Little Adventures

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Boy Scout

When I was eight, my brother and I started our license plate number collection. First, we got a small spiral bound notebook, then we walked down the street to the corner of Third and South. It was a dry, sunny day, so we lay down on the grass and began watching the cars go by. Clem would read the plate number of each car as it passed, and I would add this to our collection by writing it down in our notebook. At the end of an hour we had collected about thirty numbers, and our collection was off to a flying start.

Mom and Dad were driving to Punxsutawney that day, and we asked them to write down the out-of-state plate numbers that they saw along the way. When they returned they gave us a list of about ten, which we duly transcribed into our notebook. I got the impression that they were not very enthusiastic about our new hobby, but it wasn't until years later that my mom admitted that they had made up those out-of-state plate numbers. I think that my parents must have talked about us on that trip because afterward Dad began telling us interesting stories of his adventures as a Boy Scout, and it was only a few weeks later that we joined the Cub Scouts. My parents must have breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Later we joined the Boy Scout Troop 51 and quickly became interested in attaining the rank of Tenderfoot Scout. We learned how to make a half-hitch and erect a tent. We memorized the Scout Oath. We camped out overnight and mastered basic first aid techniques. In short order, we had check marks next to all of the dozen requirements and were made Tenderfeet at the annual Scout Dinner. Scouting WAS fun, and we immediately started on the requirements for Second Class, and after that First Class Scout. In a couple of years, we were First Class Scouts and ready to begin collecting merit badges to attain even higher ranks. As with the ranks we had already obtained, each merit badge was awarded on completion of a checklist of requirements. When you had six merit badges you became a Star Scout, eleven badges and you were a Life Scout, and loftiest of all, the right twenty-one merit badges entitled you to the rank of Eagle Scout. And so began our years of merit badge collecting.

We were both good Scouts and tried hard to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. We lived by the Scout Motto… Be Prepared. We camped out in tents in the middle of winter and went to Camp Coffman for a week each summer. We competed with other Scouts in the sending of semaphore messages and in chopping logs in half. One week we spent preparing war kites that had razor blades in their tails, ground glass on their strings and bike spokes lashed to their sticks. On the day of the kite fight, we bravely took on all comers until our kites lay on the ground, in shreds.

We entered canoe races, hiking races, and swimming races. Later as Explorer Scouts we held weekly dances to raise money, and then spent it all on a week long trip to Wildwood, New Jersey, and on a camp we built in the woods. With us in all of these activities were the other Scouts of our troop… kids with nicknames like Muskie, Zuke, Cat and Ox. Also there were the adults, Ed Spindler in Boy Scouts and Ray Mohney in Explorers. These men did the real planning and made things happen.

At the age of sixteen I was a counselor at Camp Coffman one summer, and Clem was inducted into the secret scout society called the Order of the Arrow, but during all of those years, our ultimate goal was to become Eagle Scouts and we worked hard at it.

Clem and I made insect collections for the Insect Study merit badge, leaf collections for the Forestry merit badge, and wildflower collections for the Botany merit badge. We collected stamps, coins, fingerprints, and minerals; and we wrote little essays on each collection to prove that we had mastered the subject. In the end we had a collection of collections and dozens of merit badges. It was a very proud day indeed when our father pinned the Eagle badges on our chests.

Of course I have forgotten much of what I learned in those early years of working on merit badges, but I like to think that all of those small projects have melded together into a big lump of experience inside of me, and that this lump still serves me well. Certainly I can date my too many interests to those early days spent making a collection of merit badges.

Now, when I take Pete for a walk along the river, and I skip rocks across its surface, he sometimes says to me, "Don't skip that stone, Dad. I want to keep it for my smooth rock collection."

I hand it to him then and he shoves it deep into his pocket, and I think to myself, maybe time he became a Cub Scout.