Earning the badge

[Oldscout448 697]

There was once a cubscout who was the only one to bridge into our troop that year.  Alex was small for his age and not exactly the athletic type, and he had obviously not spent any time in the woods. Paul his patrol leader kept an eye on him at every campout.  When we got to our summer camp the first thing we did was to get tested for our swimming ability.  The first step was to jump off the dock into the murky lake and swim out to the floating platform.  The older scouts, yelling encouragement and challenges to each other, jumped in and swam off. Alex just stayed on the dock looking down at the water.  " Not great at swimming?" asked Paul who was the only other still on the dock.  "No" said Alex still looking down.  "Well, why don't you take the swimming merit badge class? Even if you don't pass the final test you could still learn a lot."  Alex just shook his head and started to walk away.  "Wait a minute Alex, I need to take the class and I'd like to have some company. How about we take it together?"

So every morning that week Paul and Alex spent an hour in the class, and every afternoon they spent at least that long practicing together.  To everyone's surprise Alex passed the test and earned his first merit badge. Honestly I think Alex was more surprised than anyone else.  It seemed to make quite the difference in his demeanor. He had faced his fears and beaten them.

At the Court of Honor when they were both presented with their badges, the SPL noticed that Paul already had a swimming MB on his sash.  Afterwards he and the ASPL cornered Paul in the parking lot. " Paul, I'm hoping you didn't lie here, but didn't you tell Alex that you needed to earn the swimming badge?" "Nope, Paul replied with a grin, " I said I needed to take the class. And I did."  With that he walked off. 

"So did he actually earn the swimming badge since he already had one? " asked the ASPL. " I'm not sure about the merit badge" replied the SPL " but he absolutely earned his Patrol Leader patch!

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I can happily say I have met this scout, on more than one occasion.