Be Prepared

At twelve boys could join the scouts. The social climate was a factor in decisions like joining the scouts. I suppose that even in hostile surroundings even the most callous bully might have some time secretly wished that he could be a scout. Peers could never come to a favorable concensus about submitting to this kind of "gang," so many boys who might have had secret thoughts about joining the scouts had to let the opportunity go by.

It was a movement for average boys. Millionaires' sons were less inclined to join than hoodlums. Sons of the poor saw dreams fulfilled and if they were left alone by other gangs they were sure to march off every week to the troops and on some other day to patrol meetings where in groups of eight or less they would gather to, maybe for the first time, organize their collective interests for the good of the tribe. In summertime they would camp in the forest and maybe put what they were taught to work.

That was the lure of scouting. It was an opportunity to rise up and prove a kid's worth with valued rewards (from adults who were at once heroes and shadows in the quest for the recognitions) that would be part of life when he grew up.

In 1945 the movement was a little closer to the mind of its master eventhough alterations were made in the United States to suit American culture. The founder was a Brit and the imperial legends that sprang out of Mafeking would be minimized in favor of the tale of the American businessman (William Boyce) who lost his way in a fog while visiting London. An unknown little samaritan, a boy in a wide-brimmed hat, scarf and shorts, led him to the place he sought and upon the chance to be rewarded refused a tip because he was a scout and was happy to do a good turn (daily). That's considered being in a fog, today.

How nice! Boyce brought the infection back to America and it caught on. Kids put on uniforms, more like those of Black-Jack Pershing's style than Lord Baden-Powell's kit and reconstructionists altered "Scouting For Boys" to fit their tastes. Their Bible, "The Boy Scout Handbook," and a better ancillary — "The Scout Fieldbook" — became the heart of the first library of serious study for American boys, sitting alongside Tom Swift, Huck Finn and works by Dumas and Tarkington. Reality caught up with fiction.

Revisionists have changed the program that the English spymaster envisioned. God and woodlands and not a few of the other things of the old dispensation are scarcely thought about in some circles. Other things have been meddled with and what was good for boys got smothered in controls, and the pursuit of recognition and rewards has become more important (and necessary) for the men who lead over the kids who are supposed to follow. The movement might have been born of a military mentality but it's expanded beyond that superficial inheritance into a bureaucratic insuffrance.

My peers and I joined the big time troop in 1945. Some of us had moved up from wolf-cubs, a tribe of blue-uniformed rug-rats who ran out of interest in handi-crafts and model building of fleets of paddle-boats and aeroplanes just in time. We were viewed with feigned contempt by older boys, forced into patrols to shore up vacancies, placed in minor servitude to veterans, and given an astounding burden of things to learn. If everyone was satisfied, we were raised up to the first and lowest rank: tenderfoot. At a grand ceremony we got a badge and were roughed up by the troop. Somebody called it an initiation and we were to expect two more: at our first weekend camp and at our first summer camp.

Initiations have been analyzed by social engineers and found wanting. Pink-bellies and depantsings and a lot of other sadistic rites are by any sensible account the things that should give people pause about the company they keep. We had more normal pranks visited on us except for an old military hangover sprung on us at our induction which was running the gauntlet, being paddled. I don't know of any damage done. Still, it stinks.

The traditional humiliation that had to be suffered at camp was getting us lost in the forest, both awake and when we were asleep.

On the first night or so at summer camp the sleeping tenderfoot (me) would be carried off in his bed to Borneo, and in the morning — no earlier — drag the cot back to camp to mocking cheers. On some other night he would be awakened and taken to another place farther away than Borneo and given the needed equipment, a sack and sticks, for the snipe hunt. The venture had all the organized trappings of a safari except for litter-bearers and elephants...and guns. Directions for success were carefully explained: finding a suitable large rock or tree trunk to lay the sack against, how to bang the sticks together to alert the snipes, the proper call (here, snipe, snipe, snipe, snipe) to lure in the quarry. Snipes were fast, we were told. When they ran into the bag they would knock themselves unconscious against the tree or the rock at the back end. Bag <@145>em and bring <@145>em back alive. That all makes sense. For an hour or two in dark forests at the end of the world you might hear, on moon-lit nights or not, tapping of sticks "tic, tic, tic, tic," and faint little boys' voices calling hopelessly "here, snipe, snipe, snipe, snipe."

I think I heard one.

I think I saw one.

In earlier times we accepted liars who told us there was a Santa Claus. We thought we were smart when we grew out of the lie and became co-conspirators with other older people and in turn lied to little children to keep them happy for another season. The snipe hunt was a parallel to the older charade. The next year after we fell to the trick we would almost drool at the prospect of leading other suckers into the deep forest to bag that wonderfully elusive quarry.

All of the big department stores had a scout shop where, with the proper identification card shown, jack-knives and uniforms and manuals and badges and insignias and official compasses and hatchets and everything else related to scouting could be brought by members of troops. Those without cards were turned away.

A scoutmaster could redeem himself from any inadequacies that kids might note and become a real hero if he could tell good stories. Even older scouts, full of bluster and bluff and bravado would sit open-mouthed and awestruck and secretly terror-stricken as the good storyteller weaved a tale that sent the coolest imaginations haywire. Seventeen year-olds felt the same horror as those who were twelve and they too would stare into the embers of the dying fire and see other dimensions. They might not really want to linger but they couldn't excuse themselves lest they be thought "chicken." Storytelling is so old as an established ritual that had not changed since the dawn of the community. It was old in Homer's time. Boo!

Our troop met at the same Presbyterian Church where half-a-life earlier I learned (in the same room) about King Solomon and David and other heroes of Israel. Now, as Boy Scouts we were learning rude skills that were to make us self-sufficient. Kindly old Mr. Nice (his real name) was the scoutmaster when I arrived. Within that year he retired and a cadre of veterans of the late war, led by a fellow named Sands, took charge and our program became more aggressive. It was said that Sands and his associates, Timmons and Alberts and Klein, had fought our enemies in the elite Ranger Corps so they were instant heroes.

We went places. We went to Camp Hart every spring and to the Breyer Training Area in autumn and to Stover Park in the winter. At Stover each patrol had its own cabin. We also camped in private woodlands set far away from civilization. In the summer we went to the greatest of all Boy Scout camps: to Treasure Island. At eight dollars a week! Treasure Island was the best experience in our scouting life. Any boy who went there had to be impressed. It was a lavish repository of shrines: to nature, to tradition, to tribalism. We went there when it was still quite primitive, still quite awesome. Rotten moments there were few. Sensibly, they were noted as assignments to KP at the dining lodge. The most spectacular experience was planned for and executed at the stockade, an ampitheatre on the north side of the island where all of the troops were gathered for appropriate ceremonies, for songs, for some vaudeville, for some indian-lure and for a spooky yarn. Custom forbade talking afterward. The silent procession of hundreds of kids dispersed to their campsites among shadows exaggerated by torches and infected by some undefinable (to us) sort of reflection as their closest influence. We had been introduced to the psychology of group dynamics.

We went to lesser places that were in reality the greater ones of the real world. We went to scout-fair at the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf and mingled with the inmate troop. We were pressed into messenger service at the National Convention of the American Legion...important stuff, running secret messages between hotels. That's the stuff Baden Powell got the kids doing in Africa at the beginning of scouts! Our notes probably included assignations between delegates and hookers.

If kids got unruly at troop meetings, the scout leaders organized a punch-out. Gloves would be put on and the spats would be resolved immediately in the room where Presbyterians would hold Sunday School a couple of days later.

The patrol was the competitive group within the troop. To be competitive we had to sort of hate the other patrols. Hate is a shorter word for competition. At first, at twelve, we were scattered into existing patrols of older kids. Later we were thrown together, probably when we were thirteen. Our gang of eight elected its patrol leader: me. We chose a name: stag. We collectively wrote a song, putting our words to an already existing tune, and sang it lustfully. If we would sing it near the "Blood Gang" they would have killed us.

Our patrol meetings were held for a while at my house. My mom wasn't pleased. Eight thirteen year-olds had to be fed and eight thirteen year-olds might wreck the house (even when they were fed). She was nervous. You can't have much fun with a nervous mother nearby. We moved the meetings to other houses run by nervous mothers and finally we found privacy in Nethery's garage. His mother was naive.

Day hikes by the troop usually took us to the Wissahickon, part of Philadelphia's great Fairmount Park (the largest municipal park in the world). We invariably cooked "hobo-stew" which we thought, with some hinting, was invented by the Timmons, Alberts, Klein mob, the assistant scoutmasters.

When we went to camp we took pennies because we would organize poker games at night or on rainy afternoons. I had a brass box to hold my pennies. We all should have gotten the Gambling Merit Badge.

Do we exaggerate our own experience? Perhaps! Maybe it's what keeps memories alive. We can't write about the dull, the uneventful, the empty things that would have no reason to write of nor audience to read. But then, what is uneventful?

At our first winter camp the snow lay deeper than it really was. We were built closer to the ground when we were children. The cars that came to fetch us were caught up in the inconvenience of a storm. We supposed that we were marooned and saw it that way whenever we spoke of that trip.

At our first camporee we spent a lot of time being slaves to the older guys. We all became equals in the night when the flood ripped away the camp-sites. The waters of the storm forced us to high ground after a scary awakening. Two boys drowned in the torrent and our spirits sank. We lost everything. The Red Cross delivered us to our homes.

We were boys and wouldn't quit over things like blizzards and floods. Maybe we would have quit if there were no blizzards or catastrophies. We were at the age when foolish bravado took us on stupid adventures (so adults say) up in trees, over cliffs and into tick, snake and spider infected regions where we were likely to be injured or killed. We might burn-up in a fire or be zapped by lightning. We never thought of that. We were free except for tidying-up things now and then. We would quit being Boy Scouts when something better would catch our eye. That's not a sign of ingratitude., We were taught, as scouts, to be democrats. We were taught a little more about independence. Time moves us along, eventually, with our own individual tastes, to other adventures.