Gold Winger

Maybe if BSA had just borrowed a military beret instead of designing their own which few wore properly.

I was at the first Trailblazer day. The idea was to attract new youth to Scouting. Unfortunately, only a handful of non-Scouts showed up but hundreds of Scouts did. What could be wrong with a day of fishing, shooting, and archery?

I'd like to see a return to community strips. Modern embroidery systems would eliminate the need for stocking hundreds of strips. Units or districts could just order a bunch and keep them on hand. Different colors of strips could be offered for the different programs without much more of a problem. Of course that would eliminate the extra revenue that CSPs generate for councils with their myriad special CSPs. We could even go back to different colored numbers for different programs, heck with the new Boy Scout numbers, we're halfway there.

The insignia guide says that a Scout may wear either the official slide or one that he made himself. No one from the unform police is going to get upset if he wears a slide made by his grandfather or uses a tube from a shotshell as a slide.

I think I'm attributing this quote to the right person. "Uniforms have to have epaulettes," General McPeak, past Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Back in the 80s, the Air Force wanted a new uniform, their old on was "too military" and didn't reflect the professional nature of the service. So after spending many millions of dollars, they came up with a new uniform without bellows pockets and no epaulettes that was well received. Until the Chief of Staff looked at it and declared that it needed epaulettes. The new uniform was adopted in the early 90s. Fast forward to the 21st century and the complaint became that the Air Force uniform didn't look military enough. So they went back to the 50s and dug out the belted jacket with bellows pockets and made a few changes. Oh yeah, it has epaulettes.

"By law, Congress can authorize no more than two commemorative coins per year." Since Congress makes the laws, they could change it to three or seventeen if they wished.

Shoulder boards never went away. They stuck around with the trop whites and the dress whites and let's not forget the reefer and bridgecoat. Oh, almost forgot. Shouldboards are are way cooler than epaulettes with loops. :-) (This message has been edited by Gold Winger)

Even during the Big One, WW Deuce, the Congress was passing silly laws and resoloutins. Mother's Day, Firefighter Recognition Day, the new statue of whoever, all silly things that continue no matter what else is going on in the world. That's the Congress of the United States.

Who? I know what piping is, anyone who passed the third grade knows what piping is. Sheesh!

When I wuz a Scout we wore buckskins and carried Sharps rifles. Aah, thems wuz the dayz. Alls a man needed wuz his rifle, a hoss, an' a twist of 'baccy. A'course he needed a good knife too. None of these danged epp-ee-lets for us. A'couse we did have them bandana things. Funny thing about that. I was in St. Louie one time and feller gived me a summit to et, a yaller fruit and he called it a bandana. I tole him thet he wuz loco, ya wears a bandana aroun' yore neck, ya don' et it. City folks . . .

What about all the other idiotic things that get voted on? Father's Day? Mother's Day? National Potato Week?

When I did advancement first recognitions was the "Congratulations, you're now 1st Class Scout," second was the patch presentation at the following troop meeting, third was at the COH. Even if the BOR is at the troop meeting (IMHO that's baaaad because it detracts from the troop meeting), the first still occurs when you say, "Congrats . . ." unless you want to leave him hanging which would be hazing.

Ed, ed, ed . . . BSA owns the right to the BSA insignia and indica and as can specify who may or may not wear it. It is actually a trademark law violation to wear a BSA uniform if you aren't a current member.

"Probably committing heresy, but I would not mind the POR emblem to drop the logo and go to just the name" I would rather go the other way. Get rid of the silly words and just use the emblem. Silver fleur for SM, gold for ASM, three bars for SPL, etc. Just like the old days. :-)

" He was wondering if there was going to be a new emblem for Order of the Arrow since there was no place for the Arrow pin." One of the pictures shows a button on the backside of a pocket flap. That's probably there for temp patches and the OA dangle. "Scouters longed mightily for a uniform that could actually be worn outdoors, yet still recognizable as a Scout uniform." I think that they made changes without acutally considering the purpose of the changes. For example, the silly pockets. They look to be smaller than the current pockets. My outdoorsing shirts from any number of manufacturers have nice big pockets so you can stuff a notebook into them or a couple rolls of film (remember that?) or a compass and whistle. Of the keys to good pockets is that it has to be deep enough so that stuff won't fall out easily. Arm pockets? I've had them before and never used them. Maybe a pen slot. Perhaps our Army guys or aviation guys will tell us how often they use their arm pockets. I agree on the collar. Should have gone back to a collar that looked good with the necker over it. Oh well, we'll have to live with this shirt for another 20 years.

" an epaulette is an ornamental shoulder piece, usually fringed. We are referring to the passant or shoulder strap, which was originally used to hold the epaulet in place" The US Army calls them epaulets. The Marince Corps calls them eapulettes. Burberry calls them epuaulettes and they invented the trenchcoat which is notable for epaulettes. I'll continue to call them epaulettes and I'll be in good company.

If you wear a beret or gloves you can tuck them under the epauluttes. The original trenchcoats had them to hold the strap of a shoulder bag in place. Don't really think that we need them either.

I've never played laser tag or paint ball either. Played "army" as a kid, "you're dead - - - no I'm not". Never had a desire to do it as a grown up.

"Be thankful he didn't hide it in his underpants." I've said that many times :-)

Much of my professional life has been involved in figuring out what can and will go wrong. So when the switchbacks came and boys started buying them, I said, "Hey! You need to make sure that your son's name is in each leg of their pants" "Oh why, GW?" "Because when they take their legs off there'll be 40 pant legs with no identification" "Oh no GW, you worry too much that won't cause a problem" Well, there was no problem until the boys detached their pant legs and being boys in the 21st Century got them mixed up. "Wah, wah, wah! Johnny came home with two left legs and one is too short for him!" The moral is "put identifying marks in each leg."

It's all pretty simple . . . The wheels on the bus go round and round. . . :-) Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll shut up now.

"Our troop has a no double dipping rule if you are accomplishing one task you can not utilize it to fulfill another." Merit badge accomplishments are not a troop matter, they are between the Scout and his counselor. Counselors are not Unit Scouters, they are registered with the council so a Scoutmaster's whims cannot or should not affect them. Unless, of course, fraud is involved. That said, one doesn't construct a shelter on an ordeal, one has a sleeping bag, ground cloth and that's it. No caves, no cutting down trees. You sleep where you're told and that's that. I'd say no.

I won't. If you buy a replica 1892, I can offer suggestions on how to "age" it.

Does that surprise you? We live in a world where one man puts a bomb in his shoe and now millions of people have to remove their shoes to be allowed to fly.

"Not for some years now. Gorillas, . . ." Depends on who you talk to, biologists say one thing but anthropologists say another. I guess it is just a case of the priests of science disagreeing. Or you could say that one group of science priests is modifying their "theories" to better support their beliefs. (This message has been edited by Gold Winger)