"Doing Without"

(from the Great Mound 'o Paper in the office room:)

Part of the great times spent as a Scoutmaster is having to work with some
really *smart Scouts*. As their new Scoutmaster, I asked them in 1984 when
I took over my "home Troop", Troop 225, what ten things would they "do
without". I got a long list, which included the names of siblings
(mostly girls), school, AFN (American Forces Network, which provides radio
and television to Americans living in Europe, and which isn't really as
great as American television or radio back home), and some other thoughtful
things like "English", gasoline, "the RB PX" (the Robinson Barracks Post
Exchange was at that time the largest Post Exchange in Europe....four
stories and a basement!), "snacks" and some other things.

To narrow it down, I had them to work within their patrols to come up with
one thing that they would agree to "do without" and that the Patrol Leader
would have to bring that one thing (and a "tie-breaker" in case some other
patrol came up with theirs before we got to them) to the Patrol Leaders'
Council (PLC) meeting.

At the PLC meeting, the list was gathered, and a coin toss by the Senior
Patrol Leader determined which ones gets discussed about first, second,
third and last at the Troop meeting.

That list was: cars, yelling, change, and chocolate.

During the Troop meeting, we would spend thirty minutes within "Patrol
Corners" talking about how we would "do without" the items. The Patrols
would then come to the "forum" (the last thirty minutes of the meeting),
whereby we would come up with "strageties for doing without" the item. We
showed "western movies" to round up the rest of the meeting. Each
Scout/Scouter would be "on their honor" to try their best to "do without"
the item we talked about and to be ready to share with the rest of us how
hard or easy it was to "do without" that item.

Good thing my unit didn't go "on alert" during that week I did without my
car; I handed my keys to my wife and asked her to keep the car all week from
me. I walked as I did when I was younger to work (2km both ways) and
resisted the urge to get rides, even when my own soldiers would pull over
and ask me if I needed one. Hard to explain "I'm doing this as part of my
Scout troop" to them, especially when it was COLD outside and nice and WARM
inside their vehicles!

Chocolate was the hardest for me to do without, as it was for a lot of
Scouts in my Troop. I love chocolate, and enjoy eating a Hershey's bar with
almonds with my coffee at lunchtime. There were a lot of things that came
out from the Troop's experiences in "doing without". A couple of my Scouts
related it to their religious upbringing, which created a different
direction of discussion one week in which I kinda ended it by inviting in
our Rabbi and a Chaplain to explain better than I could the ideas of fasting
and how it related to religious life.

(funny how some Scouting things just move right on over to our religious
lives, huh??)

The biggest thing that they learned was that they actually "could do it if
they really had to do it". A lot of my Scouts' families would call me up
and ask me (especially while we were "doing without" cars and yelling) and
ask me "what my son says was true", and that he's not supposed to holler or
ride with me in a car". They would try to participate as well, with some
families telling me that "it's easier for the kid in Scouts than it was for
us and the other children not in Scouts" to "do without".

The Scouts enjoyed it, and after thinking about it, I did too. We make it a
"rule" that we can't do the same Troop program thing for a year. So, in
1986, they chose to "do that "doing without thing" again, and we chose
"cokes" (the adults had to do without coffee), gasoline, food, TV, and
"music". They wanted to "do without school", but I said that it was along
the lines of water: you HAVE to go to school and you HAVE to have and use
water (be some smelly Scouts without it!)!!

I wasn't with the Troop when they did the "do without" month in September,
but I did hear from the new Scoutmaster (my first assistant SM) who told me
that "doing without gasoline was ROUGH on me...." (he had to take the train
and walk to his military post in Stuttgart for a week) but they really had
fun with the "week without music".....

We gained fifteen new Scouts during the month, and they got to watch "war
movies" to round out that first month of the new program year.

Ask your Patrol Leaders' Council what they think of "doing without" and
seeing if you can incorporate this into one month of your Troop's program.
I don't recommend doing this every month, because the "novelity" of doing
this will wear off quickly; and don't offer any kind of "prize" for the
Scout or Patrol that has "done without" for the longest period of time.

Let the idea of "Scouts' Honor" and "doing without" work withing their lives
and soon, you'll hear things like:

"You really don't need that coffee, Mike....remember, you done without it a
while back...."

"Cars?? What happened before we all had cars??"

"What would happen if you woke up and all of the telephones were removed and
those left you had to use only in an true emergency?"

Settummanque!

(c) 1997 Mike Walton ("no such thing as strong coffee,...") (502) 827-9201
(settummanque, the blackeagle) http://dynasty.net/users/blkeagle
241 Fairview Dr., Henderson, KY 42420-4339 blkeagle@dynasty.net
kyblkeagle@aol.com or waltonm@hq.21taacom.army.mil
---- FORWARD in service to youth ----

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