Why I'd Miss Scouting
By Kerry Soper
(Published in Utah Life Magazine, September, 2018)
As a longtime volunteer in the Scouting organization and a proud, former Boy Scout who spent years watching my mom earn the rank of Eagle Scout for me, I was saddened to hear that this organization is on the decline in Utah. Whether you’re Friend, Foe, or passive aggressive Frenemy of Scouting, think about what future generations of boys, leaders (and really stubborn middle aged mothers) will miss out on if these brown uniforms gradually fade from our communities:
Knot Tying! to learn a lot of those complicated rope tricks if you want to make it anywhere in scouting. I can’t remember any of the names of the knots (“double flat-line sheep-bender” maybe?). And 15 minutes after I passed them off, I had no clue how to start one over again. But still, I’m pretty sure I’m a much better man today for having briefly learned, and then quickly forgotten, how to do those tricky things.
Paperwork! You thought Scouts was just about going out into the great outdoors to roll boulders into high mountain lakes and make blue flames out of nothing but a single match and your own God-given body? Wrong.
You also got to do a ton of boring but important stuff with papers and pencils if you wanted to get any of those fancy badges and necktie holders. For example, I don’t really remember any of the actual hiking I did for my hiking merit badge, but I do remember having to fill out a little blue form that folded three ways, had weird perforations, and required about 10 signatures from different grumpy old men. After losing and restarting that dang thing four times, and finally getting the badge, I felt like I might be able to become a grumpy old man someday too.
By the way, moms got the chance to learn a lot about paperwork through scouting too. The only time I ever saw my mother weep tears of joy—and also make up swear words of joy—was when the sweet, uniformed lady with the weird hair behind the desk at our local scouting office finally approved her fifth draft of my 25-page Eagle application.
Knowledge! Again, you might be fooled into thinking I mean knowledge from adult leaders about how to club a fish to death, or how to identify which berries in the wilderness will kill you, and which ones will just give you a good case of diarrhea. No, I’m talking about information from cool, older scouts during unsupervised time on campouts (which was a lot) about ladies and the way babies are made, if you know what I mean.
This is a delicate subject and that the person who really should have taught me about all of that important stuff was the sad woman with the big glasses at my 6th grade maturation program; but she was really boring and talked mostly about the importance of using deodorant.
In contrast, those older scouts made this important subject entertaining with lots of amazingly detailed stories. It turned out that most of what they said was inaccurate on all levels, but I still credit them with making those campouts interesting and with helping to shape me into the slightly disappointed middle aged man that I am today. Now that my own young boys will probably have to miss out on being scouts, I sometimes lie awake at night, sadly wondering who will be there to give them their lesson about the birds and the fleas.
Uniforms and ceremonies! Sure, most of the fun in scouting took place during loosely planned, often dangerous high adventures trips that reminded me of that book, Lord of the Flies, but with an opening prayer. Scouts also got to spend a lot of safe and relaxing time indoors, sitting on folding chairs and doing some of the following at impromptu variety shows called Courts of Honor.
• Stand up and sit down a lot, chanting mottos (as well as oaths, laws, pledges, and maxims) and making a variety of Spock-like gestures with your fingers • Participate in slapstick flag marching routines with your hilarious buddies Do highly secret handshakes (hint: you use your left hand)
• Play a suspenseful game called “can he pin the sharp medal on his mom’s chest?” • See adult men whose moms also earned Eagles for them get invited to sit in a giant “Nest” (away from all of the non-Eagle losers)
• And listen to wrinkled guys with tons of badges, including the Golden Beaver (I think), tell long stories about how scouting used to be a ton better when they were a young man.
OK that last thing was always super boring, but if you could sit through it till he finally stopped talking, they usually gave you some milk and one of those store bought cookies.
Not a bad deal when you consider that no knot-tying, mom-crying, diaherrea-getting, or paperwork was involved.
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