father wrote and gave to
him when he was 21 and a poem. The poem was "Building Bridges." Johnny
didn't cite the author of the poem, but if the following looks familiar
(it does to me because I know I've heard it somewhere but those darn
brain cells of mine are on strike at the moment) AND you know who the
author is, I sure would appreciate a reply.
Building Bridges
An old man traveling a long highway came at evening, cold and gray,
To a chasm deep and wide,
the old man crossed in thew twilight dim,
the sullen stream had no fear for him,
but he turned when he reached the other side
and builded a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man," cried a fellow pilgrim near,
"you are wasting your strength with your building here."
"You never again will pass this way,
your journey will end with the ending day,
you have crossed the chasm deep and wide,
why build a bridge at eventide?"
The builder raised his old gray head,
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said.
"There followeth after me today ayouth whose feet must pass this way,
this stream that has mean naught to me
may to that fair-haired boy a pitfall be.
"He, too, must cross in the twilight dim,
good friend, I am building this bridge for him."
-author?????
You know, a compilation of a few hundred moving and/or thought-provoking
Scoutmaster Minutes sure would make a great book! Hmmm....
Yours in Scouting,
Dewitte A. Baisch (Sandy)
Scoutmaster, Troop 411, Circle 7 District, Alapaha Area Council,
Valdosta, Georgia
"...if it ain't raining, we ain't camping!"
