Boy Scout
 When
I was eight, my brother and I started our license plate number
collection. First, we got a small spiral bound notebook, and 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 then 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.
My brother and I joined the Wolf Den of Cub Pack 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. By the time we left the Cub Scouts to join Boy Scout
Troop 52, 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
eight years of merit badge collecting began.
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 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 counsellor 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 melted 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. 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 into his pocket, and I think to myself that its
maybe time he became a Cub Scout. |
 
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