fgoodwin

What Nick said . . .

TAKE A HIKE http://familyfun.go.com/family-travel/places/feature/famf0804hikes/famf0804hikes.html http://tinyurl.com/nfdbn by Alan Kesselheim Adventure has always been a priority for my wife, Marypat, and me. So when we decided to have children, we promised each other to do all we could to make the great outdoors part of the family equation. To our delight, not only have our kids--Ruby, age nine, Sawyer, 11, and Eli, 13--embraced our passion for exploring, but seeing nature from their perspective has deepened our appreciation of it. On the following pages, you'll find a variety of trail-tested strategies we've adopted to keep hiking a favorite pastime in our family. Whether you're a household of first-timers or seasoned outdoor enthusiasts, these ideas can serve you as faithfully as a favorite pair of hiking boots. BEFORE THE HIKE: Pick the Right Place First things first: if you want to introduce your kids to the wonders of the woods, the most important step is finding an appropriate location--one that won't intimidate the young and inexperienced but also won't bore the veterans. Here's how to begin your exploration. Start small. You don't have to head to the Grand Canyon to have a fun, memorable hike. There are often dozens of exciting, lesser-known hikes within an hour of home. Have the kids research interesting destinations. The more involved they are in the decision making, the more stake they have in seeing the hike succeed. Look for places with built-in diversions such as boulders to scramble over, tide pools to explore, and streams to play in. Choose areas that offer a variety of options, from short, easy walks to more strenuous hikes, so you can do what works best for the day and for the group's energy level. Contact the local chamber of commerce, convention and visitors' centers, or regional tourism office for maps and brochures of trails and parks. Get in touch with the administrative offices of federal or state land managers. The USDA Forest Service (http://www.fs.fed.us), the Bureau of Land Management (http://www.blm.gov), and the National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov) all offer a wealth of maps, access tips, and resources. Visit your local recreation-oriented stores. They usually carry maps and guidebooks and often employ people who are very knowledgeable about outdoor options. SETTING OUT: Prepare at the Trailhead After all the planning, it may be tempting to hop right out of the car and start down the path. But a few minutes spent stretching, establishing ground rules, and setting the tone for the day will definitely pay off. First, loosen up with some basic stretches. Add some fun by having the kids lead the group or having each person suggest a stretch. Next, if you have a map or if there's one at the trailhead, look it over with everyone to discuss the length of the hike and points of interest along the way. Last but not least, go over the basics of hiking and hiking etiquette, including: Stay on the trail. There's no such thing as a shortcut, especially in unfamiliar territory. Pack it in, pack it out (meaning don't litter)! Be courteous to other hikers and allow plenty of room for people to pass you. Identify natural hazards such as poison ivy, ticks, and rough terrain, and always alert your fellow hikers if any of these come to your attention along the way. Drink small amounts of water frequently. Pay attention to discomfort. It's better to stop and adjust clothing or look at and put moleskin on a sore spot that might become a blister than to endure and pay the price later. Find a comfortable pace, even if it seems slow. If you're breathing too hard to talk as you walk, you're going too fast. Take only pictures. Most parks and trails prohibit taking any token of nature home in your backpack, so do the next best thing and photograph it. Don't worry about getting there and enjoy where you are! ON THE TRAIL Make the Hike Fun For some hikers, exploring nature is rewarding enough, but others need a bit more than an interesting bird or a picturesque stream to stay excited and motivated. Here are some of our favorite trail games. Follow the leader: Give each kid an opportunity to take the lead, including setting the pace, scheduling stops and water breaks, and investigating things along the way. Wildlife watch: Encourage everyone to notice interesting plants and animals and keep a group checklist. Award treats for noteworthy sightings. Treasure hike: Have kids take turns hiding an object along the trail for everyone else to look for. Sing-alongs: Sing rounds, especially ones that call for fun choreography, such as "The Hokey Pokey," or play name that tune. Storytelling: Tell a progressive story that passes from hiker to hiker. Water races: Hold stick or leaf races each time you come to a stream or river. Guessing games: Have each person predict how many trail markers you'll see, how many hikers you'll pass along the trail, or how many steps it takes to get from one spot to another. Take Breaks Establish a schedule for stopping along the way for short breaks, maybe every 20 minutes or so, or at a series of predetermined landmarks--the first stream crossing, when we get to the lake, at the top of the hill. That way kids have doable goals to shoot for and less of a tendency to ask for stops. When you do stop, take stock of how everyone is feeling. Feet okay? Need more sunscreen? Drinking plenty of water? Encourage everyone to adjust clothing to stay comfortable. Try to have a final destination where you can stop to enjoy the view. It might be the top of a mountain peak, a lakeside beach, a waterfall, or a picnic area along a rail trail. Wherever it is, celebrate the achievement by dropping your packs, taking a group photo, and having something to eat. This is also a perfect time to revisit all the things you've seen and moments that you'll want to remember. Ask everyone to contribute their favorite sights so far and encourage kids to record these things in their notebooks or journals. AFTER THE HIKE Finish the Journey Back at the trailhead, take the time to unwind, stretch, cool down, and get comfortable. Change your clothes and footwear--my kids slip on their flip-flops--and have a refreshing snack. Before the hike, try stowing a small watermelon in a cooler in the car, keeping it cold with frozen water bottles. When you return, the bottles will be full of ice water, and the watermelon will be frosty and delicious. Record the Experience Before the hike fades from memory, encourage these family activities to preserve your adventure, and perhaps even inspire the next trip. Challenge kids to draw a map of the hike, complete with highlights and landmarks. This will give them a visual memory of the trip while introducing map concepts. Make a trip collage by using a highlighter to trace your route on a trail map and then attaching pictures, drawings, and leaf or bark rubbings to it. Have each child hunt for a hiking stick, then, when you get home, put the date and location of the hike on the stick with paint or a permanent marker. As a family, brainstorm ideas for the next adventure. Keep your list in an accessible place, such as on the refrigerator, so everyone can add to it as inspiration hits. SUCCESS STRATEGIES 1: Make It a Group Event Whenever possible, we invite another family, relatives, or school friends along on our hikes. Over the years, we've discovered that we all get along better, with less bickering, when others are around. 2: Don't Rush the Hike We strive to savor the moment and focus on what's around us rather than simply pass through on our way to a goal. My wife and I set an example by pointing out birds or flowers and stopping at interesting rock formations to encourage a leisurely style of hiking. Most importantly, we let the kids explore, even if it means not reaching the goal we had in mind. 3: Look for "Problems" On one of our family hikes, when the kids were dragging and "When will we be there?" had become a mantra, we stumbled on an idea that made the hike more fun. We came to a little dry waterfall that we had to climb around, and I said, "Uh-oh, guys, looks like we have a problem!" Immediately the kids took on the challenge, tackled the obstacle in no time, and dashed off to find the next "problem." Pretty soon there were problems everywhere. The kids were finding logs to balance across and going out of their way to find the most difficult route to overcome. All the tiredness and boredom they had been feeling evaporated. 4: Start a Family Trip Journal We keep journals devoted entirely to our outdoor adventures. After each outing, we make an entry by writing a description of our trip and pasting photos, maps, and drawings to the pages. Periodically, the kids pull out the journals and page through them to reflect upon their accomplishments. THE FAMILY PACKING CHECKLISTS Clothing Sneakers or boots that have been broken in but are sturdy enough to provide support An extra pair of clean, dry socks Layers of loose-fitting, light-weight clothing (synthetics such as fleece dry much faster than cotton) A brimmed hat A light pack (one per family should stash all essentials for a day hike) A small hydration pack or a water bottle with a strap for each older child and adult Food At least 1 quart of water or sports drink per person for a day hike Trail mix (buy ingredients from the bulk bins at the local health food store and let the kids make their own combos) Candy or other treats to ration out along the trail Jerky and energy bars (both are good, compact sources of protein) Items that pack well and won't be crushed in a backpack (that is, apples, not potato chips) Equipment Sunscreen and bug repellent A compass and a map A pair of binoculars for wildlife watching Disposable cameras and notebooks for documenting your adventure Basic first-aid supplies for day hikes: a handful of bandages, moleskin to prevent blisters, and antibacterial ointment A magnifying lens for close observation of flowers, rocks, or bugs An area guidebook Toilet paper or tissues Plastic bag for trash

Why kids should branch out and build tree houses http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2003066741_faull17.html http://tinyurl.com/o8vwa By Jan Faull Special to The Seattle Times Saturday, June 17, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM Did you build a tree house when you were a kid? While your home in the branches probably wasn't an architectural wonder, you probably had a memorable time planning, acquiring the materials and building it. You likely felt competent and in control, making adjustments as the structure progressed. Kids are driven to take on such a project because it somehow satisfies their need to utilize their growing developmental skills. They're able to try building a structure they've fantasized about living in or at least sleeping in on a warm summer night. While doing so, they imagine whether they'd be lonely or brave. They also challenge themselves physically by carrying and hoisting boards to the tree limbs and then pounding in nails to secure the structure. The social challenge of the process likely provides the most benefit. Kids face the challenges of problem-solving, negotiating, compromising and making decisions without adult guidance. They're left to pick a leader while calling on and using each other's emerging expertise. Deep friendships usually form along with the project. Kids between 8 and 10 years old begin the process of separating from parents. Some do so with a sign on their bedroom door that reads, "Keep Out." Others form secret clubs. Many yearn to take on the challenge of building a camp in the woods or a tree house in the backyard. Will your kids have the opportunity for such an adventure? One mom said she had built a tree house with her sister, but she would not support her children's interest in building such a structure, because she's afraid they'd fall or pound a nail in a finger. Other parents might fear that unsupervised youth building a tree house in the woods might attract adults that would do them harm. Today, parents might hope for a summer day camp where the kids are commissioned to build a tree house with the plans, supplies and organization provided by camp counselors who would oversee the project. Such an experience, although possibly valuable on one level, would be absurd on another. What kids this age truly seek is the freedom to tackle such projects on their own, whether they finish them, serve a purpose or look respectable. If you question the value of time spent building a free-form tree house, consider that the builders have the opportunity to learn about lumber, the importance of bracing the structure, hinges, nails, screws, ladders, pulleys, framing for windows and doors, sloping the roof to shed rain, the strength of materials, how to use a handsaw, the importance of measurement and how body size relates to the tree and the house it sits in. Even if the structure is only a few slabs of lumber hammered into a tree where the builders take their lunch and view the neighborhood from this perspective, it's still a gratifying memorable experience. If you'd like your children to have a tree-house building experience outside your backyard, but worry about predators, go with them to keep an eye on lurkers in the woods. If you provide such protection, take a book to read, and resist the tendency to take over the project. Building a tree house by adult standards rather than kids' is far less meaningful to the young builders. With kids today spending so much time hooked up to technology, parents need to take on the challenge of endorsing opportunities for safe adventures in natural settings. If you question the need of kids to do so, read Richard Louv's book "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder" ($13.95, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill). Jan Faull, a specialist in child development and behavior, answers questions of general interest in her column. You can e-mail her at janfaull@aol.com or write to: Jan Faull, c/o Families, The Seattle Times, P.O. Box 70, Seattle, WA 98111. More columns at http://www.seattletimes.com/columnists

Summer Over but Kids Still Need Time Outdoors http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/522009/ Source: National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Released: Wed 19-Jul-2006, 12:00 ET Newswise Summertime often provides a reprieve for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but now that school is starting up, the usual parental concerns are at the forefront again. Can my child stay focused enough to keep up with his class work? Will he get the extra attention he needs in the classroom to keep him on task? There are now 2.5 million children using ADHD medications to reduce symptoms, but there may be a greener part of the solution. Researchers at the University of Illinois have found that exposure to ordinary natural settings, like those experienced more of during summertime, may be widely effective in reducing attention deficit symptoms in children. Researchers Frances Kuo and Andrea Faber Taylor recommend that children with ADHD spend some quality after-school hours and weekend time outdoors enjoying nature. And its not just kids with ADHD that can benefit from a green hour. Todays kids are indoors more than any previous generation. Computer time, video games and TV, taking up an average of six hours of a childs day according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, have replaced time spent running through backyards, front yards, tree-line streets, biking around the neighborhood, and playing in local parks or wooded areas. Research says that people get attached to nature by spending time in nature, says Kevin Coyle, Vice President of Education for the National Wildlife Federation. If we dont get kids out more, how are they going to experience the wonders of Mother Nature? Author Rich Louv, who coined the phrase nature deficit disorder agrees, saying the sense of wonder and awe that nature inspires in all of us just cant be replicated by playing Grand Theft Auto. He also believes that the ravine behind the house or little wooded area at the end of the cul-de-sac can be just as effective as taking your child to Yosemite. An organization called Playing for Keeps has assembled some particularly troubling data: Unstructured outdoor activities declined by 50 percent compared to the previous generation. More than 80 percent of children under age 2 and more than 60 percent ages 2-5 do not have access to daily outdoor play. The average American home with a toddler has the TV on six hours a day. The average 2-year-old spends more than four hours a day in front of a TV or computer screen. One in six 2-year-olds has a TV in his or her bedroom. Some researches refer to this phenomenon of people preferring sedentary, electronically-based activities to more active pursuits videophilia, a new spin on the old couch potato. Children who fish, camp and spend time in the wild before age 11 are also much more likely to grow up to be environmentally-minded and committed as adults. Researchers at Cornell University sampled more than 2,000 adults, ages 18-90, about their early childhood nature experiences and their current adult attitudes and behaviors related to the environment. They concluded that participating in wild nature activities before age 11 is a particularly potent pathway toward shaping both environmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood. When children become truly engaged with the natural world at a young age, the experience is likely to stay with them in a powerful way shaping their subsequent environmental path. With the serious environmental threats facing our nation, from habitat loss, to the dangerous impacts of global warming, creating the next generation of conservation stewards is ever more important. All this research points in one direction. Even though the demands of the school year are back in play, children need to get outside for a green hour every day, especially children with ADHD. The result is happier, healthier kids whose creativity and imagination will soar, and a generation of adults who will care for the planet. Check out the National Wildlife Federations web site for Green Hour ideas, http://www.nwf.org/greenhour. The National Wildlife Federation is Americas conservation organization protecting wildlife for our childrens future.

Interestingly, participating in scouts or other forms of environmental education programs had no effect on adult attitudes toward the environment.Ouch!

Camping, hiking and fishing in the wild as a child breeds respect for environment in adults, study finds http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/March06/wild.nature.play.ssl.html http://tinyurl.com/ljnj3 By Susan S. Lang March 13, 2006 If you want your children to grow up to actively care about the environment, give them plenty of time to play in the "wild" before they're 11 years old, suggests a new Cornell University study. "Although domesticated nature activities -- caring for plants and gardens -- also have a positive relationship to adult environment attitudes, their effects aren't as strong as participating in such wild nature activities as camping, playing in the woods, hiking, walking, fishing and hunting," said environmental psychologist Nancy Wells, assistant professor of design and environmental analysis in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell. Wells and Kristi Lekies, a research associate in human development at Cornell, analyzed data from a U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service survey conducted in 1998 that explored childhood nature experiences and adult environmentalism. The Cornell researchers used a sample of more than 2,000 adults, ages 18 to 90, who were living in urban areas throughout the country and answered telephone questions about their early childhood nature experiences and their current adult attitudes and behaviors relating to the environment. The findings will be published in the next issue of Children, Youth and Environment (Vol. 16:1). "Our study indicates that participating in wild nature activities before age 11 is a particularly potent pathway toward shaping both environmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood," said Wells, whose previous studies have found that nature around a home can help protect children against life stress and boost children's cognitive functioning. "When children become truly engaged with the natural world at a young age, the experience is likely to stay with them in a powerful way -- shaping their subsequent environmental path," she added. Interestingly, participating in scouts or other forms of environmental education programs had no effect on adult attitudes toward the environment. "Participating in nature-related activities that are mandatory evidently do not have the same effects as free play in nature, which don't have demands or distractions posed by others and may be particularly critical in influencing long-term environmentalism," Wells said. Unlike previous studies that have looked at the effect of childhood experiences of adult environmentalists, this study looked at a broad representative sample of urban adults. By examining individuals' pathways to environmentalism, the study also took a "life course" perspective, that is, a view that looks at individual lives as sets of interwoven pathways or trajectories that together tell a story. The study was supported by the Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center and College of Human Ecology, both at Cornell.

Trackers test new rescue technology http://www.heraldextra.com/content/view/185472/ KATIE SCHMITT - Daily Herald Saturday, July 08, 2006 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Keith Reber, a wilderness tracker, was hunting last fall when his 15-year-old son, James, got lost tracking deer. On Friday, James got "lost" again in Hobble Creek Canyon to help test a new tracking system. Three Boy Scouts and a leader from Troop #215 in Springville got "lost" like many other Utah Scouts, but this time they were equipped with a new belt containing a transmitter that emits a signal using radio telemetry. Reber said when most people go missing, an approximate location is known but the belts narrow the search even farther. "If you find the signal, you'll find the boy," Reber said. Flying over the Scouts' position several times, a plane equipped with a receiver was able to triangulate where the boys' approximate location was. The coordinates were radioed down to a team who then drove as close to the site as possible. The Scouts were then tracked on foot with a hand receiver. James said having the transmitter assures people that if they stay in one place, they will be found. "When you get lost, you kind of freak out and you don't want everyone to worry about you so you try to find your own way back," he said. Garrett Bardsley, a Boy Scout from Elk Ridge, was one who couldn't find his way back. He went missing in August 2004 in the Uinta Mountains when he, his father, Kevin, and several other boys and their fathers went camping. He was 12 and was never found despite a massive manhunt. When Brennan Hawkins, a Cub Scout from Bountiful, went missing in June 2005, it took search and rescue teams three days to find him. "We'd like to find them a lot faster than that," said John Gailey, spokesman for the Boy Scouts' Utah National Park Council in Orem. With the new belts, the Scouts from Troop #215 were found in about an hour after they went "missing" thanks to the signal from the transmitter that can be picked up from a 30-mile radius. Hiding from the sun, the volunteer Scouts were found Friday in a patch of shade, each with their own brightly colored belt. Each belt has a unique frequency to make tracking individual hikers or Scouts easier. "The whole troop would get a belt because if one walks away, he's the one who needs it," Gailey said. The transmitters were originally used to track falcons and were made extremely durable. "They could be stepped on, run over with a car or dropped and they would still work fine," Reber said. The transmitter is put inside a water resistant tube in the water resistant belt and it comes with a battery that lasts two months with constant use. The technology was first used in World War II and may not cost as much as newer technology, but Reber said the receiver could still cost as much as $995 and each transmitter as much as $135. They will be available for rent at a much lower cost. Sgt. Tom Hodgson, of the search and rescue division for the Utah County Sheriff's Office, said the cost wasn't the only concern. "There is still a human element involved," Hodgson said. "Those who are given the device have to make sure they wear it." Despite the potential that an individual could lose or just not wear the transmitter, Hodgson said he sees a place for the system in Utah County. "I think it has some potential to assist in search and rescue," he said. "It helped having the airplane, and having that tracker will speed things up exponentially." Gailey said he hopes to outfit all search and rescue teams in Utah with the technology. When they become available in Utah County by the middle of the month, they can be obtained at the Scout office in Orem, Gailey said. This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.

From a posting on rec.scouting.usa: From: Geoffrey Mitchell Date: Mon, Jul 17 2006 10:08 am Email: Geoffrey Mitchell geoffrey.mitchell@berkshirescouts.org.uk Groups: rec.scouting.usa I know that we are all thinking about 2006 and then 2007 ..... but why not plan a little further ahead and signup for WINGS2009 it will soon be less than three years to go. WINGS2009 provides a complete international experience with seven days of adventure, challenge and fun with opportunities to work with others from across the world and build new and lasting friendships. Check out the website at http://www.wings2009.org.uk and sign up your interest as a Unit/Troop or as a staff member. Over 60 units have done so already and over 150 staff. WINGS2009 is an international experience for Guides and Scouts from all around the world. It will be held in the Royal County of Berkshire in the UK for a week starting 1 August 2009. All who attend will have fun, be challenged, have adventures and make new friendships that will last. There will be a full programme for all from 10 to 25 years old as well as Adult Leaders. WINGS2009 will have all the great favourites from WINGS2003, WINGS'98 and WINGS'93 and some spectacular new ideas to match the start of the second hundred years of Scouting and Guiding. In 2003 25% of the participants came from outside the UK so it was a truly international experience for the 4000+ who were there. Have a great summer where ever you are The WINGS2009 Team

FB: there's always the "Ignore" / "Squelch" option for those who don't care to read what I post.

Take a Hike, Kid Bears, sharks, and strangers -- oh my! How kids are taught to fear the outdoors By Rachel Anderson, Utne.com July 20, 2006 Issue Kids say the darnedest things. "I like to play indoors better 'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are," one fifth-grader told Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder. Raise the age bracket and you might hear, as did one high school teacher querying his students on the environment: "If you go out [in nature], there has to be a parent because you can't protect yourself" or "The environment will die." Writing for Sierra, Louv cites these comments as evidence that now more than ever, children are being raised indoors, largely because the outside world is just too scary. With the constant message that the end of the natural world is coming in their lifetimes, many children have adopted an apocalyptic view of environmental issues, or "ecophobia." Says Karen Hurley, writing for Grist: "[T]he dominant, dystopic vision of the future is seen as more 'realistic' simply because it is talked about more, visualized more, and analyzed more." This flood of overwhelming information shuts kids off to the issues instead of engaging kids to care about them. It's not just the environmental doomsday that has kids frightened. Parents and caregivers are increasingly concerned about their children's safety. Even though abduction rates are falling, many parents are convinced that their children are in danger of being kidnapped. Nature's creatures are ending up on most wanted lists, too. Dave Anderson, writing for the New Hampshire newspaper Concord Monitor, suggests that media coverage sensationalizes wild animal attacks to the point that these rare occurrences seem like everyday hazards. "Dire warnings increasingly frighten parents and children to the point of keeping kids indoors, alienated from what is perceived as a wild, dangerous insect- and germ-infested 'great outdoors,'" says Andersen. No longer is it acceptable to send the kids out and expect them home at dinnertime, sun-tinged and covered in dirt, scrapes, and bruises. Parents' reactions to animals, insects, and nature, whether they "scream, wince, or smile," writes Anderson, can set the stage for children's perceptions of the natural world. "Yes, there are hazards outside the home," notes Louv. "But, in most cases, they pale in comparison to those of raising young people under what amounts to protective house arrest." Broken bones are less likely indoors, but repetitive stress-injuries (think videogames) are increasingly common. Childhood obesity is more rampant that ever. Conversely, fewer symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder are found among children who engage with nature. Studies also suggest that kids are more creative and cooperative when they play in a natural setting, as opposed to an asphalt playground. Not content to let fear win, parents and teachers are stepping up to get kids outdoors again. Nature-based preschools and public high schools have started opening within the last year. Parents also are trying to be role models for the kids. Says Hurley, kids just need to know "that there [are] adults making positive change toward a flourishing earth." The results will pay off as children feel more confident in the natural environment. "Experience lets children safely explore a world they will soon inherit," writes Anderson. Go there >> Leave No Child Inside: Go there, too >> Gotta Wear Shades: Why Don't You Go Outside and Play?: http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060625/REPOSITORY/606250321/1043/NEWS01 Related Link: Tuning in Call of the Wild:

Narraticong, welcome to the Forums!

Those are good suggestions, but like most of the BSA training, your suggestions concentrate on prevention, rather than what to do if actually lost. I agree that prevention is important, but the fact is, despite our best efforts, kids will get lost. All the preventive training in the world will never keep all Scouts from getting lost -- inevitably, a few Scouts will get lost every year. It sounds like this Scout was actually trained in what to do if lost, and he did the right things (stay put, blow on his whistle, etc.). BSA could do a much better job of emphasizing what to do if actually lost.

The Boys Scouts meet Ferrari (Part II) http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns17144.html JULY 15, 2006 A year ago the Boy Scouts of America in Paris took on a number of Formula 1 teams in a Pinewood Derby competition at Magny-Cours. Ferrari arrived with beautifully engineered cars, designed with CAD-CAM and only just managed to beat the best Boy Scout cars which featured coins for weight and other such advanced features. The competition was repeated this year with more teams getting involved, including a pretty challenger from MF1 Racing and a much-improved Toyota entry and two McLarens: one a simple block of wheels and the other being suitably sculpted (the block of wood was quicker). There was also a beautiful entry from Pink Floyd's Nick Mason who had sculpted a Maserati from his wooden block. But once again the Boy Scouts proved hard to beat and it was only a few centimetres that Ferrari Number 5 won the day from Boy Scout 2 (built by William Saward - son of Grandprix.com's Joe Saward and Amy Saward, the press officer of the French GP - and Boy Scout 1 (built by Christopher Kulmayer, the scout champion of Paris and the boy whose car ran Ferrari closest last year). In recognition of his achievements in the last two years Kulmayer was given the Ferrari spare car after the event was over, while Ferrari also swapped another car to get their hands on Mason's Maserati.

Tracking device helps find Scout http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,640194981,00.html He went missing during 50-mile hike in Uintas By Pat Reavy Deseret Morning News A 12-year-old Boy Scout from Riverton on a weeklong 50-mile hike in the High Uintas became separated and lost from his troop earlier this week. It's a story that has an all too familiar beginning. But unlike some of the previous tragedies that have happened in recent years, this story had a quick and happy ending thanks to the lessons learned from those past incidents. Nick Webb left Monday morning to go on the long hike. It's the sixth or seventh year the Scout troop had done the hike, and Webb's two older brothers had successfully completed it in years past, said Webb's mother, Angie Geigle. The group started on the High Line Trailhead. On Wednesday, as they were hiking to the next part of their destination, Webb became separated from the pack. He reached a part in the trail where the Scouts had to take a sharp right and then hike up a steep hill, his mother said. Webb missed the turnoff. "All of a sudden he realized he was by himself and hadn't seen anyone for a while," Geigle said. But rather than wander aimlessly and become even more lost, Webb stopped and used the tools he was given in case of such a scenario. He blew a whistle and screamed for the others. No one, however, heard him. At first, Geigle said her son became very panicked and started crying. But after saying a prayer, she said a peaceful feeling came over him. Webb stayed where he was, got out his sleeping bag, tried making a fire and prepared to stay as long as he needed. About 4:30 p.m. when the rest of the Scouts reached their destination for the evening, they conducted a head count and realized one boy was missing. Two of the four Scout leaders went out looking for Webb and knew right where to go because in addition to the whistle and sleeping bag, Webb was also carrying a tracking device, similar to what those in the sport of falconry use. The troop had checked out the tracking devices from the Great Salt Lake Council of the Boy Scouts of America specifically for this hike and given one to each Scout. It's the first year the troop had used the trackers. They were able to go back on the trail, and they were able to find Nick," Geigle said. "When they found him he was asleep in his sleeping bag." He was found about a half-mile off the main trail, Geigle said. Webb's experience had the potential to become the latest in a growing list of high-profile searches in recent years for missing juveniles in the High Uintas. In 2005, Brennan Hawkins, 11, was lost for four days last year in the East Fork area near the Bear River Boy Scouts Reservation in the Uinta Mountains before being found alive. Garrett Bardsley, 12, disappeared while camping with a church group in the High Uintas in 2004. His body has not been found. But in Webb's case, everything went right. He stayed put, was prepared with a sleeping bag and other camping supplies, and was equipped with both a tracking device and whistle. "The Scout leader said, 'If there's going to be a lost child, this is absolutely what you want to have happen,'" his mom said. "I keep thinking about the little guy (Bardsley) they never did find. It's an absolute miracle. We could have been organizing a search and rescue party (Wednesday night). What a frightening prospect." Geigle now encourages every Scout troop to take advantage of the trackers, which are available for free to be checked out for Scout outings. Webb and Geigle also credit their faith for giving the young Scout a calm feeling as he sat alone in the wilderness. "Talk about an answer to prayer to have that peace come over you and not be freaked out," Geigle said. "Heavenly Father watched over and protected him. There's just no question about that." --- E-mail: preavy@desnews.com

Family, friends cheer on McAllen astronaut http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA071806.1A.valley.space.169b85e.html http://tinyurl.com/zs9yd Web Posted: 07/17/2006 11:02 PM CDT Jesse Bogan Rio Grande Valley Bureau McALLEN The recent e-mail from outer space informed the small group the voyage had been safe and rewarding. Their supporting role was almost over. "Now the shuttle is just about packed and ready to come home," astronaut Mike Fossum, 48, who grew up in McAllen, wrote them from the space shuttle Discovery on Sunday. "We're all ready, too our objectives have been met." Hours later, on Monday morning, they gathered before a large television screen in Fossum's boyhood home, where he had acquired some of the skills that carried him through the 5.3 million-mile trip to a space station and back. The group had formed to support Fossum's mother, Pat, 74, whose congestive heart failure left her watching the landing from a hospital bed at McAllen Medical Center, where her son had called her directly from space a few times. Just before the shuttle came into view 9 miles out, some of the dozen watchers clasped their hands, as if to pray it to a safe landing. "Discovery. Houston. On at the 90," went the cockpit chatter. "Oh, look. Oh, look at that. Praise the Lord," said Paula Lindgren, 74, the group's leader, who took pictures of the TV screen. "Gives me goose bumps. Look at it." "I didn't know they had wheels," said Sue Schmidt, 75, drawing laughs. "I thought they landed in the ocean," said Sylvia Wilson, an oxygen tube in her nose. The friends and neighbors of Pat Fossum, many who knew her astronaut son when he was a boy, watched from the three-bedroom home on North Fifth Street that he grew up in. "We all love our kids, but she is wrapped up in her kids," Lindgren said. "They are her life." They sat in an assortment of chairs, from an orange recliner to a green couch, in a family room frozen in the 1970s with mementos of Fossum's youth, including Pinewood Derby ribbons and other awards he and his two brothers won, mainly in the Boy Scouts. "Nothing has changed, which makes it nostalgic for me," Diana Weisser, 55, who babysat the Fossum boys, said of the home. She cried when she saw the touchdown from space, the first for a Rio Grande Valley native. Pat Fossum spoke via speakerphone to her friends at the landing party. She said she had a feeling the 13-day trip would be a success and pointed out that her son "wasn't the one who dropped the spatula," referring to a tool an astronaut accidentally let go of while doing repairs. "It's been extremely exciting, but how proud can a mother be?" she said, answering reporters' questions. "I am proud of all my boys." Her sons are Eagle Scouts. Besides Mike, who lives in Houston, there is Greg, 46, a dentist in Corpus Christi, and Terry, 42, who owns a marketing firm in Spokane, Wash. "As for kids in the Valley, not even the sky is the limit anymore," Terry Fossum said. "There's a perception that the Valley isn't the best place to grow up and achieve great things. That's absolutely not true," he added. "Mike is just one example of the great things that have come out of this area." Their father, who worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's screw worm eradication program, died 25 years ago in a plane wreck. Pat retired from teaching nursing at University of Texas Pan American in nearby Edinburg. A 1976 graduate of McAllen High School, Mike Fossum earned a degree in mechanical engineering and was in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M University. Two master's degrees followed in technology fields. He's a colonel in the Air Force Reserves and has worked as a test flight engineer. Teaching the astronomy merit badge in the Scouts seeded his interest in space, Terry Fossum said. He described his brother as goal-oriented and persistent. He'd been passed up for at least two other missions. "His bosses were telling him at NASA, 'You're too old. Give it up; you're not going to be an astronaut,'" Terry Fossum said. "His answer was, 'No, I don't know that.'" The payoff showed in the note he sent before coming home, describing how he was "silenced by the beauty of God's creation as it rolls under our ship" and thankful for his "profoundly tolerant" wife and four kids. And how he was "humbled by this opportunity of a lifetime." --- jbogan@express-news.net San Antonio Express-News publish date July 18, 2006

Scout `angel' recalls fiery horror http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1153173011551 http://tinyurl.com/jfma3 Jul. 18, 2006. 06:01 AM JIM COYLE Long before there were Guardian Angels, pressing their largely unasked-for services upon a largely unreceptive city, Toronto had guardian angels of a more popular and fetching sort. And, happily, I had reader Glen Bonham to remind me. Recently, after the death of a retired harbour police officer who played a role in the long-ago drama, I wrote about the burning of the cruise ship Noronic at the foot of Yonge St. in 1949, and the death of 119 passengers in an inferno that gave downtown Toronto the look of a city under siege. Afterwards, though it had been "a long time since I thought about the horrors of that night,'' Mr. Bonham passed on his own recollections of the Noronic catastrophe and how he came to be involved in "a way that would never happen today.'' Bonham is 70 now. The night the Noronic put into port in Toronto for a short layover en route to the Thousand Islands and its final cruise of the season, he was a boy of 13. He was also a member of the 101st Boy Scout troop at Windermere United Church in the city's west end. "I recall my dad shaking me awake around 2 a.m. and telling me to get dressed in my Scout uniform because we were needed at the scene of a fire,'' he said. By then, the red glow in the night sky had been noticed, the first alarms sounded and frantic rescue operations had already begun as men and women, some of them ablaze, leaped from the ship into the lake. World War II was not long over. The notion of boys taking on manly responsibilities was hardly a strange one. And the Boy Scouts commanded more respect then than they probably do today, when the diminutively hip and cynical seem to have outgrown childhood and idealism by age 10. As soon as he was dressed, Bonham was driven by his father to the waterfront. "I was to link arms with other scouts to hold back the crowds of spectators. I don't remember how many scouts were there, but I do recall holding back crowds and hearing the roar of the flames and the screams of those trapped inside the ship.'' "I, too, saw people jumping into the water, some in flames,'' he said. "It was a horrible experience and I guess it will forever be engraved in my memory." Of course, it was not the first or last time that scouts would be called into action. On the night of Hurricane Hazel in 1954, Boy Scout troops and their leaders had been gathered in church assembly halls the very image of innocence buffing apples for the next day's annual Apple Day. Over the next few days, they were joining search teams in the Humber Valley looking for bodies. Scout leader Don Boyd told the historian, Jim Gifford, in his book Hurricane Hazel, that on the following Monday he took the day off work and his scouts the day off school to help out. "We started off at Bloor St. and walked down (the valley) to Lake Ontario. We saw lots of destruction refrigerators and huge timbers from barns in trees. Thank goodness we didn't find any bodies.'' As for his part in serving the city during the Noronic blaze, Bonham said, "the interesting aspect of this to me was that it would never happen today.'' It's not just that youth have changed. Though, true enough, many among the contemporary young would probably think it laughable to cheerfully and earnestly repeat at the prompt Dyb, Dyb, Dyb, Dyb "We'll DoB, DoB, DoB, DoB!'' (Do Your Best. We'll Do Our Best.) It's more that both expectations and opportunities for them have, too. It was, naturally, an old British military man, Lord Baden-Powell, veteran of India, Afghanistan and the Boer War, who founded the Boy Scouts in 1908, and two years later, with his sister, the Girl Guides, then later the Cubs. All of it was aimed at teaching the young to become good citizens, doing duty to God, their country and other people. Their motto is, famously, Be Prepared. However prepared they might be, Glen Bonham said that today he couldn't "imagine Boy Scouts being called upon to assist at the scene of such a disaster. "Today there would be police, EMS workers and firefighters to do the job, and I don't think it would occur to anyone to call on Boy Scouts.'' "I wish I knew how it was that the call came to my Dad in the middle of the night,'' he said. "And I wonder how many other dads got the same call. "Perhaps it was the horror of the event that has wiped such things from my memory and I guess I'll never know.'' Perhaps. But memories shared do have a way of nudging the memories of others. It was a brief reminiscence about the Noronic, after all, that stirred Bonham to thoughts of events he hadn't thought of in years. Maybe there are other old Boy Scouts out there with stories of how, when their city needed them, they were summoned to do man-sized jobs. --- Jim Coyle usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

According to the WOSM website, there are Scout Associations in Hong Kong, Macau, and Nationalist China (Taiwan). Red China does not have a Scouting Association. So the mainland will have to find their "snitches" elsewhere.

Exclusive City Policy Attacks Civil Rights http://dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=20909 BY Harold Johnson Monday, July 17, 2006 What if a city charged Democrats, but not Republicans, to swim at the municipal plunge? What if it let the National Rifle Association use public meeting rooms without cost, but made the ACLU pay for the privilege? These hypothetical situations might sound strained, but are they so different from the double standard that the city of Berkeley practices at its marina? A city program allows nonprofit organizations free use of the Berkeley Marina. However, one group-the Berkeley Sea Scouts-is excluded. The disqualification is for ideological reasons: The Sea Scouts are affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America, and Berkeley officials have trouble with the Boy Scouts' traditional values. Specifically, Berkeley objects to scout membership rules that require commitment to God (in a generalized, nonsectarian way), and living morally "straight," which the scouts interpret as forswearing sex outside of marriage, including homosexual activity. It happens that the Berkeley Sea Scouts have often been praised by city officials for offering a valuable program for kids from all economic backgrounds, and the city has never identified a single instance of exclusion by the group. No matter. The Sea Scouts refuse to break the ties of sentiment, gratitude and tradition that bind them to the Boy Scouts of America, and for that offense they must pay: The city insists on treating them differently-less equally, you might say-than other nonprofits. Because they don't pass Berkeley's ideological litmus test, the Sea Scouts are hit with a monthly charge of more than $500 to berth their ship, the Farallon-a fee not imposed on other nonprofits. Unfortunately, the California Supreme Court gave approval to this biased policy in a ruling this past March. The justices said Berkeley is within its rights to condition access to city programs in concurrence with city antidiscrimination rules. The trouble with this decision-and the reason why an appeal was filed this month with the U.S. Supreme Court-is that it gives short shrift to core values of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. The Sea Scouts' choice to affiliate with the Boy Scouts of America is an exercise of speech and association rights. Berkeley's duty not to punish or discriminate against the Sea Scouts for utilizing their constitutional rights is imposed by the Equal Protection Clause. Our state's Supremes failed to heed a famous pro-pluralism precedent by one of their celebrated predecessors, Chief Justice Roger Traynor. In the 1946 case of Danskin v. San Diego Unified School District, the court considered a rule that forced people to disavow any subversive or illegal organizations if they wanted to use a school auditorium. Traynor voided this regulation with memorable eloquence; once government offers a facility or benefit, he wrote," it cannot demand tickets of admission in the form of convictions and affiliations that it deems acceptable." Traynor's California ruling laid groundwork for later U.S. Supreme Court decisions defending free thought, free speech and equal access. As important as the legal issues in this case are, the human element is even more compelling. For more than half a century, the Sea Scouts have taught Bay Area kids sailing, carpentry and plumbing, and offered opportunities for friendship and fun. For most of those years, Berkeley recognized the scouts' community contribution by letting them berth free. Who has been hurt by the change in policy and the discriminatory fee that began eight years ago? More than anybody, the kids. Sea Scout funds have been diverted to pay the fee, so there's less money to help scouts who can't afford to participate. More than a few kids from low-income backgrounds have had to drop out. What a tragedy-especially considering that the Sea Scouts have been, arguably, the most multiracial group operating at the Marina. Diversity, tolerance, pluralism. These aren't just vague ideals that might be nice to see practiced in the public square. For government bodies such as the city of Berkeley, they are constitutional obligations. Public officials can't subject people to second-class treatment because they vote "wrong," or think "wrong," or choose to associate on principles that Berkeley City Hall considers politically incorrect. Government can't demand loyalty oaths and can't enforce group-think. Or at least not if bedrock First Amendment principles still apply. So don't be surprised if the U.S. Supreme Court takes this case, gives Berkeley a brush up on the Constitution, and rights the wrong that has been done to the Sea Scouts. Harold Johnson is an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation. Reply to opinion@dailycal.org

Family welcomes 12th Eagle Scout http://www.tmnews.com/articles/2006/07/16/sections/news/news74.txt http://tinyurl.com/rwvkn Sunday, July 16, 2006 Last modified: Sunday, July 16, 2006 6:46 AM CDT By Jason Mullis, Hoosier Times BEDFORD - There are 12 virtues the American Boy Scouts espouse to the youth in their charge. Similarly, when Travis Scherschel earned the highest rank of Eagle Scout Saturday, he became the 12th Scherschel to do so. "Becoming an Eagle Scout is an outstanding achievement, which requires hard work and dedication," Mark Scherschel, Travis' father, read from a letter from President George W. Bush. "Your accomplishment serves as an example of excellence and a source of pride for your community." The Scherschels' extended family and friends gathered at the Knights of Columbus for Travis' Court of Honor, and a majority of those in attendance were Boy Scouts. Most of those of Boy Scouts were also Eagle Scouts. "It's significant because only four percent of Boy Scouts who join obtain Eagle Scout," said Travis' older brother John, who earned Eagle Scout status five years ago. Like the other Scherschels, he couldn't really explain why so many of his direct family, including his three brothers, aspired to the same goal. "It's just that scouting is our life, I suppose," John said. "We still do the other extracurricular activities, but on the weekends, when most kids are watching cartoons at 8 a.m., we are here having our Boy Scout meeting." The interest in scouting started with Mark's father. "With six boys, he wanted something that would give us good character development," Mark explained. "That's what the Boy Scouts are all about." Then five of those Scherschel brothers went on to become Eagle Scouts, and they say their oldest brother would have been one as well, if his troop hadn't disbanded before he was able to earn the rank. Those brothers each went on to raise Eagle Scouts of their own. "Keep your boys in scouts," advised Mark's brother Greg Scherschel, who has two sons, Josh and Joe. They are all Eagle Scouts. "You can take your boy to swimming," Greg continued. "You can take him to baseball, you can take him to basketball. But you can be in the scouts with him. "Especially as he moves into adolescence and you need something to keep you together." He said the Boy Scouts "kept the lines of communication open at times when they just would not have been otherwise." For Travis, the desire to be a scout seemed ingrained. He, too, couldn't explain why he wanted to become an Eagle Scout. He easily listed reasons why he liked the Scouts, and he understood his resume would look better because of his rank. But becoming an Eagle Scout was almost inevitable, despite the amount of hard work it requires. It is, after all, the type of person he is.

Boys will be boys http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-2230571,00.html http://tinyurl.com/n3g5a DJ Taylor June 18, 2006 Why are fathers snapping up an old-fashioned book of boyhood lore? DJ Taylor looks at the gap in almost every fathers life -- Like practically every human relationship these days, fatherhood has become horribly institutionalised. A condition that was once thoroughly ad hoc and made up as one went along is now caught up in bureaucracys stifling grasp. Fathers Day (an American import that didnt exist in my youth), fathers support agencies, parenting classes: on all sides comes evidence of a natural state hedged about with all kind of wholly artificial supports. What my own father would have made of this during my late 1960s and early 1970s childhood I cant begin to imagine. As far as I can deduce he simply got on with the task in hand, inspected the school reports and was at all times available for advice and consolation. Asked to theorise about it, he would probably have laughed in your face. A Fathers Day card would have been hooted out of the house. Judging by the hot story from the UK book trade a good many fathers still share that view. Every so often the lofty minarets of publishing find themselves shaken by a seismic crack from down below. The sound deeply liberating in the age of the pre-digested blockbuster is that of the book-buying public spontaneously making its presence felt: one of those infrequent but hugely intriguing instances of word-of-mouth buzz picking up on some hitherto under-publicised item and sending it storming up the bestseller list without the people who administer the book trade really noticing. The latest example of this encouraging trend is a work entitled The Dangerous Book For Boys by the brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden Conn is a well-known historical novelist which was overlooked by the literary editors and the three-for-two promotions but is currently number one on the Amazon chart. Undoubtedly it is being bought not only by boys but by their fathers as a splendidly politically incorrect guide to both boyhood and fatherhood. Got up in gilt and scarlet covers, stoutly hardbacked and looking for all the world like a juvenile Christmas present from around the time of King Edward VIIs coronation, The Dangerous Book For Boys declares its intent from the opening page. In this age of video games and mobile phones there must still be a place for knots, tree houses and stories of incredible courage, the authors maintain. Men and boys today are the same as they always were, and interested in the same things . . . We hope in years to come that this will be a book to dig out of the attic and give to a couple of kids staring at a pile of wood and wondering what to do with it. There follow nearly 300 neatly written pages on such enticing topics as Hunting and Cooking a Rabbit, Understanding Grammar (in three parts, this one), A Brief History of Artillery and even a section on an entity that would have been zealously excluded from the Edwardian original Girls. Halfway between an act of homage to a bygone era and a thoroughly practical how to guide having promised the children a treehouse years ago I read that particular tranche with the sinking realisation that something would probably have to be done the Igguldens book is, however unobtrusively, making a fairly dramatic claim: Men and boys today are the same as they always were. Are they? My six-year-old, however cosseted and protected from the wicked world outside, looks to me like a miniature adult, absurdly well informed about the latest computer gizmos and able to discuss football with the statistical nous of a man of 30. (Why doesnt Scholes still play for England, he demanded during the Trinidad & Tobago game on Thursday night. Hes only 31.) So what, I wondered, would children, as opposed to the moist-eyed paternal elegist, make of these expositions of the Battle of Waterloo or the thumbnail guides to coleoptera? And here things turned very interesting. Felix, aged 13, sensibilities already hardened by the obligations of the schoolroom, approached it in a more or less utilitarian spirit. Very useful if you were bored, he reported back. Predictably the treehouse groundplan went down well, as did the lessons on juggling. The air of sexual apartheid, too, seemed a clear advantage. (Definitely not for girls.) All the same, I detected a mild suspicion at the thought of education being ushered in by the back door. (Kings, queens and astronomy.) Six-year-old Leo, on the other hand, was completely absorbed. He went through the checklist of creepy-crawlies an insect at a time, pored rapturously over the instructions for skimming stones (the world record is 38 hops, apparently) and wanted to spell his name in naval flag code. Clearly, over the next few months The Dangerous Book For Boys, however misleading the promise of its title, is set to play a bumper role in Taylor family life. Behind its success lurk some shrewd cultural deductions that, here in the bright dawn of the technology-driven 21st century, hardly ever occur to people down at the sharp end of the child-rearing process. The most obvious is the absolute feebleness of what gets taught in schools these days. Among other choice offerings the Igguldens supply a complete list of British monarchs going back to Egbert of Wessex (802-839), instructions on when to use whom rather than who, and warnings on the inadvisability of ending a sentence with a preposition. Even my own privately educated brood seemed faintly aghast at this, but is there a state school 12-year-old in the country, you wonder, who knows who Harold Harefoot was or what FD means on a penny knowledge that this particular parent regards as far more important in the long term than knowing how to log on. At the same time the Igguldens co-production is much more than an implied criticism of lapsed or simply different educational standards. It is also a lament for what might be called the lost cultural world of the boy. In strict historical terms, the idea of the child, and the whole modern cult of childhood, is a very recent invention. Until at least the start of the Victorian era children, as we conceive of them today, barely existed. Boys, in particular, were treated as under-sized adults to be sent out to work as soon as family circumstances demanded it. The notion of a distinctive boys culture, with its own dress styles, pursuits and reading material, lay far away in the mid-Victorian future. If a boy in the age of King William IV was given anything to read by his parents it would have been some vengeful work of moral uplift such as The Fairchild Family, a 19th-century bestseller in which papa improves his childrens minds by taking them to the gibbet, where they can watch recently executed murderers hanging in their chains. The boy was effectively created by Victorian factory acts and education bills, legislation that kept him out of the mill and in the schoolroom for a much longer period, and at the same time, in however marginal a way, turned him into a consumer. Simultaneously this consumption had an ethical dimension. Manufacturers and industrialists wanted to sell things to him, but this being the Victorian age philanthropists and moralists wanted to fill his mind with information that would be useful to him in later life and teach him how to behave. Hence the proliferation, come the later 19th century, of boys school stories, boys magazines, attempts to organise boys for the common good by way of clubs and institutions. More important even than this as it was unofficial was the development of a whole series of codes and behaviours by which the average boy lived his life. The early parts of George Orwells novel Coming Up For Air, set in the Thames valley of the early 1900s and reflecting many of the circumstances of Orwells own childhood, are a kind of checklist of what being an off-duty boy meant a century ago: long aimless walks, fishing, plundering snacks from the hedgerow (Even plantain seeds are better than nothing when youre a long way from home and very hungry), above all reading. At one point Orwells hero, George Bowling, remembers his 12-year-old self reading an encyclopaedia that came in penny numbers (If I now know the length of the Mississippi or the difference between an octopus and a cuttle-fish or the exact composition of bell-metal, thats where I learnt it from). It bears more than a passing resemblance to The Dangerous Book For Boys. As a mid-fortysomething whose first coherent public memory is of watching England win the 1966 World Cup final, I must have been one of the last beneficiaries of old-style boys culture. Apart from your schoolwork, life until you reached the age of about 14 consisted of a series of enthusiasms or crazes. I began with stamps, moved rapidly on to coins a tricky hobby, this, as they were more expensive and then progressed in easy stages to Airfix kits by way of the Tempo Toys range of cowboys, indians and US Seventh Cavalry. For communal activity there were the Cubs, followed by the Scouts, with all manner of other associations such as the League of Pity (a junior version of the NSPCC) lurking in the background. There was, too, a whole mass of reading matter deliberately aimed at pre and early teens, notably a magazine called Look and Learn, which contained potted biographies of writers like Balzac and Dickens. I still credit this with putting me on the scent of literature. Thirty years later that world a completely enclosed shell into which adults scarcely penetrated has all but disappeared. How many pre-teenage children of your acquaintance collect stamps, or own a stack of young head Victorian pennies? Apart from the odd private subscription effort aimed at young eggheads, is there a single weekly publication directed at nine-to-13-year-olds above the level of a comic? No, the old constituencies have moved on, transformed themselves, disappeared. I discovered first-hand evidence of this sea change in the early 1980s when for a brief period I worked for a public relations agency that had the Airfix account and became the notional editor of Airfix Magazine. The punters, sad to relate, were now middle-aged men, their attics stuffed with boxes full of unmade Avro Lancasters and Fieseler Storches. The children, mysteriously, had gone elsewhere. The great thing about old-style boyhood, evidence insists, was its continuity. As far as I can make out, although the economic circumstances had improved, my own childhood was not substantially different from my fathers (born 1921). Certainly we read many of the same books and pursued several of the same hobbies. What killed boys culture that curious, chaotic world of bike rides and loafing and swapping the football club crests that they gave out in packets at petrol stations? At one level the explanation is physical boys reach puberty earlier, yearn to grow up in a way that didnt perhaps commend itself to the space hopper and clacker aficionados of the early 1970s. On another, parents have grown in some cases necessarily much more protective of their offspring, less keen on letting them out of the house to climb trees and stalk unsuspecting wildlife with their home-made bow. Much more decisive, though, is the onrushing development of electronic media, that whole bedroom-tethered sub-world of PlayStations, GameCubes and deeply repetitive eye candy. The modern boy, surveys regularly announce, spends most of his time in his room, on the phone, at large in cyberspace or prone in front of the television rather than up a tree, in a den or out on the prowl. And if boyhood is in crisis, to the point where it may be supposed hardly to exist, then so is the agency that sustains it and whose collective memory lies at the heart of the Iggulden enterprise. Fatherhood, as you may have gathered, is having a pretty bad time of it at the moment. Fathers are thought to need all the support that a concerned bureaucracy can throw at them. Only last week Fathers Direct (more formally the National Information Centre on Fatherhood) could be found distributing a government-funded Dad Pack, replete with Gorillaz-style graphics, 10,000 of which were ordered by childrens centres in advance of Fathers Day. The pack meets government guidance requiring thousands of childrens centres, maternity units and nurseries to provide effective support to dads. Until now, these services have mainly offered support to mums, says Fathers Direct. Much mocked in the media, this special Dad guide occupies ground as far from the Dangerous Book For Boys as you can get. Instead of the kings of England or how to make a bow and arrow, it covers such topics as pregnancy, birth, work, relationships, money, health, benefits, legal rights and responsibilities, giving a baby a bath and preparing a picnic. It also features the usual band of celebrity dads commending the paternal state. (Thierry Henry on being present at his daughters birth: Ive won stuff in my life. Nothing can beat that.) Duncan Fisher, Fathers Directs chief executive, enthuses over proper information for modern dads, written in mens language, using contemporary images of men and covering the issues men are concerned with. Fathers Direct says its mission is to promote close and positive relationships between men and their children. It was set up seven years ago with a grant from the Department of Health, and the Dad Pack was subsidised with 25,000 from the Department for Education and Skills. My first reaction to the Dad Pack is to question the wisdom of public money being spent on this kind of thing. I am brought sharply back to earth, however, when I read a newspaper interview with an unmarried, unemployed teenage father who is proud of providing help for his infant son from his benefit giro. The other day the sole came off my trainers but now I put my son before myself Ive got to dress him smart, he says. See that dummy 3.75 a time and he kept losing it. So I bought a solid gold 75 chain to put it on and they dont get lost any more. Make no mistake, its tough, this fathering business, tough in a way that doesnt seem to have occurred to bygone generations. Expectations are high on both sides. Failure means ignominy. I dont recall my own father constructing a philosophy of parenthood. He just turned up: standing on one side of the goal as I veered round the full back in Cub football matches; applauding at school prizegivings; taking me out for cycle rides in the Norfolk countryside. Looking back on it at the age of 85, he recalls: It was all a bit of a game, but we did our best. All the anxiety examined by Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons in their stories simply eluded him. Modern dads, alternatively, merely agonise. Marcus Berkmann, author of Fatherhood: The Truth, and at 45 the parent of two small children, sees himself as Mr Bad Example . . . incorrigibly lazy, self-indulgent and quietly manipulative, his instincts forever pulling him in opposite directions. I love my children to distraction I genuinely believe that they are the greatest thing that has happened to me while constantly thinking of new ways to get out of the house, he says. Berkmanns son, one of the objects of this affection, has barely started at nursery school. But should his nervy father be planning ahead, reading the Igguldens and sharpening up the knives, say, for that excursion in search of rabbits, or measuring up lengths of timber for that treehouse? The message of The Dangerous Book For Boys is that fathers ought to do stuff with their sons, that even now, with every sort of media enticement dangled before them, boys are still fascinated by practical activities and miscellaneous information: juggling tips, conjuring hints and tree recognition. Framed in the right way, the message runs, these things have an eternal appeal that the latest electronic gadgetry can never replace. The drawback to the Iggulden project, of course, is that it is completely opposed to practically every development (and developer) currently at work in the British educational process. Not many modern curriculums, after all, feature lists of British kings and queens, troop deployments at Balaclava and the nature of the pluperfect tense. On the practical side, it goes without saying that the average headmaster would probably have a fit if anyone suggested that his male pupils ought, for the purpose of drawing them closer to their fathers, be taught how to gut a rabbit. He (or she) would probably be deeply disturbed, too, by the sight of the Oxford historian Niall Ferguson quoted by the Igguldens summarising the achievements of the British Empire (downsides are mentioned too) or a list of recommended reading that includes the original James Bond books and the Flashman novels of George MacDonald Fraser. Happily, what might now be considered political incorrectness can never be excluded from this kind of book. In his famous essay, Boys Weeklies, examining the world of the Gem and Magnet, George Orwell wondered what a progressive boys magazine aimed at readers of 12 to 14 might look like. At first glance, he reckoned, such an idea makes one slightly sick. No normal boy would have the slightest interest in the dreary uplift it would contain. He was right and still is. For some reason the average 13-year-old will always prefer an account of the battle of Agincourt to an essay on the development of the United Nations; similarly, toy pacifists will never have the appeal of a file of toy infantry. What The Dangerous Book For Boys ultimately implies is that children and their fathers should be provided with a space that is their own, far away from schools, government and received opinion, a place where, in defiance of nearly every progressive educative and social tendency, they can pull off the ever more difficult trick of being themselves. -- The Dangerous Book For Boys is published by HarperCollins at 18.99. The National Information Centre on Fatherhood is at http://www.fathersdirect.com/ or 0845 634 1328

Scouts played large part in Fossum's life http://www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=14170&Section=Local http://tinyurl.com/ru9qt July 12, 2006 Marc B. Geller Monitor Staff Writer McALLEN One of the biggest influences in Mike Fossums life growing up in the Rio Grande Valley was his experience in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts. Beverly Alleyn, who like Fossums mother is a nurse, was his Cub Scout pack leader. And her husband, Mickey, led the Webelos program that Mike needed to complete with other Cub Scouts to transition into Boy Scouts. The Alleyns son, Rob, now a McAllen physician, was one of Mikes classmates and rose with Mike through the Boy Scout ranks. "Shortly after (Mike) went into Scouting, he visited with me, and hed just come off of a camping trip which I guess he felt that he wasnt too successful in," Mickey recalled. "I remember him coming over and talking to me and asking the question if he ought to stay in Scouting or not. And I told him he ought to try to stay in there and run the course." Mike stayed with it, eventually achieving the elite Eagle Scout rank and forging close bonds with several fellow Scouts, including longtime buddies Tom Ball, Grady Carlile and Charlie Ward. "Watching him in Scouting, he always took his merit badge work very seriously and his campouts very seriously," Mickey recalled. "He was pretty sure of himself. Whatever he wanted to do, he seemed to be able to end up doing it and doing it well." Around the age of 10, Rob remembers Mike talking about his aspirations of going into space. "Hes wanted to do that since about the fifth grade, as far as I can remember," he said. "Thats about the time of the Apollo missions and the landing on the moon and all of that. "We talked about that a lot when we were kids," Rob said. "Everybody was talking about what they wanted to do. He always was going to be an astronaut." Ball remembers his friend as a goal-oriented leader. "He was a really fine leader in the Boy Scout troop. The kids all liked him a lot. He was very popular ... "We both liked to camp. Hed go fishing with my family, and wed go on trips together outings outside of the Scouting context, too and weve done that since we grew up. Every couple of years well go out on a backpacking trip somewhere and beat ourselves up real bad." Though not active in high school sports, Mike and Ball were in marching band together, both playing trombone. "None of us were much into the organized team sports," Ball said. "We did a lot of outdoors stuff. There wasnt much time for football or basketball. We were canoeing and going on outings." "Hes always had a great interest in astronomy," Ball said. "We knew that from way back when we were out at camp. He was up in the middle of the night watching the stars that didnt rise until the wee hours of the morning." Ward also remembers their friend teaching astronomy to other Scouts at Camp Perry, in Cameron County on the banks of Arroyo Colorado. "Hes always been looking up at the stars," he said. Marc B. Geller covers McAllen, Hidalgo and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4445.

Has anyone seen this book or does anyone have it? =========================== A Spiritual Field Guide: Meditations For The Outdoors Bernard Brady, Mark Neuzil Editorial Review: Publishers Weekly "A simple walk in the woods is not simply a walk in the woods." This is the fervent hope of Brady and Neuzil, who have compiled a solid and fulfilling collection of writings about nature with a spiritual bent. Most have a Christian context, if not outright expression, but the Christianity here is broad and inviting. It rests comfortably, and with some frequency, alongside secular authors and other sacred traditions. Organized into five chapters, each theme is introduced by an essay that provides the anthologists' philosophy for inclusion, often by way of contributors' biographies. This approach enlivens the material. "Reading Plans" offer thrice-daily options for backyard breaks, daytrips, weekends and weeklong getaways. For example, one day features Wendell Berry, Genesis 1:1-25 and Augustine of Hippo. The variety of voices here is a plus, and any reader who wants a comforting outside companion will find one. Kudos, too, for the charming cover design that recalls a tattered, well-loved field manual. The authors make a compelling final point: "Jesus often went to the sea, up the mountain, or into the desert. Nature was a way through which he entered into prayer and sensed the divine on earth. Each of us would do well to do the same." (May) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1587431181/ =========================== It looks interesting enough that I forked over a penny (plus shipping) to order a used copy! Fred

New Book Revives Lost Notions of Boyhood http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,202064,00.html http://tinyurl.com/ncuqe Tuesday, July 04, 2006 By Wendy McElroy Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails are what readers of a surprise bestseller are made of. The Dangerous Book for Boys by the British brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden is a practical manual that returns boys to the wonder and almost lost world of tree houses and pirate flags. It celebrates the art of teaching an old mutt new tricks and accepts skinned knees as an acceptable risk for running through fields with the same dog yapping along. As of July 3, The Dangerous Book is the number one seller on Amazon UK and it is holding steady at about 7,000 on Amazon in the U.S., where it was published on June 5. The Australian News reports that the book "has made it to the top five ofAmazon [Australia], after just a week." Those results make publishers take notice. But social commentators are also reacting with both applause and condemnation. Condemnation arises because The Dangerous Book breaks the dominant and politically correct stereotype for children's books. It presents boys as being deeply different than girls in terms of their interests and pursuits. Although it is highly probable that bookstores will sell the book to girls who then will go on to practice skimming stones, nevertheless the genders are separated within the book's pages. The authors clearly believe that the majority of children interested in learning to build a catapult are boys. Girls are included only through a final chapter in which boys are admonished to treat them with respect. In celebrating old-fashioned boyhood and providing a blueprint on how to reclaim it, The Dangerous Book is revolutionary. It discards decades of social engineering that approaches children as being psychologically gender neutral. The book implicitly rebukes school texts that strip out gender references. Instead, it says 'boys will be boys'; they always have been, they always will be, and that's a good thing. Thus The Dangerous Book achieves social revolution without preaching or politics; it does so in the name of fun. The sort of fun promoted has also raised eyebrows. In a society that is preoccupied with safety, The Dangerous Book promotes activities in which boys are likely to get scuffed. This is a book for tree-climbers who occasionally pause to decipher enemy code or erupt into wood-wielding pirate fights. Why would the Iggulden brothers imperil children? Clearly they do not think the rough-and-tumble of boyhood constitutes a health hazard. Perhaps they agree with parents who view over-protectiveness to be a greater danger, who wish to stir the imagination and muscles of their children instead. But the brothers wish to achieve more than this. In a world where children are isolated behind computer screens and iPods, they wish to establish a niche for old-fashioned childhood. The brothers state, "In this age of video games and mobile phones, there must still be a place for knots, tree-houses and stories of incredible courage." They advise children to "play sport of some kind. It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it replaces the corpse-like pallor of the computer programmer with a ruddy glow." Their vision is not utopian or even impractical. For example, a tree house requires only a blueprint, some scrap lumber and a willing parent. The latter requirement turns The Dangerous Book into something more than a work for boys. It is also a guide for parents, especially for fathers who wish to establish an old-fashioned connection with their children. Indeed, since parents purchase most children's books, it is reasonable to assume that the run-away success of The Dangerous Book is partly due to their longing for a better connection. One father describes his experience with the book, "I gave it to my 11-year-old son Charles and his friendThen I stood well back." Raised on The Lord of the Rings, "they immediately turned to the section of the book that showed them how to create their own Legolas-style archery kit, using bits of old branch no longer needed by the Ents. When they began stripping the bark off with a big, shiny, sharp-bladed Swiss Army knife, I had to dig down deep in order to ignore the parental risk-ometer readings that were going off the scale, accompanied by vivid flash-forwards of the inevitable long, bloodstained-bandaged hours ahead in casualty." Happily, the only injury was to evildoers who lurked in the garden shrubbery. These days, the news about boys is not happy and often contains the word 'crisis.' The Education Sector, a non-profit think tank, offers a typical description of the perceived 'crisis' within education. "After decades spent worrying about how schools 'shortchange girls,' the eyes of the nation's education commentariat are now fixed on how they shortchange boys. In 2006 alone, a Newsweek cover story, a major New Republic article, a long article in Esquire, a 'Today' show segment, and numerous op-eds have informed the public that boys are falling behind girls in elementary and secondary school and are increasingly outnumbered on college campuses." Society is awakening to the possibility that boys have been disadvantaged. In past decades, what it means to be a boy has been redefined, deconstructed, reconstructed, politically analyzed and mathematically modeled. In the process, the meaning of being a boy's father has become jumbled as well. In the midst of the confusion, The Dangerous Book brings non-political truths into focus. For example, most boys like rough-and-tumble. They are riveted by tales of heroism on blood-soaked battlefields. They will learn history eagerly if it is presented in a chapter on Artillery. Like Peter Pan, the Iggulden brothers have rediscovered the Lost Boys and are beckoning for them to come out to play. "Ohand bring along your father too," they add with a dangerous wink and a smile. Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the author and editor of many books and articles, including the new book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st Century" (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives with her husband in Canada.

The Problem with Boys http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2006/060611_mfe_July_06_Boys_1.html http://tinyurl.com/noszs By Tom Chiarella July 2006, Volume 146, Issue 1 ...Is actually a problem with men. We've ignored all the evidence of male achievement and ambition deficits and stood aside as our sons have notched a growing record of failure and disengagement. It's time we did something about it. A call to action. ------------------ I HAVE TWO SONS. One is sixteen, the other thirteen. Like any boys, they are a little too muscular in their expectations from life. In a single evening, they can be sullen, sweet, hurtful, gentle, distant, funny, and full of grit. Tonight I dropped the younger one at soccer practice dressed all in yellow. Yellow sweatshirt, yellow jersey, yellow shorts, yellow kneesocks. "I just wish I had yellow shoes," he told me when he got out. "That would be the topper." Both spend hours watching reruns of Jackass. One likes shooting baskets; the other likes watching anime. One goes to summer camp; the other doesn't. Lately, they both have begun to talk about bands that I have never heard of. They murmur to each other so that I am just out of earshot. They want their laundry done for them. They never clear their dishes or make their beds. They love their grandparents, but they never send them thank-you notes. They both still expect me to kiss them goodnight. They are boys. They know I am writing this article. I've been wanting to write it for years. Here's what I tell them: I am worried about boys. I'VE TAUGHT AT THE SAME MIDWESTERN liberal-arts college for the past seventeen years. I was chair of one of the largest departments on campus for five years. I like working there. It has a distinguished faculty and an excellent academic program; it's a fine little school. I say this because I want to be clear that I am not a malcontent, that I am no some tenured jackass dying to bite the hand that feeds me. I'm just a little worried about boys. About ten years ago, university GPA statistics started crossing my desk, because I was the department chair, and I wondered aloud why men at our college generally received lower grades than women. The pattern was consistent, almost lockstep. Women's average GPA was as much as a quarter of a point higher than men's some semesters. Were just smarter? Did they just work harder? It made a certain amount of sense. Female students have always seemed more focused to me, more comfortable with interpretation, more fluid in their ability to enter discussion. When it came to boys, I could often see their disengagement in the classroom. They fidgeted. They slouched. They sat in the back of the room, hidden behind the brims of their baseball caps. About this same time, I began to notice something else. The enrollment of men at our university was slipping. It is a fact of life at colleges today that women outnumber men. It certainly is at my school, where last year's freshman class was 42 percent male. In any given year, I would call this small potatoes. In 1979, when women surpassed men in college enrollment, I would have called it a triumph. More than twenty years later, as the numbers pile up, it begins to feel as if something, somewhere, is out of balance. I'm often told that there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, that the larger share of women in colleges today reflects, in part the imbalance in the larger population. I looked that one up. There are indeed more woman around than men, but it turns out males make up 51.5 percent of the population of eighteen- to twenty-four-year-oldsthe college-going age. They just die faster. The shift I noticed reinforced itself in subtler ways. I watched as my colleagues expressed an increasing disdain for men in the classroom. I listened as they moaned about seminars that happened to be made up mostly of men. I went to faculty lunches dealing with disruptive students, only to realize that what we were talking about was primarily male behavior, that men themselves were in some fashion perceived to be the disruption. Men who seemed to have an answer for every question. Men who didn't listen. Men who radiated indifference. Men who griped about reading lists sometimes dominated by women authors. Men who resisted the authority of the teacher. In the middle of one of these lunches, I leaned over and told a friend, "What we're talking about here is boys." I meant the students weren't men yet, that they hadn't yet figured out what mattered. My friend shook her head. "Not really," she said. "Some of these are girls who act like boys." I watched as nearly every significant social problem was laid at the feet of the male student population: sexual violence, binge drinking, hazing, anti-intellectualism, homophobia, bullying. I have to say it didn't seem unfair to talk about the role of boys in these issues. High time, actually. I was on board. On the whole, boys do seem unfocused to me, a whole lot dimmer in their sense of their path in the world. Everything about them that is maletheir physicality, their hunger for stimulation, their propensity to argueseemed clipped by the academic world I lived in. I was not waiting for the birth of a men's movement so much as I was looking for a little discussion, a chance to engage boys in the same way women engaged girls forty years ago. What did my university do in the face of these problems? It formed a task force on the status of women. Its finding? That the university needed a women's center to augment its twenty-year-old women's-studies program. THERE IS SOMETHING ODD and forbidden about the word boy. Typing it feels a little creepy, almost pornographic. Boy. A little word, naked and weak, an iconic expression of smallness, of vulnerability. The boy alone. Scraggled hair, upward glance, the smear of ketchup on his chin. Cute maybe, but defenseless, naive, insulated, and unaware. A boy doesn't have a clue. There's something equally forbidden about arguing the ongoing boys crisis. It's a loser. It doesn't sell. It doesn't translate as much more than a hobbyhorse for conservative think tanks. But here's the deal if you are a boy in this country right now: You're twice as likely as a girl to be diagnosed with an attention-deficit or learning disorder. You're more likely to score worse on standardized reading and writing tests. You're more likely to be held back in school. You're more likely to drop out of school. If you do graduate, you're less likely to go to college. If you do go to college, you will get lower grades and, once again, you will be less likely to graduate. You'll be twice as likely to abuse alcohol, and until you are twenty-four, you are five times as likely to kill yourself. You are more than sixteen times as likely to go to prison. "As long as ten years ago, we started seeing the data that showed boys were slipping behind," says Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, an advocacy group for low-income and minority students. "People were still arguing: We don't have a boys problem, we have a girls problem. It just didn't match what these data say. There's still a lot of resistance among rank-and-file educators." The growing achievement gap between boys and girls has landed in our laps. Fueled by slim percentages in some cases, the numbers are stacking up over time. We're faced with the accrual of a significant population of boys who aren't well prepared for either school or work. "The problem," says Haycock,"is what this will add up to in twenty years." THERE'S A BOY NAMED QUINN who lives on my street who just turned eighteen. I've known him since he was three. These days, he's preparing to go to college. By most measures, he's been well served by his education. He's in the top 10 percent of his class, and his board scores are excellent. He is a talented, self-taught guitarist, a decent basketball player, and a national-caliber high jumper. Last week he cleared six feet nine inches, higher than the doorjambs in my house. I sometimes look at those doors and picture Quinn sliding over the top of them. By most measures, he's a boy who wouldn't show up as any sort of alarming statistic: no disciplinary issues; he doesn't drink or use drugs. He's what you would call a good kid. When I ask him how school is in these final days, he gives me the same answer he's given me since first grade: "Okay." He stretches the word out, long o, resigned k. It's always like this when I talk to boys. He is enduring it, waiting it out. I'm always interested in what boys are reading. Last time I asked, he sighed. "Jane Eyre." I cringe and try to think of something to say. It's a great book that meant nothing to me until I was thirty-three and teaching it for the third time. "I wrote a paper in college about Jane Eyre," I say out loud, but that's before I can locate in my memory what that paper was about. Then it comes to me. "About a chestnut tree," I say. "I remember that much." Quinn hold his hands out, palms up. What can he do? His father shakes his head. They are readers, this family. "It's a good book," he says. The idea is to stick with it. To finish. He's role-modeling. It's what men do. "But you'd think they'd stick a little Slaughterhouse-Five in there." Quinn stares at us and shrugs. He has nothing more to say. His face is not blank. The kid has a heart. He likes standing there with us. When he gets out of school, I tell him, he'll be able to read the things he loves. We are silent then. Three men with Jane Eyre hanging between us. BEFORE JUNIOR HIGH, I always liked school. It felt like a place that belonged to me, was set up for me, a place that I owned in some fashion. Sitting in a classroom now with Joel Klein, the chancellor of New York City schools, it occurs to me that he must really feel that way. The room sits in the Tweed Courthouse in lower Manhattan, his office two floors above. Classes from around the city rotate in and out every two weeks. Klein, a former antitrust lawyer for the Clinton administration who took over the city's schools in 2002, visits often. "People try to separate out how much of this is a general boy-girl thing versus how much resides in subgroups," Klein says. "In New York City, it's quite clearly a boy-girl thing. Eleven percent more women graduate than men, consistent across the major racial and ethnic groups. It's a huge number. That's a lot of kids." He's ready to show me charts reflecting different achievement rates at different grade levels. We run through them, one column to the next, but it feels rote to me. The numbers are enervating. A couple percentage points here, a couple there. I stop him. I want to take a look at the classroom library, so we walk. Once I'm turning the pages of a book on Lewis and Clark, I hook a finger back toward the pile of charts. "What does it all add up to?" I ask. Klein picks up a book on Peter the Great and tilts his head. "What you see is a story about problems with literacy, with reading, that develop into a consistent increase in dropouts and lower graduation rates." The numbers, he says, show a literacy gap between boys and girls from fourth grade through twelfth. "We need to find things they will read." Klein sighs: "I remember how I read. It was very powerful. I read all of John R. Tunis's books about baseball. I went forward with that. I took it to Jude the Obscure and Dostoyevsky. That's the kind of connection you cannot predict. Sports led me to literature." He speaks of the way he pictured himself as a boy, then a man. "I thought of myself as a ballplayer. Then as a ballplayer/lawyer. Then, finally, just a lawyer. That was the way I went. We have to find paths." I'm thinking about Quinn then, how happy he seemed when he talked about reading articles about music, about how much he liked the books he chose for himself, like Get Shorty. "When I was a kid," Klein says, "we had this view of education that the teacher stood up there, taught, and tried to keep each kid in the same place. Boys and girls. All the same. Each grade was a sort of franchise, with the same product. We've learned that we have to tailor to the individual student. Boys are different. We have to get comfortable with that difference. Quickly." It occurs to me that it must be odd for Klein to have come from the world of intellectual property rights, a world where meetings were surely overpopulated by men, to parent meetings like the one he describes to me: "A school auditorium. A room of forty people. Two men. Very typical. I told both men, You have to go out and find two more men to come to the next meeting, then they tell two more. I give people an assignment. It's how I work. Two more men. I just start with two more men." THERE'S A BOY NAMED GERALD who's twenty-two who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana, with my girlfriend's daughter. He's had his own set of grim struggles: drugs, alcohol, an absent father. In some ways, he's like most boys at firstwithdrawn, a little sullen, his eyes on the horizon. When he can separate his anger from the gist of what he's feeling, I've known him to be witty, intelligent, kind. But how long can that last? He did not return to high school after being expelled his junior year and now scrambles from one gig to the next. Sometimes he makes panels for car doors or takes a job roofing for a few weeks or hangs drywall. Every time he gets hired, they lay him off before he gets benefits, or he fails a drug test, or he just gets fired. I worry. If he doesn't have a car, he can't get to work. If he can't get to work, he can't keep a car. He can't do any better than a job where they hire him for a week or two, tease him with belonging, then toss him out. This gives him no chance to advance, no chance to supervise, no chance to grow in any sort of trade. He's got no way to grab on to the culture of work. Nowhere to go, except Iraq maybe. They keep raising the bonus for enlistment; they keep tempting him to put himself in the mix. I always think he's a bag of flesh to them, a bullet stopper. But it must cross his mind. He's got to be mad. He's got to be hurting. I'm always afraid to ask. I'm always afraid of what my own advice would be. I AM IN KANSAS CITY, Missouri, on my way to see the commanding general of the U. S. Army Combined Arms Center. I'm staying at the airport Radisson, eating room service during a tornado warning, watching Kundun, the story of the Dalai Lama's childhood in Tibet. It's like that these days. Everywhere I look, there's another boy staring back at me. The Dalai Lama was a wildly curious boyabout cars, movies, machines, traveling. He laughs, he fidgets, he stares off into the distance. I imagine he farts for pleasure. He hungers for other places. And I'm thinking about how much the monks seemed to like him, to tolerate him as a boy. They were both his followers and his leaders. And how being a boy, just being allowed to prosper as a boy, made him the greatest mangentle and smart, kind and ballsy. I can still see the boy inside the man I know now. Then the electricity goes out. The next morning I drive to Fort Leavenworth, where Lieutenant General David Petraeus waits for me. I've never been to a military base in my life, although I took military-history courses in college, only because I wanted to squeeze money out of ROTC. I'm not sure what I was expecting. Dust, I guess. Huge lots where men and women march in formation. But the base looks more like a turn-of-the-last-century college campus, replete with cottages and dormitories. There is an order to the comings and goings that one might expect but an inclusiveness I find surprising. Men shake hands. People wave. Guys in camouflage push strollers. "There's a kind of embrace to the military," General Petraeus says after hearing what I felt coming in. "Done right, the connections are similar to a family." This man has six pages of handwritten notes and twenty pages of research, all balanced on his knee. He reads through his comments precisely but fields my questions as they come. He's an academic, too, having taught international relations at West Point for two years. He had a meeting on this subject with several staff members before I arrived. "I wanted to do a little thinking before we talked. It's urgent, but I can't say I have a simple answer." I tell him about the boys I know, about how I'm concerned that the Army may be the only option for a kid like Gerald. "That's the problem," he says. "It may not be an option for him. We have a profile we're looking for; we need high school graduates who are physically fit and driven by the desire for self-improvement. We need men who are prepared to be better soldiers. "I see the same things you do. The numbers are declining among boys," he says, clearing his throat. "I always call them men. "I'm concerned in three respects: as a citizen, as an educator, as a military officer. As a citizen, there's a keen recognition that our competitiveness is defined by the education of our workforce. Beyond that, as a teacher, I can see that it's not just economic growth we're talking about; it's overall quality of life, the balance of the society itself. I always keep in mind that quality of political discourse depends on an educated electorate. "You have to try to construct a culture with great care. That's what we do in the military. There is the sense here that every individual can be the decisive person in a key point, in a key situation. It's a sense of ownership and connection that isn't provided elsewhere." I ask him about a solution, about a direction for boys. He corrects me: "It's men." I think for a moment that he means using the term to refer to boys, but he doesn't. The answer, he means, is men. "What boys need," he says, "are role models, parental supervision, encouragement to pursue excellence in all that they do, especially in education, where we must do whatever is necessary to keep them in school. They need direction to stay on the straight and narrow, a push to participate in athletics and extracurricular activities, help to pursue a healthy lifestyle, recognition that they must be accountable for their actions, and reinforcement of good performance." But how do we do that? The adults. The men. What's our end? "We have to embrace mentoring," he says, "and we have to be conscious role models. Parents, teachers, coaches, bosses all have to do what leaders dogive energy and encouragement to those who soldier for them. And young men undoubtedly need that more than any other group in America. Indeed, if we can get them through the years during which they're particularly vulnerable, they often will flourish." I shrug. I'm a little skeptical. Mentoring seems more like a buzzword than a real practice. "It has to be very conscious," he says. "I have dozens of young officers I mentor. I typically call several each month on Saturday mornings and e-mail the others. We actually schedule the Saturday-morning calls." When I ask if he has role models of his own, in this embrace he speaks of, he snaps off a list of ten names. Generals, teachers, coaches. There is not one among them I recognize, but he clearly knows each one for a different reason, for a different aspect of his own need. "I have to trust people who've been there before me," he says. "It's not a hard thing to learn because of its inherent value. But it's not a part of the larger culture of boys. They don't ask for help enough to know that it's there." ONE MORNING LAST WEEK, two of the senior boys in my class came in with bandages on their hands. When I asked, as is my way, what happened, they smiled wryly. "Bloody Knuckles," said one. The other one laughed and peeled back his Band-Aid. "I was bleeding pretty bad," he said. I started in on them, haranguing them about the stupidity of potentially breaking bones in their hands weeks before they took jobs. As I was saying this stuff, I was thinking it was my own version of mentoring. But I can remember playing Bloody Knuckles. It was risky and fun. It felt good in the marrow just to think about it again. "I think we should have an Olympics of games guys play," said one. They immediately started making a list. Two of them gathered, then three, then four. I watched as they listed out the events: Towel Battle. Leg Wrestling. King of the Buckets. Bloody Knuckles. Human Jousting. Six-Inch Punching. Indian Wrestling. Knee Football. Hand Slapper. Rock, Paper, Scissors. Slap Boxing. Pelts. I both know these games and don't. I remember playing them but can't remember the rules. We laughed as we read the list aloud, as the boys in the class demonstrated each event. These are the games you weren't allowed to play at recess, the games your mother warned you about. Each involves some measure of violence, some risk. The point is always to make the other guy fall or hurt, bleed or flip over, lose. Boys do this. They knock one another down. They hurt one another. Then they laugh and shake it off. Their joy in relating each game was tangible. Soon they came up with a notion that this should be a campus-wide event: the Brolympics. And the idea had currency for a moment, the filling of some anomalous need that no man in the room could put a name to. But it was an absurdity, mostly, to consider this. We laughed at the audaciousness of it, the ludicrousness of letting boys be boys, of ramping up maleness in the center of campus, where maleness is only tolerated. They made up a poster, but the idea died under our laughter. This is a school after all. A college. We know how things go. I'M A LITTLE WORRIED about boys, so lately I've been thinking a lot about what can be done to help them. I've been griping, to my friends mostly, for a decade about something I've felt in my gut. Every time an article on a perceived boys crisis appears, there is a backlash, a rehashing of the numbers, a recasting of the crisis. Get this much straight: Things are much worse for black boys, for Latino boys, than they are for white ones. And for poor boys as well. I see that clearly. But why such great resistance to the idea that the problem may be that boysall boyshave lost their foothold, their sense of a linear future, a path in the world? Why does maleness even matter if all we do is resist and undermine it in our schools? "The masculine impulse is limits testing, even self-destructive. We don't want to extinguish it," Camille Paglia, feminist critic and cultural provocateur, told me when I called. "In the age of terrorism, who will defend us? Young jihadists sure aren't tempering their masculinity. Americans are in unilateral gender disarmament." I don't think there is a gender war. I don't think there is any war on boys really. It's not that conscious. It's more like a great forgetting. The women's movement was about making room for women, and the numbers show, in schools at least and in the workplace to some extent, that we have. The gains of girls, Kati Haycock points out, are "the result of a couple of generations of advocacy on the part of women, and girls getting the message that anything is possible. It's a result of women constantly being reminded that they have to watch out for their financial well-being, and they could do this through schools. Women got that message. They are still getting it. That's what's owed the boys. It's a matter of generational focus. We have no goals asking educators to pay attention to boys, nothing really concrete. The record shows that when we really concentrate on something like this, we tend to have progress." We don't have to feel threatened by the gains girls have made. We need to study them, to use them as a model for boys. The solution may be to grab on to that which is male and use it as a means to fix the problem rather than as a symptom of it. In the classroom, there's ample evidence that certain changes could help boys prosper. They like to do their work in bite-sized chunks. They need differing levels of activity, often tied to some element of competition or short-term goal. They tend to gravitate toward nonfiction in their readingmore facts, shorter pieces. They need physical activity, too, up to four recesses a day, to stay focused. We also have to think about the way boys put the world together outside the classroom. In England, gaps in achievement have been attributed, in part, to what is known as laddishness. Since boys tend to run in packs, their values are defined by the boys who lead them. There's a sort of antiestablishment disaffection passed from boy to boy, a sense that school doesn't matter. Educators there used that pattern as a means to reinvent it. They used intensely focused mentorship, aimed at the pack leaders, to break down these attitudes, cracking into the structures that keep boys distant from school. Women forced the issue with girls. Men have to do the same with boys. As it is now, men don't even have the language to discuss what it means to be male. Forget the Right and the Left. I am as skeptical of character training, championed by conservatives as the answer to the crisis, as I am scornful of sensitivity training, which put our classrooms in their current posture. We don't need a new orthodoxy. We need a deeper sense of involvement. Men have to be willing to care about the way boys are being treated, taught, and cared for in this country and advocate for them. Find the books that boys readthey are out thereand make sure they are in the libraries and under the Christmas trees. If the classrooms don't work, men must be in the schoolsat the PTA meetings, at parent-teacher conferences, in front of school boards, in classes teaching or just talking about their jobs. Young men, men without children, must take a stake and volunteer to coach, to counsel, to read to kids. You can't wait for fatherhood to hit you in the face. Men whose children are grown must mentor a new generation of children. Select two boys, the ones who need it, the ones you know are hurting. Take a lesson from Joel Klein and convince two more men to do the same. Two more men: That's your assignment. Go talk to boys. You don't have to use baby talk with them or buy them things. You just have to listen to them. Ask them who they are. The answers they give may not always make sense, but talk to enough of them and you will surely realize that boys themselves are not the problem. And it sure as hell isn't women or girls. The problem is men. ------------------ Who's Doing Something? Not everyone has turned a blind eye to the boys crisis. Here are four organizations devoted to fixing the problem. Guys Read, http://www.guysread.com/ Jon Scieszka, a children's-book author and former elementary school teacher, wants to make reading interesting and fun for boys. His engaging Web site recommends guy-friendly books to young readers. The Boys Project, http://www.boysproject.net/ Organized this year by a University of Alaska psychology professor, this consortium of educators and researchers hopes to spur federal- and state-funded initiatives to increase boys' academic skills and increase their ambition. Raising and Educating Healthy Boys Project, http://www.edequity.org/ The Educational Equity Center of the Academy for Educational Development created this program to study gender expectations, raise awareness among educators and parents of how they may be inadvertently limiting boys, and brainstorm solutions. Citizen Schools, http://www.citizenschools.org/ Though not targeted just to boys, this organization, operating in twenty-two middle schools nationwide, seeks to engage students through the kind of experiential learning, such as apprenticeships with volunteers, that males tend to respond to. Victor Ozols contributed to the reporting of this story and provided invaluable analysis.

This is kinda long -- but read about a 1/4 of the way down -- I never realized that Rayfield Wright is an Eagle Scout, and I'm a Cowboys fan from way back! Hall of Fame memories: Rayfield Wright http://www.nfl.com/news/story/9549685 (July 10, 2006) -- Despite beginning his college athletic career as a basketball player and beginning his NFL career as a tight end, Rayfield Wright became a superb right tackle for the Dallas Cowboys in the 1970s. After 20 years of waiting, he finally was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in February 2006. Wright talked about the honor and his playing days in a teleconference with the national media. What is your best memory of your years with the Cowboys? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: Oh, my goodness. I have a lot of memories with the Cowboys starting back in 1967 through 1980. To recapture all of that, I have to start with the Ice Bowl game in Green Bay back in 1967, my rookie year, being known as the team in the late '60s, as the team that couldn't win the big game, then getting to the Super Bowl in 1970 against the Baltimore Colts, even though we lost, having an opportunity to come back in 1971 and winning our first Super Bowl. That was really overwhelming. Can you share the story about moving positions in the first game against Deacon Jones? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: Yes, I can. I remember after playing tight end for two years, my first two years, Coach Landry called me into his office, told me that, "Rayfield," he said, "I want to move you to offensive tackle." I looked at him with amazement because I never played tackle before in my life. I looked at him and I said, "Coach, are you sure?" He said, "Yeah, you'll make a good tackle. You learn fast. You block good at tight end. You just need to gain some weight." "Coach," I said, "you believe I can best help this football team by moving in this position that I never played before in my life, I give it everything I have." The only thing we did after that, after he said, "I believe you can do it, Rayfield," we just shook hands on the deal. I didn't have to call an agent, renegotiate a contract or nothing, you know. So I went into that position not knowing anything about it. After practice one I was trying to figure out how to pass block because I never set up the pass block before, even though I was watching game films of all of the greatest tackles I thought that had played the game like Forrest Gregg, Bob Brown, and St. Louis had two tackles, Ernie McMillan and Bob Reynolds. I was studying these guys, trying to go out on the field the next day to try to imitate these guys, and I couldn't do it, you know, because each individual is a different person, their makeup is different, they have different abilities and things about them. It just came to me one day that what I really was trying to do was protect my quarterback, and in order to do so the similarities of playing basketball really hit my mind in saying, "OK, if I'm guarding a guy playing basketball, I'm going to stay between him and the basket. You do that by quickly shuffling your feet, whether you go to the right or left. If you cross your feet, you get beat. The guy will drive on you and get a layup or a dunk." So what I did was I said, "Well, the quarterback is the basket, and the defensive end is the guy dribbling the ball. So I just got to stay between these two guys, I'll be OK." So I just had to gain a little bit more strength. After about halfway during the season, Ralph Neely, who I was backing up at right tackle, got hurt. Coach Landry called me in his office again and said, "Rayfield, you're going to start this week." I said, "OK. We playing the Rams, right?" They had the Fearsome Foursome at that time. I said, "OK, I have to block Deacon Jones," who at that time was the most feared defensive end in all of football. I think even today he's probably the best defensive end I think I've ever seen play the game. So I got prepared to play the game and everything. Offensive linemen are taught one thing, and that is to listen. You're supposed to listen for one voice, and that's the quarterback's voice, because he can call a color or number, change the play at the line of scrimmage. We were out in Los Angeles at the Coliseum. There was 80,000 people, television, everybody screaming and yelling. You're supposed to listen and hear one voice. Roger Staubach called the play. We go up to the line of scrimmage. I'm looking at Deacon Jones square in his eyes, his eyes seem to be red as fire, he's kicking his back leg like a bull. I'm saying to myself, "My God, what have I got myself into?" The thing is the ball is going to be snapped on two, and I knew exactly what my assignment was. The play was going to go to the left side, but I knew what my assignment was. Staubach said, hut, the ball for the first count, and then as this pause between the first and second hut. I hear a voice that came out to me. This voice came out at me in a real heavy, deep, meaningful kind of voice. He said, "Boy, does your mama know you out here?" And I heard it. When Staubach said the second hut, I never heard it. You can imagine what the "Secretary of Defense" did on that play. He came across the line of scrimmage, hit me, knocked me completely backwards. I rolled over, looked over at our sideline thinking that Coach Landry was going to take me out of the game since it was my first play and I screwed it up. By that time, Deacon Jones reached his big arms down and said, "Hey, rookie," he said, "Welcome to the NFL." I said, "Well, Mr. Jones, you don't know my mama, so don't talk about her. You want to play the game this way, we'll play it." I got the game ball for that game. I was the MVP of that ballgame. Deacon Jones certainly enlightened me to that position, no question about it. Can you explain a little bit about your coach at Fort Valley State, Coach Lomax, and why you chose him to be your presenter? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: Yes, sir. Coach Lomax was a father figure to me and still is today. Coming out of high school not having the financial resources to go to college, I volunteered for the Air Force my senior year. My cousin that was at Fort Valley State College, John Willis, we called him Bubber, he was at Fort Valley. Coach Lomax was the new coach that came in out of Brunswick, Georgia. He was trying to build a football team. Coach Lomax, my cousin told Coach Lomax about my athletic ability in basketball, football, that he should consider getting me to Fort Valley. So, Coach Lomax contacted me. I told him I have this situation. I'd love to come to school at Fort Valley but I've got this situation that I've already committed to. He just simply would not leave me alone. He continued to contact me. I said, "Well, Coach, here is what you need to do. You need to come to Griffin, Georgia, which is my hometown, and you need to talk to my mother, my grandmother, my Boy Scout master, which I'm an Eagle scout, need to talk to my minister and the recruiting officer." He said he would. So I got all those people in our little house. He came up. And back in those days, when elder people would get together, they always sent the kids outside. You never kind of hung around when the elders were talking. So I went outside and sat on the front porch. I sat out there for almost three hours, didn't know what was going on inside while they was talking about my life and my future. All of a sudden, the front door opened and my mother came out, she was crying. Then my grandmother came out, and she was crying. And I didn't know whether to cry, get mad, because I didn't know what had happened. Then the recruiting officer came up to me and said, Larry, he said, you can go to college. He said, but if you drop out of school, flunk out of college, he said that you'll be drafted into the Army immediately. So Coach Lomax is responsible for that, and when I went, September had already began, so I missed the first quarter at Fort Valley. I didn't start college until January in '64. Basketball season was halfway over at that point. In a couple of weeks, I made the first team in basketball at Fort Valley. That was my love for the game anyway. I thought that I had a basketball scholarship. After the school year was over in June that year, I went back to Griffin. I was working at a mill. Coach Lomax called and he was very upset with me because I wasn't at spring football practice. I said, "Well, Coach, I didn't know I was supposed to play football. I thought I had a basketball scholarship." He said, "No, you have an athletic scholarship, so get your fanny back down here." I had to quit my job, I went back to Fort Valley and I started playing football because I couldn't make the high school football team. That's when I really started playing football. My first position was free safety, I was a punter, I played defensive end and I played tight end. The Cowboys drafted me as a tight end. You were talking about changing all these positions, changing sports, willingly doing so on the advice and trust of your coaches. Do you think the game today has gotten so sophisticated and specific that it would be very difficult for a player to change sports or positions like you did, and the type of athlete today would be so willing to make some of the changes and adjustments you made? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: Well, number one, you're looking at the game as it is today, everything pretty much is specialized. What's really, really interesting is that Coach Landry had a system back in those days. He knew his system would work if he could simply find the right athletes to place in that system. It wasn't necessarily by position that you played in college or high school, it was whether or not you were an athlete. He wasn't changing his system. He knew it would work if he could find the right player. Cornell Green was a basketball player, Bob Hayes was a track star. You just go right down the line of the athletes we had back there. As of today, you know, I don't see that happening today because everything is so specialized. Even offensive linemen and defensive linemen today, if you don't weigh 300 pounds, you can't even go out and play football in college or some of these schools today, which is ridiculous to me. You don't need to weigh that much to play the game of football, especially on the offensive line. That situation is a pretty interesting situation because, you know, the players today are more specialized in a position than we were. We were interested in just playing the game, so it didn't make any difference what position we played, you know, as long as we had the opportunity to play, we could play it. Because, you know, there's a lot of difference between, as I see it, from my standpoint, a good football player and a good athlete. A football player specialized in that position, but an athlete is different because an athlete can play any position. It's like when I was growing up as a kid, when it was football season, we played football in the streets or in the park or someplace. When basketball season, we played basketball, and track season we ran track, baseball season we played baseball. We just didn't have golf in our community back in the '40s and '50s back in Georgia. But, you know, I would have learned how to play that back then if we had had it. Then that particular person that can get involved in all these different sports he becomes a true athlete instead of just a good player in a game. And the players today, if you look at every team, you have position coach. We didn't have that growing up. In high school, there was one coach, and that was it. He was the head coach. He coached football, basketball, baseball, the whole deal. Today, everybody has a coach, specialties in every position. Have you been to Canton before? What do you anticipate that is going to be like in a couple of weeks? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: Well, I tell you, you know, I have been to Canton. We played a preseason game up there many years ago with the Cowboys. It's going to be an interesting, interesting week for me because I'm going there not to play a football game, I'm going there to be inducted into the highest honor a professional football player can receive, and that's being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I really don't know, I can't say right now my true feelings on that day of enshrinement. That day have to come. But it is going to be a tremendous honor. It's not just going to be an honor for Rayfield Wright, it's going to be an honor for a lot of people, especially the offensive linemen that have played for the Dallas Cowboys over all the years because of one fact, and that is out of all the great teams that the Cowboys have had over the years, there has not been an offensive lineman placed in the Hall of Fame. I will be the first one. You know, I will be carrying the weight on my shoulders from the offensive line, Coach Jim Myers, and all the offensive linemen that have played the game for the Dallas Cowboys especially during the era in which I played, because we had a lot of players on our line that was all pro and that played in the Pro Bowl game. Roger Staubach, really played behind an All-Pro offensive line. John Niland, Ralph Neely, Blaine Nye, myself, all these guys played in the Pro Bowl game. I remember Coach Landry making a statement to me after I got into that position of offensive tackle. He said, no matter how many accolades you receive or how many awards you receive, he said, you will never be greater than the team. So the Cowboys were not operating as individual players; we were operating as a unit, as a team. That's what wins ballgames and also wins championships. Can you talk about your wait? You were on all the decade's-best lists. You had so many close calls. Talk about the wait to get into the Hall of Fame. RAYFIELD WRIGHT: Well, my last season was '79. I retired in '80. Staubach and I both retired in 1980. I think my first year of eligibility would have been '85, I believe. It's 2006 now. You know, I didn't really think about the Hall of Fame based on my performance for the Cowboys. I joined the Cowboys to do one thing -- well, to do two things. One was to help the club win football games, and secondly was to help my family, my mother and my grandmother, you know, in Georgia. My performance on the football field was not thought about one day becoming a Hall of Famer. Until after I had retired and a lot of the news media had started talking about it and looking at the things that I had accomplished in the game and saying, Hey, this guy should be considered for the Hall of Fame. Once a player and once that information comes out to a player, then it gets in his heart and in his head. He's saying, Hey. He get to looking at the players that are in the Hall of Fame, and based on the position that he played, saying, Hey, maybe I should be there, you know. I did help our team go to five Super Bowls. Maybe I should be there. I was one of the co-captains for seven, eight, nine years, something like that. You know, it's going to be an interesting week for me, like it will be for the others. It's going to be a great week for each of the teams that these players and Coach Madden was with. I'm just honored for this opportunity because I think it's going to be great, it will open the doors for a lot of -- hopefully will open the doors for a lot of other offensive linemen. Even though you didn't play with him, does it mean anything to be going in with Troy Aikman, another Cowboy? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: I think the only two players from the same team that have gone in from the Cowboys was Randy White and Tony Dorsett, if I'm not mistaken. To go in with Troy Aikman, even though I didn't play with him, I certainly admired his ability to play the game and his leadership qualities that he possessed. It's going to be an honor to go in with him. Troy is a fine young man and I think that he certainly is deserving of the honor. It's just going to be an honor to go in with him, no question about it. Can you talk about the whole process of getting the bust made, what that was like for you? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: It's really interesting because when I was over in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl game, they took all the measurements of everything -- your head, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, the whole deal, your ears. You know, they took those measurements. What they did at the Hall was they have people, which I didn't know, wasn't aware of, around the country that make these different busts for different players, I guess. If you live in this part of the country, then they have a guy that does that. You live in this part of the country. Well, you know, down here in Texas, there's a guy here that did Elvin Bethea's bust. He's the one that made my bust. I'm going to tell you something, he called me. He took those measurements, that was done over at the Pro Bowl game, and he looked at all of the pictures that he had of me that had been passed on to him. He took that and from that he began making this bust of me. I was shocked when I saw it the first time because he came over to my house, he and another gentleman, and he had something wrapped up in a bag. You couldn't see it. Openly, he had the bust of Elvin Bethea. I saw that. He showed me what he had done. I said to myself, I said, "Well, that's really nice. Did you do that?" He said, yes, he's the one that did that. Then he unwrapped the one that was wrapped up. It was what he had done of me. I had never in my life ever seen myself that way, you know. I don't know about you, but it was so devastating to me, I almost ran out of my own house when I saw that. I said, "Hey, guys, I'm still alive, you know." It was totally -- it was awesome when I really saw that. It's hard to explain because I had to call my mom and tell her, you know, so she could settle me down a little bit. It was really interesting to see that. A good likeness of you? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: Well, absolutely. No question about it. And once you see it, you going to see what I'm talking about because it's just like a split (sic) image of what I was back in the '70s, how I looked, played, everything else. The expression on my face, it's just an awesome, awesome bust, picture of me. Over the last six months or so, since the announcement, can you talk about what that has been like? More people shaking your hand, calling you, that sort of thing? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: Well, no question about that. I just came out of Virginia for an autograph-signing session up there. I was there over the weekend. I put my computer on this morning, even today, I had 261 e-mails on my computer today. It's kind of been that kind of a thing for me since that has happened, because all of the people I went to high school with, grew up in Griffin, all my teammates and students I went to Fort Valley State with, my business associates all around the country that I have worked with for so many years, kids that I had spoken to for my speaking engagements that I do, it's just been overwhelming to me. You know, it's hard to say when you going to kind of slow down because this point is coming now where you got to really focus and settle in, you know, on the activities that's going to happen in a couple of weeks. But it's been overwhelming, no question about it. What has been the best part of that? Any one particular phone call or memory, somebody congratulating you that you didn't expect to hear from? RAYFIELD WRIGHT: What's interesting is I heard from most of all the guys in the Hall of Fame already, you know, coaches that I played against around the league. It's just been so many people that I have heard from that have been a part of the National Football League, whether they was coaches or players, trainers, doctors, so forth. I can't really recall one in particular that really stands out. It's just so many calls and letters that I have received. I'm keeping all of those for future reference and so forth for my own personal use and memories because I think to hear from some of these guys really, really, really was a shock to me and also a sign of respect that they exemplified in their words to me, in their letters and so forth, e-mails.