Kudu

How is a frog different than a minnow? Frogs are green and they jump. Its ok to stick a hook through the head of a minnow or into a worm or grub but not a frog? Well, it's not something that I do anymore. When my squeamish Scouts ask me to bait their hooks, I ask them why they don't want to do it themselves. The quote came from a chapter on live bait in Dan Beard's Outdoor Handy Book, "For my part, a live frog is a very unpleasant bait. Its human-like form and its desperate struggles to free itself by grasping the hook with its strange little hands, are too suggestive of suffering." Please explain that to me I must be missing something. That is a bit presumptuous, don't you think? You didn't create a profile, this is your first post to Scouter.Com, and you only wrote five sentences. If you are a Scout, then I will be happy to explain, but you have to be a little more forthcoming about your own views on suffering. If you are an adult (as seems evident from your posting nickname), then please indicate if you are a sarcastic secular humanist or a self-righteous religious fundamentalist, so that I can better judge what it is that you are missing :-/ This sounds alot like the same type of thinking PETA has. Your presumption seems to be that PETA's "type of thinking" has been effectively dismissed as terrorist, or at best lacking in the tight logic, moral superiority, and Scout-like behavior that its detractors have demonstrated so far in this thread. As for what is Scout-like behavior, I would go with Baden-Powell's original wording of the Sixth Scout Law, "6. A Scout is a friend to animals. He should save them as far as possible from pain, and should not kill any animal unnecessarily, even if it is only a fly--for it is one of God's creatures." Hunting and fishing are a part of Baden-Powell Scouting, and there is nothing wrong with Scouts being conflicted in their feelings about taking life. My 12-year-old "Redskins" Patrol Leader told me that whenever his Patrol killed a squirrel or a rabbit, they said the following African Bushman's prayer: "I'm sorry that I killed you, but we needed the meat. I'm not going to let any of your body go to waste." Kudu

You are not required to go to National Camping School to run a week-long camp for your Troop, Bob Geier writes: "There is no obligation for a unit (or a group of units working together to put on an outing) to follow the National Camp School standards. The NCS standards only apply when a BSA corporate entity (council) offers a resident camp for a fee (which triggers the application of camp licensing laws in each state). "A troop or group of troops that put on their own summer camp are no different than running a camporee or a long troop trip/venture patrol trip. "When we did this, our DE made it crystal clear to us that once we filed the tour permit, we were to report this activity in the same way we would report attending any summer camp, and that it would indeed count for OA (and for the district's % of youth attending camp). "As for the rest of it, yes, we sent an "early crew" to set things up. We were using our own equipment, so that wasn't a problem other than being an unusually large transportation logistics issue. We had sufficient internal resources to handle all the activities, and had a lot of fun doing it. The key is not to try to do everything... less is more. "Kids loved it, and the use of patrol method was FAR, FAR, FAR superior to the corporate camps. "Hope that helps." BG (This message has been edited by Kudu)

You might want to think outside of the "stay in one place" summer camp box. Our week-long backpacking trips are not subject to all of these regulations. For a collection of personal accounts of running Troop Summer Camps, see: http://inquiry.net/outdoor/summer/camp/troop/index.htm You should also get a second opinion on the "it doesn't count toward OA elections" warning. Everyone who actually does this reports that they had no such problems with their lodges. Kudu

OldGreyEagle writes: It does seem you slam the BSA program any time you get a chance and I was reacting to that.

Well, advancement was more difficult back then. Requirement #7 was to build a fire using only two (2) matches, so perhaps the more fires a Scout needed to build, the more opportunites he had to pass both requirments :-) Kudu

Ozemu, is utensil-less cooking still part of the Scouting program in Australia? At one time the BSA 2nd Class requirement #8 read: "Cook a quarter of a pound of meat and two potatoes in the open without any cooking utensils." This style of cooking must have built some lasting memories, because 70 years after a Girl Scout horseback campout in the back country, my mom still talks about cooking over the fire that night with a broiler they made by weaving green sticks together. Utensil-less Cooking might make an interesting chapter in a Scout Cookbook. American Scouts from the new Baden-Powell Scouts Association (BPSA-USA) will be looking for recipes for First Class requirement #10: "Sleep out with another Scout in a primitive shelter built by yourselves, and cook a backwoods meal using only utensils you improvised out of natural materials." The following is from a 1918 Scouting booklet. I haven't tried yet but it sounds delicious: Kabob: Purchase 1/4 pound of meat and cut it into pieces about the size of a half dollar and 1 inch thick. Get a small straight branch and taste of the bark to be sure that it is not bitter. Sharpen the small end of the stick selected and impale the piece of meat on it as shown. After the fire has burned long enough to become "steady" with some coals, place the meat over it and turn from time to time salting it the while. Searing it first will prevent the juices from dripping onto the fire and being lost. The length of time required for cooking depends upon the heat of the fire and desire of the Scout as to whether he likes his food rare or well done. In placing the meat upon the stick always sharpen the small end and impale the meat from this side. On account of the thickness of the stick varying in diameter a piece of meat impaled from the large end will not cling fast and consequently will not turn when the stick is twisted in cooking. Slices of onions or firm tomatoes introduced between the squares of meat give it a delicious flavor. A word is necessary though, regarding the method of putting the slices of onion on the stick. Peel the outer skin from the onion and with a sharp pointed stick make a hole through it, then slice it at right angles to the above and you will be able to place them on the stick without splitting. Slice the onion first and it will be impossible to make the onion stay together after it has been pierced. Cooking Potatoes. The safe way to cook potatoes is to use two fires. First dig out a hole larger than needed to hold the potatoes--line it with small stones if they are available. Build a fire in the hole to heat the stones. When this fire dies down--put in the potatoes, cover them with damp earth--then on top of this build an 18-inch criss-cross fire and let it burn down. Start these potatoes an hour before you want them and cook other parts of the meal on the same fires. Kudu

Just how do you know how the troop I serve regards the Oath? That would be the Scout Law, OGE, not the Oath. Perhaps you would like to make a postive contribution to the discussion by sharing with us how the Scouts in "the troop you serve" regard the sixth Scout Law, rather than engaging in your customary trivial personal attacks. I mean, who cares if the Scout in the PETA commercial is a sophomore in college now? Kudu

ozemu writes: I'm interested in a frank discussion but using emotion and particularly guilt annoys me. I think emotion and guilt have a legitimate evolutionary social function. Civil discussion is just a way of expressing your emotions in the guise of "logic" and "objectivity" :-) We don't use Baden-Powell's Scout Law here in the United States. In the BSA it is just a jingle-jangle of single words that the Scouts rattle off, and I doubt if one in a hundred sees any connection between "kind" and the treatment of animals. This could perhaps be intentional. For 96 years the BSA has consistently explained the meaning of "kind" with the term "things" in place of "animals:" http://inquiry.net/ideals/scout_law/chart.htm What is the understanding of the meaning of the sixth Scout Law in your country? How is it worded, and do Scouts and Scouters dismiss it with the same bravado as evidenced here? Kudu

No. But I would give them credit for an appropriate milestone marking a quarter-century of absolute Uniform Method incompetence :-/ While old fashioned traditionalists like me would consider this to be the stupidest decision since outlawing laser tag, it might paradoxically encourage the rebirth of the BSA Uniform. A secret cult honor camper service society would spring up at Philmont. Form would follow function, and freed from the corruption of old dress designers at BSA Supply, Philmont would develop an innovative Outdoor Uniform: a breathable nylon shirt with mesh vents under the arm pits and under a flap between the shoulder blades. And breathable nylon "zip-off" cargo pants, of course. In later years, historians would attribute the success of the new Uniform to an innovative new rule: It against regulations to wear a Boy Scout Uniform indoors, or where any non-member can see you! Given that the BSA is an outdoor organization with millions of potential customers who need functional outdoor clothing and a place to put their patches, Philmont would earn hundreds of millions of dollars which, of course, the honor campers would spend on buying new Boy Scout Camps with deeds held by the Nature Conservancy, never to be sold to buy air conditioned offices and retirement packages for BSA professionals. Finally, the exclusive secret nature of the high adventure Boy Scout Uniform would serve as a recruitment tool. Millions of curious youth seeking to prove that they are rugged enough to join the new BSA, through perseverance, persistence, and determination might eventually qualify to wear the elusive Uniform and join their brother outdoorsmen outdoors where all true Scouting takes place. Kudu (This message has been edited by Kudu)

Baden-Powell's original wording of the sixth Scout Law as it appeared in Scouting for Boys was: 6. A SCOUT IS A FRIEND TO ANIMALS. He should save them as far as possible from pain, and should not kill any animal unnecessarily, even if it is only a fly--for it is one of God's creatures. By 1911, B-P had added: "Killing an animal for food or an animal which is harmful is allowable." For a chart that shows the history of the changing meaning of Scout Law, see The Inquiry Net: http://www.inquiry.net/ideals/scout_law/chart.htm As noted in the recent Hunting thread, Baden-Powell's program also differs from the BSA corporate brand in that rabbit hunting is an option for the Backwoodsman Proficiency Badge: "2. Know how to catch and skin a rabbit, or catch and clean a fish, " see: http://inquiry.net/traditional/badges/backwoodsman.htm I find B-P's approach to be far more balanced than the apparent effect that the BSA's sixth Scout Law has had on any of the BSA members above, or in any reply that is likely to follow. I encourage my Scouts to organize fishing campouts, because of the overwhelming positive energy that they put into the process of learning how to plan such outings for themselves. But I forbid them to use frogs as bait! As Dan Beard, a BSA founder and author of hunting books for boys wrote in the Outdoor Handy Book "For my part, a live frog is a very unpleasant bait. Its human-like form and its desperate struggles to free itself by grasping the hook with its strange little hands, are too suggestive of suffering." http://www.inquiry.net/traditional/beard/ohb/index.htm My point is that the interpretation of "A Scout is kind," is completely arbitrary, but I seldom see in these mean-spirited discussions any acknowledgement of the unspeakable prolonged cruelty that some animals are forced to suffer. What a different organization the BSA would be if we were as willing to go to court to bar membership to six-year-olds whose parents refuse to sign a "Declaration of Friendship to Animals," as we are about baring membership to six-year-olds whose parents refuse to sign the "Declaration of Religious Principle" :-/ Kudu

PETA is a front for ALF, a terrorist organization There, you see? George Bush was justified in spying on American citizens' e-mail and phone calls without a warrant :-/

I'm getting an error message on your Email address: scoutingrecipes@bellsouth.net could not be delivered. The specific error is: 550 Invalid recipient: scoutingrecipes@bellsouth.net

I don't see why a trusted older Scout can't sign off when a First Class candidate has discussed citizenship with a selected individual approved by the leader. The official might be honored to actually sign the requirement off in the Scout's handbook, but it isn't necessary that he do it. Kudu

Slip the 'biner on the Scout belt, 2 loops back or so. John-in-KC, Maybe it is just me, but when I wear cords near the waist area, even behind me, they snag on stuff all day long. Gear is tied off, and the dummy cords don't go around the neck! Do soldiers still wear dog tags around the neck? Eamonn writes You are about the most argumentative fellow I have ever met. Well, thank you, Eamonn! I do try to look at each and every element of Scouting with fresh eyes, and that certainly does tend to irritate true believers like you. Sea Scouter's don't wear Wood Badge beads because they might get tangled up and cause an injury. And what does BSA brand Wood Badge (21st Century Catered Leadership) have to do with the outdoors? :-/ I don't know if any Scout has ever been hurt because of a cord around his neck, but it does seem like an accident waiting to happen. Getting lost in the woods is the accident waiting to happen. Most neck chains break away pretty easily, and they are not as irritating to the skin as cords. If you run an experiment with your Scouts putting their knife, whistle, and spark tool anywhere else but around their neck, you will find that most of them will not actually carry them. If you Google "Children outdoor safety whistle around neck" (without the quotes) you will find a wide variety of views on the subject, but most of the outdoor experts are overwhelmingly on one side of the issue. Scouts have worn stuff around their necks for 99 years. If the BSA considered it to be as dangerous as laser tag, it would be prohibited in the Guide to Safe Scouting! Kudu

Sorry for the caps thing. I'm just getting the hang of this "forum" thing. I'm having some technical difficulties myself! Another concern we've had in testing is that while the recipes are absolutely delicious they are also very fattening. That is a responsible position to take, given the incredible rate of obesity among American children. But as a Scoutmaster, I'm not very ethical when it comes to weekend campout food! The most important Scout Law is "A Scout is cheerful," and they especially love Dutch oven recipes with a lot of cheese :-) Maybe you could just include some kind of easy-to-read "health index" graphic with each recipe in addition to your usual nutritional analysis, and let them decide for themselves. Its all relative anyway, on our last backpacking trip we discovered that your "Appalachian Trail Jerky" (Lipsmakin' Backpackin') is highly addictive, and that weekend we finished off 12 servings each! This recipe indicates 200 calories / 22g of protein per serving which was not the total calories for us, since we tripled the marinade in order to cover all of the beef as it was soaking, and had added molasses because we only had light brown sugar on hand. We let it set for two days, rather than overnight, and by then all of the marinade had all soaked into the meat, leaving no excess liquid. The second time we did this, we did not triple the black pepper :-/ We share your concern about the tendency towards car camping. While there is certainly a place for this type of eating, when I think of the original purpose of scouting, I envision leaving the car far behind. So its good to hear our thoughts confirmed. Unfortunately, most Scout camping is car camping. I wonder if it is possible to have a "duel use" format on some recipes with a backpacking option. That way they are already familiar with the recipe when it comes time to learn how to prepare food differently for backpacking trip. Kudu

Long cords do work, but I'm not mad about wearing things around little Lads necks, the cord can get tangled and ruin a good tree climb. I first read about this practice in a wilderness survival book. The idea is that even if you unexpectedly lose your pack and everything but what you are wearing, you still have your knife, spark tool, and whistle. I wonder if in the last 99 years of Scouting if any one of these hundreds of millions of Scouts has ever been injured by wearing a cord around his neck? At any rate, our rule is to wear them inside their shirt so there is less temptation to blow the whistle. Kudu

I clicked on this topic intending to message somebody for typing in CAPS, but WOW! Lipsmackin' Backpackin' is a really great backpacking cookbook! Why pay for a cookbook when you can download good Scout cookbooks like the Geezer's Dutch oven cookbook for free? Well, this one is worth the investment. If you want to encourage Scouts to break the car-camping habit and get out into the real wilderness, Lipsmackin' Backpackin' can eliminate the common complaints about bad tasting backpacking food. It is available in many Scout Shops, or for around $7 used at Amazon, see: http://tinyurl.com/bd9x2 I hope their new Scout cookbook lives up to thier previous efforts! Kudu

I've done a lot of reading on B-P, James West and Bill Hillcourt, but very little on Seton and some of the others. I'll have to correct that deficiency in the coming year. Seton's "Woodcraft Indians" handbook, The Birch Bark Roll can be found at The Inquiry Net, see: http://inquiry.net/traditional/seton/birch/index.htm Dan Beard's handbook, The Boy Pioneers: Sons of Daniel Boone can be found at: http://inquiry.net/traditional/beard/pioneers/index.htm Kudu (This message has been edited by Kudu)

Some random thoughts: 1) Just make the thong longer, so that it doesn't have to be unfastened! 2) Consider a backpacking or fishing vest. This is also a great place to store your "10 Essentials" between campouts. 3) I set the example and tie a 3' brightly-colored cord to most of my gear. For some reason it makes it easier to find, especially in the snow, even if it isn't attached to anything. 4) Best cord has a very small diameter with highly reflective thread woven into it, buy it in climbing equipment stores. 5) Whenever you list a pocketknife, compass, etc, on an equipment list, include in the description: "with a three-foot length of brightly-colored cord attached." 6) The smaller the knife, the better. For about $20 A Scout can buy a very small but good quality knife and wear it around his neck with his whistle and spark tool. A small knife will be good enough for about 90% of the situations in which a Scout needs a knife. 7) Tenderfeet always want one of those Swiss Army Knives with all the attachments, at least 1/2 of which they will never use, and an additional 1/4 they will never even figure out the function for. After the first campout, they will always leave them in their packs because they are too bulky and too heavy to carry around, and it is much easier to try to borrow someone else's if you need one :-/ 8) I pick up any unattended knives I find, and if they don't have a cord attached, I hold the knife hostage until the Scout finds a cord and ties it to the knife with an overhand knot. Kudu

The Redskins Patrol was a subset of the Patrol Leader's "Redskins Tribe," an alternative Scouting "Troop" that he had organized while he was still too young to join the BSA. The tribe's activities were drawn from his extensive collection of library-discard books about Native Americans. His favorite finds were Ben Hunt and Ellsworth Jaeger, followed by Julian Harris Salomon, Ernest Seton, Dan Beard, Baden-Powell, and William Hillcourt. The Patrol Leader, "Chief Standing Wolf," was a very quick reader with a photographic memory, but he and his Patrol members were all tough, street-wise white kids. They held their own Patrol campouts almost every week. Of course they would have laughed at the idea that they needed the Scoutmaster's approval to camp without adult supervision. For one thing their own parents didn't always know where they were. The Assistant Patrol Leader, "Running Bear," sometimes slept in the other kids' paper-route newspaper storage boxes when he decided that returning to his step-father's house was not in his best interests :-/ When Baden-Powell set about transforming his best-selling military book Aids to Scouting into Scouting for Boys, he borrowed heavily from Ernest Seton's Birch Bark Roll. One of the important differences, however, was that the organizing unit of the Birch Bark Indians was a "Band," a group of 15-50 boys and girls. Managing that many people always required someone older than themselves. Part of Baden-Powell's genius was that he saw a similarity between small military scouting patrols and the tendency he had observed for both native and English boys in all of the far corners of the English Empire to organize themselves into small, natural "boy gangs." The thing about these natural Patrols is that they are usually not what we adults preconceive them to be. Less than half of the Redskins "Tribe" were in the Redskins Boy Scout Patrol. Some of the members (younger brothers and a few self-confident neighbors) were as young as nine. The older 13-year-olds would not be caught dead in a Boy Scout Uniform. One of the non-Scouts even had a principled stand against taking what he called "golden rule" oaths. Despite their "disadvantaged" backgrounds, they all seemed to share a fierce adherence to their own version of the Scout Law which helped keep order among themselves, but of course it had its own weird kid-logic. When camping away from adults, they constructed natural shelters and lived off the land as much as possible. They even made their own tools, which included everything from improvised pots and pans to using deer antlers to form hunting blades from the flint that they found along the railroad tracks. On BSA winter campouts, the Patrol refused to sleep in the cabin with the rest of the Troop, preferring to camp out in the snow. One night they entered our warm cabin dressed in home-made leggings and moccasins, with their faces and chests covered in war paint. They performed a traditional silent dance ceremony with their mouths filled with water, which they spat out at each other at the end. The Assistant Patrol Leader explained to me that it was a ritual that Apache boys performed for their fathers. They would run five miles through the desert without swallowing the water in their mouths to prove that they had the determination they needed to undertake their Vision Quest. It only takes one functional Patrol to get the ball rolling in a Troop. At first many of the other Scouts wanted to join the Redskins Patrol, but gradually their own Patrols began to gel around their own mutual interests. The Patrols did not always get along with each other, but that is another story :-) Kudu Thanks, miki, so noted! (This message has been edited by Kudu)

thanks for the update on game laws in England Well, you are very welcome, OGE! I'm happy that I could put things in perspective for you :-/ Kudu

Another way of obtaining used Scout uniforms is to offer a "finder's fee" for anyone who brings one in. The going rate in our Troop is $10 for a Scout shirt in good condition, or $5 for one that is "wearable." Plus bonus Reese's Cups, the true coin of the realm. The idea is to encourage Scouts and their parents to pick them up when they see them at at thrift stores (usually for a $5 profit) and to ask their friends and relatives who have left Scouting if they still want their old uniforms. This has had the unanticipated consequence of some boys returning to Scouts after having quit (in which case the "recruiter" and his whole Patrol get a Reese's Cup bounty). I then charge a deposit for shirts and pants, which helps the recycling effort. For some reason, after I started charging for official Scout pants, the boys started buying them. Before that nobody would wear them, and they sat on the shelves for years even though they were free. Kudu

Another way of obtaining used Scout uniforms is to offer a "finder's fee" for anyone who brings one in. The going rate in our Troop is $10 for a Scout shirt in good condition, or $5 for one that is "wearable." Plus bonus Reese's Cups, the true coin of the realm. The idea is to encourage Scouts and their parents to pick them up when they see them at at thrift stores (usually for a $5 profit) and to ask their friends and relatives who have left Scouting if they still want their old uniforms. This has had the unanticipated consequence of some boys returning to Scouts after having quit (in which case the "recruiter" and his whole Patrol get a Reese's Cup bounty). I then charge a deposit for shirts and pants, which helps the recycling effort. For some reason, after I started charging for official Scout pants, the boys started buying them. Before that nobody would wear them, and they sat on the shelves for years even though they were free. Kudu

I hope at the very least they only hunted animals in season unless of course the original Baden-Powell program included blatant disregard for the law I suppose it depends on what you mean by "the original Baden-Powell program" :-/ I believe Baden-Powell once drew a sketch of himself as a boy cooking a rabbit over a small fire in the "Copse," a wooded area near his Charterhouse School. He had to learn how to make these fires smokeless, because his presence in the Copse was a blatant disregard for the school rules. One pair of sketches shows him hiding from one of the school's teachers behind the bushes in the Copse, with an identical sketch of him as an adult military scout hiding from his enemy seemingly behind the very same bushes. Another one of his tricks at Charterhouse was to climb a tree when the teachers got too close, because they never looked up. He reportedly used the same trick behind enemy lines as an adult. He would later credit the skills he learned from evading the school authorities as the inspiration for rewriting his military book Aids to Scouting for N.C.O.s and Men, into Scouting for Boys. Another hunting connection is that the first rough outline and notes for Aids to Scouting were written in the bush while Baden-Powell was "pig-sticking," a spearing sport for which he wrote in 1889 the definitive manual, Pigsticking or Hoghunting. Baden-Powell sent the final manuscript for Aids to Scouting out to his publisher in the very last mail packet to leave Mafeking before the siege that made him famous, and made Aids to Scouting a runaway best seller. Perhaps because of his fame as a hunter, B-P recognized that boys can be needlessly cruel to animals, and the sixth point of his Scout Law is "A Scout is a friend to animals". Hunting is still an option in the "Backwoodsman" Proficiency Badge of the UK Baden-Powell Scouting program: "2. Know how to catch and skin a rabbit, or catch and clean a fish." In the UK, rabbits are fair game all year. Kudu

Some of us consider "A Scout is Cheerful" to be the most important Scout Law because nothing kills the Scouting spirit faster than complaining! The 2nd Edition of Handbook for Scout Masters was the last edition of the book written before the arrival of William Hillcourt from Denmark. During this period, the BSA brand of Scouting was heavily influenced by the YMCA. Long before the invention of television and "Saturday Night Live" style, pun and put-down based "campfire skits," a lot of creative effort went into campfire programs and what were then called "campfire stunts." A "Burn the Grouch" campfire stunt is described in Frank H. Cheley's 1914 book The Three Rivers Kids, See: http://www.campeb.org/history/trk/trkchap11.html http://www.campeb.org/history/trk/trkchap12.html A short bio of Frank H. Cheley can be found at: http://www.campeb.org/history/trk/trk.html A "how to" guide for planning traditional Scout campfires which includes some of Frank Cheley's suggestions can be found at The Inquiry Net, see: http://www.inquiry.net/outdoor/campfire/helps/ Kudu