Boy Scouts of America

Boy Scouts of America
It all started with an old Boy Scout manual. Don’t remember where i got it. We my friends and i were fascinated with it. We were around ten or so. We all dreamed of camping out and the out door skills. We were city boys with citified parents so we never got out. There was a big field a couple of blocks away and we would play «Scouts». It was so like the story i later learned that started Scouting. «Robert Baden-​Powell, after returning to his country a hero following military service in Africa, found boys reading the manual he had written for his regiment on stalking and survival in the wild. Gathering ideas from Seton, America’s Daniel Carter Beard, and other Scout craft experts, Baden-​Powell rewrote his manual as a nonmilitary skill book, which he titled Scouting for Boys
:“We never became Boy Scouts because there were no troops near by. Several years later saw a display in a window kind of diorama at a dry cleaners, of Boy Scout equipment and such. So went in and asked about it. Turned out the son of the owner was a scout and it was part of some project. The owner Mr. W. talked me into joining. Since I was 14 couldn’t be a boy scout but could be an explorer scout. Those were some of my best years and I have been lucky to have had many great years. The First thing I learned was the Scout Oath. Scout Oath or Promise, «On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.» The First thing they teach us is about Honor. Honor has ever since been a Big thing to me. Not the phony honor of liars and thieves, you lose your honor if you tell a lie. Tough to get it back, but you can, just got to work at it. Went to a military academy modeled after West Point where Honor was a Big thing and that reinforced the concept. Yeah Honor is a Great thing and everyone should incorporate it into their being. If we learned nothing else it would have been worth it just to learn that. However Scouting is about scouting. So we learned outdoors skills, besides good citizenship. We learned about the chain of command and how to lead others starting with ourselves and working our way up, not about just being bossy and giving foolish orders. Some of us learned to work at the district or city level which stood us in good steed the rest of our lives. Made me a better person that’s for sure. Scouting can help greatly to make good citizens of both boys and girls it sure gives them the proper tools and offers them guidance and experience in using them if they can and will. I will forever be grateful.
A few months ago attended a round table conference at West L.A. council
, it was fun seeing all those young people both the leaders and the scouts doing the thing. They tell me it is not as popular as in my day but it sure looked good to me. Some Fine people. Having fun and doing good.
PS. In researching this article, found a whole new spectrum of Scouting; Venture scouting and HAT
. Before i go any farther let me mention that all the pix were downloaded from W.L.A. web sites or related sites and that this review is being e-​mailed to the W.L.A. council and B.S.A. national for their perusal and approval.
Do a Good Turn Daily