Gold Winger

"GW - not only terrorists, but aimless daredevil delinquent thieves!" Hey! We never stole anything.

"I will never understand why scouters get so territorial over awards and how many a person has. In the army I have 3 badges and 14 ribbons (some with multiple oak leaves) and no one gets bent out of shape about it like I see people do in scouting." Bent out of shape? Which way are they bending? The most bending that I see are by the people who don't think that you ought to wear them.

" How many knots do you have Gold" " I'm gonna guess, based on my "observation" of your posts, and my 'prejudicial interpretation' of those observations . . . that you wear a bunch of knots." I wear two.(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

" "Trained" patches ARE for use on the green uniform." Venturing has a different trained patch. "The old tan uniform worn by den leaders is discontinued. " What about the hundreds of thousands of leaders that already have the old uniform?

" But thinking carefully here, one of the big fears voters (even many Republicans) have about McCain is that he's old and he might die in office." Old? He's not old.

Gee Bob White said, "Cost-wise it is not that much more costly to do color instead of black and white due to digital printing as opposed to four-color offset which used to be the only way to get a full color image." I guess either BSA didn't get the word or their just ripping us off. I'm still baffled by the "digital printing" comment. I know guys who work in print shops, they still use offset or lithographic printers for most jobs. If "digital" means laser, that seems to be reservered for small runs. Maybe BeeDub would explain what he means and where the savings went.

Back in the day when I wore either blue or zebra stripes, I worked many non-scholastic games. You'd see the same coaches week after week and some were kidders. Before every game you'd meet with the coaches and say "Hi, do you undersand the rules . . . blah, blah" Fairly often, a coach whom you'd seen every week for the past month would say something like, "I left the envelope with your bribe with the scorekeeper," the other coach would then say, "Hey, I thought that you were taking my bribes." I'd respond with something witty like, "I'll weigh the two envelopes and the heaviest one will get the win." We'd all laugh, the game would start and they'd scream and yell the same as usual about every call. However, if one had slipped me a note that said what that Scout's note said, I would have called the authorities immediately.

" One day, we were talking about it and he said, "I wear the only important one." I guess in his mind the purpose of the program is to make Eagles.

Don't worry, our government will probably wind up paying for the little foreign boy. If you look into it, very few people are really uncovered for serious things. Some government agency is usually ready to step in or a private organization like the Shriners. Where it really becomes an issue is when you need things like orthotics or dental care and even then there is so much help available that it isn't funny. You just have to know that it is available. About 25 years ago a friend needed surgery to save his life. He unemployed at the time so had no insurance. The hospital just wrote off their $100,000+ bill. Unfortunately, the doctors wouldn't budge on their $50,000 bill so, not wanting to take government help, he just paid it off over the next ten years. Yes, there needs to be a better system but I don't know what it is. Maybe we could get manufacturing back in this country so that people could have decent jobs.

That's one example of someone who wears awards they haven't earned. What's that have to do with Scouters who wear their earned awards? Not a danged thing. It really sounds like you have some issues. I've observed that people who take screen names from famous people have some serious issues with self esteem. Maybe you need to re-examine your motives for being involved with Scouting.

I have copies of both "Aids to Scoutmastership" and "Scouting for Boys." Unfotunately, not only are they written in a foreign language, they're in black and white and won't make sense unless they are colorized.

" Those cheese eating surrender monkeys may have helped." They're frog eating surrender monkeys. Sheesh!

"GW, most of the good scouters are fully trained or their units would flounder, many of them choose not to wear the knots they have earned for a variety of reasons," Four districts, two councils and I haven't met one of those yet. Not bad Scouters but good Scouters who choose to not wear their knots. "Oh no, have I started down a slippery slope to poor scouting?!?! I just got and sewed on my first knot. Tell me I'll be ok??" Apparently not, according to some. By sewing that knot on your uniform, you have just made your participation in the program about you and not about the boys. Shame on you!(This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

Sounds like a sweeping generalization to me. Most of the Scouters that I know who have a bunch of fruit salad are the ones who had a good troop, have a good career, and are generally happy. Most fruit salad comes from doing your job and getting the training, not things that slackers usually do. By your standards, my son's first Scoutmaster should have been a cracker-jack Scouter because he had no knots on his shirt. Why no knots? Because he hadn't earned any. Never did any training beyond the minimums. Thought that boys couldn't lead so he let the adults act as den leaders. It was a fiasco of Scouting but the parents loved him because everyone advanced and he was an affable guy. Strangely he was in a dead-end job that he lied about and his own kids wouldn't listen to him. On the other hand, one of the most dedicated Scouters that I know has a chest full of knots including the Silver Bever and is probably the biggest advocate of let the boys do it that I've ever met. Outside of scouting, he retired after 30 years in the military where he got a chest full of medals including the Purple Heart. He's married to a woman who could be a super model, his kids are doing great in school. All-in-all, he'd doing okay. In fact, just about every dedicated Scouter that I can think of has a chest full of knots and seem to have good careers and lives. Why? Because they do their jobs and get recognized for doing it, both inside and outside of Scouting. As for me, I'm a slacker and I only have two knots.

"I am told by students and some concerned athletics people that there exists a certain culture among the athletes that views out-of-wedlock children as a status symbol." A ghetto dwelling friend told me that is the norm in the black community because it shows that "you be a man and that you can get the job done with yo' b****." "I like to point to the Medivac helicopter pilots and paramedics that "entertain" by flying wowser 'copters AND save lives." What is a "wowser" copter?

"My OA flap commemorates the World Championship that the Detroit Pistons won in 2004. I wear it on my uniform and feel no guilt that I have never been a member of the Detroit Pistons organization." However, you should feel guilt for using your uniform as a billboard to advertise a multi-zillion dollar corporation.

The individual digits are about a buck each. If memory serves, the custom patches are 75 cents per digit.

Yep, that is difficult. Taking off a number and putting a new one on. Nothing at all like sewing on new rank badges or a new badge of office

I guess color printing is needed because so many young people are like the woman that I worked with who said she couldn't watch black and white movies because they made no sense to her unless they had been colorized.

I'd still call Homeland Security, especially after his c0-conspirator tried to convince you it was a joke. Black helicopters over his house will make for a fun evening.

Especially for the stupid kid sitting in jail for threatening to murder someone.

"I'll say this, health care is the only commodity that I purchase that I have no idea of the price when I make the purchase. The cause in the insurance industry." How true. You don't even have an idea of WHO you're going to be paying. I went to see my doctor. He took a urine sample and someone in his office did some tests. No problems. Then I get a bill from another doctor. Seems my doctor sent my sample to this other guy to "check." How about when you're in the hospital and there's the parade of doctors that you've never seen before and they all send bill for their "consults." People I know from the UK and Canada say that the system works well until as long as you have nothing more serious than a cold or a broken arm. Heart problems, cancer, etc. and you might wind up waiting months to see a doctor. We already have socialized medicine. If you have a serious problem and have no insurance, there are state and local agencies that will pick up the bill. They might not pay for the sniffles but they will get you treatment for your brain tumor.

It might also help if they wore their trousers up where Henry Brooks intended them to be :-)

I'm calling Homeland Security now! They'll get to the bottom of this!

In reference to the Scout Shops, if they are national owned, i.e wear the gold loops and minimal insignia, then they MUST be in the current uniform and are not allowed to wear any of the older unifrom items. " I hope they give you a great discount. A few years ago, the manager at my local mentioned that they were hiring. I wasn't working at the time and thought that it might not be a bad job. So I asked the big question about pay. I don't remember the numbers but it was less than the local McD's was offering.