CalicoPenn

The legend is that if he sees his shadow, he gets scared and runs back to his burrow to continue to hibernate. If he doesn't see his shadow, he doesn't get scared and he stops hibernating. In the real world, make groundhogs emerge sometime in February to find a mate. Once they have mated, the go back in to hibernation until sometime in March. The tradition of Groundhog Day started in post-Catholic Germany. Until Germany became a mostly protestant nation, the German's celebrated Candlemas Day (conveniently on February 2) where the Catholic Church would bless and distribute candles

Maybe even less. Phil's accuracy is about 36% from 1969 to 2016. I've heard it said that being a weatherperson is the only job in the world where you can be wrong 95% of the time and still make more that $250K per year.

To quote Tevye (Fiddler on the Roof): Tradition! Its just a fun little way of keeping some tradition and history alive - Just sit back and enjoy it.

As long as the Scouts and the adults are in separate pop-ups, there's nothing that says you can't.

Woodstock Willie (Illinois - home of the movie Groundhog Day) is currently hiding in the witness protection program to avoid being whacked by the Chicago mob - they paid him off to not see his shadow and he betrayed them - he saw his shadow.

If I've got this right, the District (Council) sent out an e-mail inviting the district volunteers to a meeting where they would answer (or try to at any rate) the questions they posed in their letter, then you (without apparently attending the meeting) made up your own answers to the questions based on how you think/assume the District/Council is going to actually answer those questions - and now you post on that face-thingy thing and then in here and you're looking for what? Validation? Confirmation? Sympathy? Did you go to the meeting to find out what their actual answers were? If

Well why wouldn't it meet the mission of the Boy Scouts of America. If all the activities that Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Venturers and Sea Scout do, very few of which directly prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law, then surely these activities do as well. I wonder how many Cub Scout Den Leaders know what the mission of the Boy Scouts of America is. I wonder how many Troop leaders actually know what the mission of the Boy Scouts of America is.

When discussing Baden-Powell, the Boy Scouts and Masculinity, we can't forget to consider the time period where his ideas were formed. Baden Powell was very much a Victorian - as such, his ideas on masculinity were heavily influenced by the Victorian attitudes toward masculinity which were mostly formed within the religious and spirituality sphere of Victorian life. Masculinity wasn't about being a hero or a protector - it was about being pure, about having the proper sexuality (indeed, masculinity was never really a concept that was discussed until the Victorians started trying to figure ou

I'm waiting for David French to answer his own question. The only thing I get our of this opinion articles is that Conservatives are right and Liberals are wrong. The shame of it is that the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. The culture war isn't raging because one side is right and the other side is wrong (choose your sides according to your beliefs). The culture war is raging because both sides are right and both sides are wrong and they can't seem to come together to discuss the issues with an open heart and open mind to get to a common understanding. So what is a man?

I'm afraid the numbers don't bear out the claim. In 1972, there were 6,287,284 members. A 1/3rd loss would bring that number down to 4,371,508 - the BSA didn't drop below that number until 1979 - 7 years later.

* Kodak's main business was selling camera film. In 1996, if you wanted to take photos, you bought film. There were no digital cameras available to the consumer. in 2002, the first cell phones that took photos were released. By 2012, you could take fairly good photos on your cell phone. Consumers had switched to digital cameras, including Single Lens Reflex cameras that took excellent quality photos, and taking photos with their cell phones. Consumers were no longer buying film, their mainstay product. Kodak tried to market Kodak-branded digital cameras but they weren't very successful

There were other factors involved too. Birth rates declined dramatically though the 1960s and that had an impact. Towards the tail end and in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, the BSA was losing favor among many people who felt their uniforms were too similar to the military. In the late 1960's. my Pack had a marching drill team - in the early 1970's, our town asked the Scouts (Boy, Girl, Cubs, Brownies - what have you) not to do marching drills or even walk in ranks - they wanted folks to just walk in masses of people - to look less military. Other units in our Council reported th

So your DE is suggesting creating a Junior Boy Scout Troop. Think about that for a second. The DE is not suggesting a traditional split of a Pack, the DE is suggesting one Pack for Tiger through Bear and one pack for Webelos. I would call that second Pack a Junior Boy Scout Troop. In the late 60's and early 70's it was fairly common to have large packs. My pack had 8 dens and 2 Webelos dens for a while. Most of the packs in the district ran from 50-100 cubs. It certainly didn't hurt the program. I can't think of one positive reason for splitting a Pack this way - not one. It c

Other than the obvious answer of not spelling Candidate as Canidate , I would not put it on my resume. Would you put Life Scout candidate if you were a Star Scout? You want your resume to reflect your accomplishments - Eagle Scout Candidate is not an accomplishment - it says you are hoping to become an Eagle Scout in the future. The only thing your resume should indicate is a hope for the future is a statement listing what kind of job or career you are desiring. For now, just state that you are a Boy Scout as one of your activities. Hold off on listing Eagle Scout until after the me

So this is just completely off the rails here but it is a virtual campfire (Thanks, Stosh!) so I want to share an observation I've recently made. I'm taking some Library Science type classes, exploring the possibility of getting a degree in it and becoming a librarian in my upcoming doddering old age and this term, I'm taking a class in Juvenile Fiction. For my end of term paper, I have chosen to read (re-read in some cases) The Boxcar Children series and do an analysis of the series. For those unaware, The Boxcar Children was a book by Gertrude Chandler Warner about 4 children whose parent

On the other hand, and no offense meant, at 24, you can still legally be on your parents health insurance (and Zach can be too for at least a few more months - whenever his birthday is) so maybe you are both still "kids"

How is this a girls only thing? Just because someone says girls just wanna have fun doesn't automatically mean the opposite for boys.

A typical year when I was a Scout: January - Klondike Derby - County Forest Preserve - no overnight (no such thing as Okpik then) Cabin Camping - Boy Scout Campground February - District First Aid Meet - no campout March - alternated tent camping at a BSA campground or cave camping at Eagle Cave. April - Grant Pilgrimage in Galena, Illinois - tent camping at Mississippi Palisades State Park Scout-O-Rama - Arlington Park Race Track May - District Camporee - tent camping wherever camporee was - usually a BSA campground June -

I read a lot of good things about the Girl Scouts too - I also read a lot of things about the Girl Scouts that show that many Evangelical Christian Conservatives are as upset with the Girl Scouts about certain issues as they are about the Boy Scouts (The BSA is dealing with Girls/Gays, the Girl Scouts are dealing with Planned Parenthood/Abortion). Like the BSA, the Girl Scouts are also struggling with declining membership, and has been pretty much at the same time as the BSA. Between 2015 and 2017, they lost approximately 800,000 youth members. In the BSA, the current youth membership

Who is the source of any of these quotes and ideas? None if it is coming from National. National says there will be single gender Troops - they specifically said there would be no mixed gender Troops. 24 hours later, there's "reporting" all over the place that the BSA is going to have mixed gender troops, and maybe even mixed gender patrols. Where did that come from? Scouters speculating like wild because they can't seem to take what National has said at face value and they say they can't take what National says at face value because they don't trust them. Trust is a two-way street -

Nah, I'm not saying you are right or wrong. And you do make a good point that our politics are tied in to our beliefs. I'm just saying it isn't his politics that led you to your conclusion - it is your politics that have done so.

Why do you assume he wasn't including "traditional American families" when he spoke about fighting for peoples families? What prevents you from considering that he was talking about all families, even "traditional American families". Perhaps you should look at your own politics too.

Our Troop cabin camped one time a year - in January. Had you shared the cabin with us, you would probably have noticed a lot of similarities. The adults cooked - we used paper products. It is the only outing where the adults cooked for the Scouts and we used paper products. Most of this was due to logistical issues - the cabin had a kitchen with stove, oven, refrigerator and sink. The camp had a no coleman stove cooking in the cabin (and read coleman stove like you would read bandaid - as a generic term rather than as a brand). With 5 patrols and one stove, it would have taken most of th

Our Council/District always charged a fee . I took my first adult training course 38 years ago - cost $10. When I was a Scout, there was always a fee. I'm just pleasantly surprised that fees haven't seemed to go up much in the ensuing years. We've also found over the years that you get more participation if a small fee is charged. People seem to be less likely to find something more interesting to do that morning/day if they've paid a fee in advance. If you offer it free, you'll get a lot of people to sign up but you also get a lot of people who decide at the last minute that they'd

My Troop would pay the fee - and end all participation in Friends of Scouting.