Stosh

Yes, @@NJCubScouter you are absolutely correct, absolute and zero-tolerance can never be used in the same sentence.....

You are correct, life is too short to be drinking bad coffee, toss in an egg for the best cup of your life.

I didn't think I was being cynical when I pointed out that this Scout missed out on a excellent opportunity to show his value to society as a Boy Scout. There are people every day who honestly turn in lost items, do nice things, watch out for others, etc. and like the TIPS hotline get a reward for their efforts. This is every day stuff. But now we have a scout who happens upon a lost item for a known celebrity and WOW, this is great including the $10k scholarship and TV appearances and... and... and... and.... and he's just another common Joe who happened to find a celebrity's wallet. It was nice what he did there are thousands of people just like this boy that would have done the same thing, gotten a nice reward and never made the media spotlight. But this boy got his money, his appearance and his 15 minutes of fame at what cost?

I bend, but try not to break. I have my boys all teaching S2FC skills under the guise of "How do I know you know it until I see you teach it to someone else." No, a scout doesn't need to teach anything but the Square Knot, but I am constantly having scouts teach me, other scouts, their parents, committee members, etc. how to teach any of these skills. Since I have been doing that, retention of the skills have really improved. The scout never knows when he will be asked to help other people at all times by teaching them something. It's all part of the leadership training process that isn't written in any book anywhere. Is it going above and beyond the requirement for advancement? Yep, but the leadership benefit is something the boys quickly understand and never complain about.

Yep, and it's not that hard to teach.... PAY ATTENTION OR YOU"RE GONNA MISS OUT ON THE FUN!

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Police help other people and get paid, as do firemen, medical, etc. It's part of their jobs, who they are and what makes them tick. These are professional people A scout can mow the elderly lady's lawn next door to earn his way to camp and call it helping other people at all times. He can go down and serve lunch at the Salvation Army to help other people at all times and they will probably offer him a plate, too. These are community minded people. But when someone does something just to be nice and didn't have to.... well, that's a Real Scout.

Whenever someone insists on "rewarding" me for my Good Turn, I give them my phone number and insist that they do a Good Turn for someone else and then call and tell me about it. Most of those calls are from really happy excited people telling me how great it felt for helping someone else. I have been "paying it forward" for 50 years and some of the stories I've been told are really neat. None of them have ever been "downers".

Gotta have a functional SPL/ASPL team or PL's to make things like that happen.

The definition of open-toed shoes varies from one part of the country to the next.

Ya gotta bring race into everything to make it interesting nowadays. You aren't gonna make the national news unless the race card is played.

That was your PL's first mistake. If he is working the patrol method, HE needs to be getting this information which may mean a phone call to the council office and the email sent to him so he knows what's going on. My PL's check on all the district camporees in our council and surrounding councils to see which one sounds like the most fun. That's the one we go to. I'm totally out of the loop and can't be trusted to pass along pertinent and timely information. The boys pick the camporees, the summer camp and all the council activities that are published on the council website. Things go a lot smoother now that the boys know the SM is a screw up and tends to drop the ball on things that are readily available to everyone on the Council website. It's called creative incompetence and the boys just step up their game and keep things on an even keel. I can't do that now with the new troop, but eventually they'll be taking over those research duties and coming up with their own activities along the way.

C'mon guys, from what I've said all along I'm usually the third person in line. They'd never trust me to be Sweep!

Yep, that's the same outfit I was wearing on my way to work when some kid a block away saw me and turned me in to the police! Now that I'm retired, have longer hair and a full beard, I can even scare rattle snakes, puffer fish and cats. The guy with a gun is still a challenge.

Maybe @@NJCubScouter is correct about the embellishments, but the helping and refusing a tip is the core of the story that is true. And yet stories like @@Krampus further reinforce the point that there are Real Scouts/Eagles out there (GM of the property and Krampus' ScoutSon--and Krampus) still being produced by BSA.

We all gotta be good at something! When I would go pick my daughter up from school (custody issue back then) she was sometimes late so I would go to the office to have her paged. I wore a black expedition type hat with a black drover coat. Walk in and would quietly get escorted to the office by some teacher(s). I'd get to the office and the school receptionist would always say, "Hi, Mr. Stosh, can't find Katie? and I would like to introduce Mr. or Ms. ?? who haven't had the chance to meet you yet." I think I cycled through the entire middle school staff and high school staff over the years.

That explanation doesn't fit the zero-tolerance policy assumed by every parent in the school district. You get caught with a fingernail file, you're going to end up in Juvie! Worse than getting caught by the TSA.

Whatever happened to doing a Good Turn and refusing anything in return? Like maybe handing the man his wallet, saying "Compliments of the Boy Scouts of America" and then disappearing into the crowed..... Kinda like the W. D. Boyce story?

I used to judge events at camporees back in the day when my boys decided on going to them, but no one really liked the way I judged. Most of the boys did reasonably well with the actual activity, whether it be fire building, first aid, knots, Kim's or whatever. But I always waited for the patrol yell and looked for the patrol flag for the "tie-breaker" of the competition. After a couple of camporees they always would do a good job on their ad hoc patrol yell, then wave a rag on a stick letting me know they really weren't a real patrol. So I came up with a third item to break the tie. "How many of your boys are in full-uniform?" That really separated the men from the boys! "How many of your boys have any uniform parts?" Well, maybe a Scout hat here and there. I would stop there, but the boys always inquired why I wasn't counting BSA t-shirts as part of the tie-breaker. "Because that isn't part of the Scout Uniform." Generally they would comment, "Well in our troop it is a Class-B uniform!" to which I would answer, "If this was a competition of just your troop, you'd probably win". They got the point. Was I judging on knot tying or fire building which every one did very well or was I judging on patrol method, uniform method and Scout Spirit? Once I did a Klondike competition judging on first aid. Boys pulled up with a sled full of first aid equipment all ready for the competition. They did the patrol yell, waved a patrol flag and started unloading first aid stuff. I called a halt to that and asked who the PL was. One boy raised his hand and I told him to go over and it in the snowbank. I said, "You just fell and broke your leg and arm. If you talk or give instructions to your patrol, you will lose points." I then asked the patrol who the APL was, they usually didn't have one, to which I would say "Bummer" your buddy just broke an arm and a leg, leave the sled alone and go help him." It should come as no surprise that the scouts with the belts, neckers and a functional APL always seemed to have enough to win. Over the years the only ones that complained about my style of judging at camporees were the adults in the adult-led, troop-method units. The boys generally liked my competitions because they never knew what to expect. I did fire building once where they drew out of a hat the ignition method they could use. 1) Flint/steel, 2) 9-Volt battery/steel wool, 3) bow/spindle, 4) One match, 5) Magnesium, 6) magnifying glass (if sunny day) or 7) their choice. Believe it or not, the winners usually were the 9-volt or the Magnesium boys, the magnifying glass came in at 3rd. The ONE MATCH usually was a bust because it takes a lot of work to build a one-match fire lay.

This is why most of my grandchildren are home-schooled. And the mom of one of them was a public school valedictorian. Both gave up good jobs and went to single income so they could be home for their kids. I don't know if they are Trump supporters or not.....

I have found that regardless of the group there is always a slow one in each group. If one were to break into a fast group and a slow group it will mean now there will be 4 groups to deal with. A fast-fast group and fast-slow group, a slow-fast group and a slow-slow group. Why double the headaches? Seriously! If two hikers are going down the trail one is always going to be one faster than the other. If the fast one is in front a gap will occur, if the slower one is in front the two will stay together.

Yep, concerned me too for the whole trek. But this was an adult-led troop and was one of the major contributors to why I finally left the troop. The was openly known among all the boys that these HA trips were the SM's vacation that they got to go along on..... Yeah, splitting the group is always a poor idea. That's why the slow guy sets the pace. First of all the slow guy is going to feel guilty and push himself knowing he regulates the speed, He will not dawdle. But the faster boys will all have to dawdle and enjoy themselves. It seems to work itself out in the long run and over the years everyone seems to enjoy the hikes a lot more. Oh, by the way, how does one find out who the slowest member is? Ask the Sweep. He will notice gaps forming in the line of march and move the person forward always trying to keep the gap formation behind the navigator. If no gaps are forming anywhere along the line, you're lucky because the TrailBlazer is the slowest! Everyone is keeping up with his pace!!!

Ian, By putting the slowest in 3rd place means the first two guys are always aware that they have to go slow enough for him. If a major gap occurs between the two the Sweep signals a halt. If the slow guy is pressured to go faster than he wants and tires, he starts to drop back or stagger or whatever, but the Sweep sees it and calls a halt. The Philmont trek I had covered 110 miles in 9 days. That's only about 10-11 miles a day. What's the rush One can cover that in 5-6 hours. Up at 6, on the trail by 6:30 at destination by noon. That's at the 2 mph rate! A normal walker travels at 3 mph, and a fast walker might get 4 mph. So what's the rush? I was doing the 2 mph rate consistently and enjoyed myself and was never tired. I didn't need a break. Always did a walking breakfast, took a single break at 9:00 am, and then were pretty much at our 10 mile destination by noon. !/2 the day was wasted with a "Retreat from Stalingrad death march." I took the slings and arrows from the SM for "ruining" everyone's trek, but had he had an ounce of sense in his head the boys would have enjoyed themselves a lot more. It was interesting that on the day we scaled Mt. Baldy, we came up the back slag side. It was hot and they all took off like a shot straight up the mountain. I took my time, was careful, about half way up I found a vague switchback trail among the rocks and got on that and stood up and walked to the top. The rest of the boys took the short-cut and kept going straight up, taking their breaks at regular routine and I just stuck with the turtle pace and was the first to the top. I was at the top and noticed a thunderhead rolling in as they had warned us that might happen. I told the boys we had better be getting off the top. But the SM said they had just gotten there and were going to stay and enjoy the view. I took off down the hill with about half the boys and we got to the timberline where I had them drop packs and get into lightening position. Two other groups came down behind us and went deeper into the timber. Finally the other half caught up and the SM was giving me what-for for not keeping the group together.... Duh? A lightening strike about 30' behind him convinced him to shut up. He and his half of the group where all standing there with their metal frame packs on. I had my boys quickly grab up their packs now that the clouds had temporary lost their charge and headed deeper into the timber. The other half was finally ahead of us at a dead run with full packs. The SM never wanted to ever discuss the event. A lot of lessons about hiking, safety, teamwork and who's really leading were learned that day. For some it didn't help, they went back to the dash and rest routine they had established earlier. One side note to this whole hiking thing was everyone in the group had blister problems on the trek to where one boy had actually peeled off all the skin off the balls of both feet and was bleeding into his socks, Blisters on tops of toes and heels were more common because no one stopped to take care of their shoes on the uneven ground. Blisters on the heels going up the hills and blisters on the toes going down the hill. No one took the time to stop and retie their shoes every 30 minutes. Well only two people in the entire crew went the whole trek (110 miles, 9 days, all 5 major peaks of Philmont) without a blister.....

Gee I wonder where the pioneers, frontiersmen, and cowboys ever got through the day without their espresso pots....

When attacked, fight back with whatever means available, there are no rules, cheat if you have to, just win...... Of course there's always the caveat "Be Prepared". There should be things in your pockets that can double as weapons, set of car keys interlaced between fingers, pens, pencils, belt, watch band, carry your change in a sock, wallet chain, .... anything available to "make a point" and make sure that point is sharp. Technically I am "illegal" every time I'm on school property and even worse when I'm working in the garden at my old house which is next door to a high school. I just came back from a Boy Scout meeting, still in my uniform and as I sit here, I have 5 items that can be used as weapons. I am some school administrators worst nightmare.