Boy Scout memories bring a smile to my face

[fgoodwin 23]

Boy Scout memories bring a smile to my face

 

http://www.kystandard.com/articles/2007/01/25/news/columns/editorial05.txt

http://tinyurl.com/2mjle2

 

Wednesday, January 24, 2007 8:03 AM EST

 

BRIAN WALKER THE KENTUCKY STANDARD - 1/17/07

 

I was just thinking the past few weeks about my years in the Boy Scouts of America. Unlike some places, my hometown of Heavener, Okla., wasnt particularly a scouting Mecca. There had been wonderful scouts in years past, but it had died out a bit. We pretty much began from scratch when the fellows in my age group decided to join.

 

Several false starts at getting a troop going with different combinations of leaders finally found us meeting on a semi-regular basis at the local Methodist church. We were a ragtag group from the get-go and were being led by a local guy named Jim who worked at the nearby minimum security state prison as a guard. His assistant was also named Jim and he worked at the small-town weekly paper that his father owned, The Heavener Ledger. A third guy helped out a lot too and if Im lying Im dying, his name was Jim.

 

This trio of Jims ran the troop, if memory serves me correctly, about two years.

 

We camped a bit, earned a few merit badges and generally made a lot of noise in the woods. We were likely too young and strong-headed to appreciate the chances we were being given and the troop sort of collapsed.

 

A short time later with Jim No. 1 and Jim No. 3 out of the picture, a revived version of our mighty troop reared its ugly head. This time a local insurance agent named Mel took on the task of keeping the troop going with newspaper Jim as second in charge.

 

Mel had his own office in a building downtown and we had meetings in the back, likely running off customers with the noise and amount of silliness we had at his literal expense.

 

Mel and Jim were chain smokers, setting a fine example for a bunch of kids. They also were known to bring beer on camping trips, which we promptly stole and drank.

 

Although time and tide have removed my ability to remember every young man who ever took a swig off a canteen during my tenure with the troop, I will try and list as many guys, their nicknames and the reasons for said nom de plum as I can.

 

We had Randal Quarters Kidd, who got his nickname for his ability to shove at least $2 worth of change up his nose at one time; Andy Grapevine Roop, who got a nasty burn on his lips smoking wild grapevine on a camping trip; Johnny Five Eyes Luce, who was legally blind and wore special glasses; Jeremy Flash Scott, who burned off his eyelashes, eyebrows and a lot of his hair lighting a gas stove with flint and steel under a large plastic tarp in the rain; and Kenneth Politics Corn.

 

I guess the proper term to call him is really Oklahoma State Senator Kenneth Corn. He was elected to the Oklahoma State Senate in 2002 at age 25, making him the second youngest in the states history. Corn previously had served two terms in the Oklahoma House of Representatives, having been elected at age 22.

 

There were more guys, but those stick in my mind for the various reasons mentioned. I shouldnt leave out Bradley Addison, who never got a nickname that I can remember, but did earn a place in local scout history for something that embarrassed his sister greatly.

 

Brads mom packed a pair of jogging pants for his trip one cold weekend and I guess a pair of his sister Gingers panties must have been stuck in one of the legs from when they went through the laundry. When Addison pulled the pants on, her drawers fell out and we died laughing. I took the unmentionables to school with me that Monday and returned them to her in front of her friends and simply said, Hey, you left these the other day. I thought youd want them back.

 

The troop wasnt comprised of bad kids, just a bunch of boys who were too nuts for their own good. We were known to illegally cut down trees in a state park, set fire to the personal belongings of fellow scouts and put non-poisonous snakes in the sleeping bags of the new kids.

 

Somehow during all that insanity, Corn got his Eagle Scout and several of us reached the next-highest rank of Life.

 

We were hardcore and camped on an almost monthly basis in two-man tents. We never went to a place with running water or bathrooms of any kind. I remember rough weekends of waking up with snow in my tent, trying to dig a latrine with a hand shovel when the ground was frozen, being sunburned to the point of looking like a lobster and losing my shoes in the Black Fork River.

 

We even spent most of a weekend in the Bear Den Caves on the side of a mountain in eastern Oklahoma once. There were bats. We were loud and disturbed them. It got really weird very fast. This wasnt some wide open-mouthed cave; this was a vertical shaft about 40 feet down. You havent laughed to the point of blacking out until youre trapped in a hole in the ground with kids a few years younger than you crying and trying to escape angry flying critters.

 

The sight of Grapevine screaming while a bat was on his head screeching and flapping away was side-splittingly funny. I tried to hit the bat with a big walking stick I was using, but succeeded in smacking the poor kid instead.

 

I truly miss scouting.

[frankj 10]

I'm approaching the 'double nickle' age, 55, so these memories are from the mid to late 1960's:

 

My first campout with the troop when I had to pass the fire building requirement and was advised by 'Sarge' (one of the adult leaders) to "...gather all the firewood you think you'll need, then go out again and get three times as much!"

 

On this same campout (November) I slept in an army surplus bag and wriggled so much at night that a wriggled the lower half of my body out the front of the tent and woke up in the morning with my legs freezing.

 

My Dad and I going to Sears and buying a 'Ted Williams brand' sleeping bag

after this campout. It must have weighed 12 lbs and was in no way, shape or form designed for backpacking, but what did we know?

 

Weekly meetings in the basement of the Presbyterian church. 'Sarge' teaching us how stand at attention and march.

 

A low-key and very competent Scoutmaster named Jim who really knew the outdoors.

 

An unforgettable canoe trip in the Adirondack Reserve one summer.

 

Hikes and campouts in the Watchung Mountains.

 

The hoopla and ceremony (all well deserved) when the ASPL reached the rank of Eagle, followed a few months later by the SPL.

 

There are many, many more, from Troop 78 in Westfield, New Jersey, but today, I think the more important memories for Scouters my age are the ones that will come from the units they now assist in.