Kahuna

I could have bought it for about $750! Of course, that was about 30 years ago. I have no doubt it would go for a couple of thou. If only I had bought it. Sigh. Rosies closed a few years ago. I just wonder where it went.

Hi Greg,

You are wise to consider these points. I'd offer the following suggestion. Post pictures and all kinds of promotional stuff about your kids, but not their full names. The school is not semi-public, it's public. Pictures of kids alone don't (IMHO) pose a threat, since it doesn't lead to any identification. Troop websites do that all the time. Probably doesn't do any harm to put first names on either: "Justin receives his whatever badge at the pack meeting."

I don't think there are any Scouting policies about this. There could be legal issues, but probably not, since the kids names probably can be found other places in the school as well. Other lawyers on the forum might have a different opinion. I am just always concerned about putting kids names out in public in a way that might lead a pedophile to track them down.

Kahuna

You are correct, Dave, and I would only quibble with you a bit. :-) You are a pretty amazing Scouting historian. B-P's Aids to Scouting was published during the Boer War by his brother and the publisher. It would presumably have gone on whether he died or not.

I was also making the assumption that he died after already becoming a hero. He was not unknown, of course, but the Siege of Mafeking did indeed make him a public figure. I don't know that Aids to Scouting would not have become popular without his "press" but it's possible it wouldn't.

An interesting footnote. Years ago, in Orlando there was a popular watering hole known as Rosie O'Grady's. It was furnished with English pub tables. I happened to notice one of those tables was embellished with images of a mustached gent wearing a campaign hat and the logo B-P. I assume it was one of the Mafeking B-P commemoratives that popped up everyplace in Britain, but I have never seen another. The owner offered to sell it to me, but I didn't have the funds at the time.

Interesting topic! Harry Turtledove should definitely get on this one, as someone mentioned earlier.

Of course, we can only conjecture about what B-P would think if he showed up in the 21st Century, but we do have some clues. Lady Baden-Powell lived until 1975 or so and Bill Hillcourt lived until 1992. Lady B-P pretty much gave up on British Scouting over several issues. I think mainly her objections were along the lines of "dumbing down" of the program. Bill felt the same way about U.S. Scouting. He absolutely despised the skill awards that broke down advancement into little chunks. He felt the BSA had gone too far in taking Scouting out of the woods and into the city. I think B-P would want to see tougher requirements and more emphasis on what we would consider "survival" camping. I'm certain he would feel we don't put enough responsibility on the Patrol Leader. One of his original tenets was the idea of the natural gang having activities under the leadership of boys. I'm sure he would be adamant that PL's needed to take their patrols on hikes and campouts without adult supervision more frequently. Of course, there are some safety issues now that didn't pertain in his day, but Bill Hillcourt felt those could be overcome.

I am also pretty sure he would agree with me that Cub Scouting has become entirely too prominant (with all due respect to the Cubbers out there) as a program. Cubbing was only started to accomodate "little brothers" who wanted to do what the older boys did. I think he would see that Cubbing has become the tail that wags the dog and that it is keeping boys from joining Boy Scouts, because they are burned out by the Cubbing activities. Cubbing should be making more boys chomp at the bit to become Scouts.

Of course, B-P would look at Scouting worldwide, not just in the U.S. and Britain. A lot of other countries Scouting programs are closer to what he intended.

Overall, I think he wouldn't be too displeased to see the quality and quantity of program available to Scouts. I'm sure he would be extremely pleased with the amount and variety of training experiences that we have in this country for leaders and boys.

If B-P had died in the Boer War, I think something very like Scouting would have evolved. Remember, he wrote Aids to Scouting before the Boer War, so it probably would have gained the same popularity among boys as it eventually did. Scouting wouldn't have been quite the same, since the Mafeking boys convinced him of the ability of boys to behave as adults, given training and sense of duty.

Bingo! Found Follow Me Boys DVD on Netflix. I put in on my rental queue. Haven't seen it in a while. Thanks for the heads up.

Mahalo (thanks) for your aloha!

I'm new to the forum and have already made a couple of posts. I've been in Scouting since becoming a Cub in 1951. I've been in Boy Scouting and am now part of the Council committee for Venturing as a Sea Scout member. Pretty much of a certifiable Scouting history nut in addition to a military history geek (I'm a volunteer tour guide at the battleship USS Missouri in Pearl Harbor). I'm an Eagle Scout.

I'm proud to say I was friend of William "Greenbar Bill" Hillcourt during the last years of his life and learned a lot of Scouting history from him.

I'm glad to have found this forum and sure I will visit fairly often. I have to warn you I'm gathering material for a book on professional Scouters over the years (having been one of those in years long past), so if I see interesting stories here I may ask for more information from the author.

Aloha,

I can partly address question 2. In the 50's and 60's there was a zippered windbreaker jacket with a BSA oval patch on the left breast. I think it was red and seem to recall it overlapped the time of the wool jacket by some years.

I also agree the spats disappeared sometime in the 60's and would guess before 1965.

Sorry, I double-posted.(This message has been edited by Kahuna)

I vaguely remember the green wool jacket, but I can't recall what it was for. In the mid 1960's, red was the official color for Scouts and leaders.

About 1969, the BSA came out with a Scouter dress uniform composed of a dark green jacket and sort of grey green slacks, worn with a kelly green tie. The jacket had a Scout emblem embroidered on the breast pocket. The whole thing was designed and made by Hart, Schafner & Marx. It could be worn by any Scouter, but was only used by professionals normally. It lasted about 10 years before it was replaced by the blue blazer & grey slacks worn now. I had one when I was a professional Scouter 1970-1975. I still have the gold bullion pocket insignia.

Prior to that, Scouter dress uniforms were like a military uniform, with a buttoned up blouse worn over a shirt and tie.

I'm glad to hear Follow Me Boys is still available on VHS. Hopefully, it will make it to DVD one of these days.

As to This Boys Life, there is reference to DeNiro and DiCaprio as in Scouting, but it is just demonstrating DeNiro's brutality to the kid. There is no real Scouting in it.

I you really want to get out there in Scouting TV references, on the old Battlestar Galactica, ca 1979, one episode features the ship visiting a planet like modern day Earth. They send down a group of adults and boys disguised as Boy Scouts to do some, well, scouting around the planet.

Aloha,

I've come rather late to this discussion, but found it fascinating. The input from Rising Scout is rather remarkable. Based on fifty plus years of Scouting, I'd like to throw in my two cents.

I am a Buddhist. Before that, I was a Unitarian Universalist. Before that, I didn't know whether I believed in God or not. I have come to see that there is an intelligent, creating force present in the universe and that I can be a part of and communicate with that force. Whether you call it God or not isn't important to me, but it certainly fits the definition of the BSA's Declaration. Long ago, I was in charge of a District Eagle Board of Review on an occasion when a young man appeared before us who admitted that he didn't believe in God. After some discussion, we adjourned the board briefly. I sat down with the young man privately (this was in the days when it was still okay to do that) and we talked for a half hour about how he saw the universe. He agreed that he believed that there was some intelligence at work, but that he didn't feel it had any direct impact on him. He did agree that it was possible he could be affected by it in ways that he wasn't aware of. I told him that, although I wasn't a minister, I felt that his beliefs would meet the Unitarian Universalist definition of God and asked if he would feel comfortable with that. He said that he did and the board proceeded to confirm him as an Eagle Scout. I would do the same today.

I would recommend to Eager Leader that they visit a clergy person from the UU (the UU has given up on the Boy Scouts, but the BSA hasn't given up on them) and/or a Buddhist religous leader (they may or may not consider themselves ministers). It may be that EL and son will find they are not far removed from a religious community that makes them comfortable with the Declaration.

Just a thought. I would disagree with Rising Scout that all the founders of Scouting believed in a controlling, judging deity. I do think they felt, along with B-P, that a religious foundation of some kind was essential in the development of youth.

This is a pretty long post, but I also would like to defend the BSA against charges of intolerance. It seems to me the organization has gone about as far as one could in defining religion and in setting the policy with regard to sexual orientation of leaders and still have any rules at all. Homosexuals can be leaders, they just can't be leading an overt lifestyle. Think about what would happen to the BSA if they dropped both requirements. Many parents would be very reluctant to put their children into a unit with openly gay leaders. Many churches would not sponsor such units (the LDS church certainly wouldn't), nor would some want avowed atheists running their units.

Kahuna