"On My Honor I Will Do My Best..."
The Boy Scouts Managed to Survive Our Bungling. But Not the Culture's
Back when we were kids, the Boy Scouts served the valuable function of imposing civilized behavior on generations of aspiring juvenile delinquents.
This happened not by force but by a willingness to be a part of something we knew would improve us while at the same time being fun. This was quite rare. School, for example, was for improvement but it was not fun. Jail was set up ostensibly for the same purpose and served the same end.
Fun was building fires and cooking food over them and sleeping on the ground in a bag and knowing the names of stars and how to find the planets and chopping down trees and making dams in creeks and bridges over them and learning to use a compass and tie all kinds of knots and forage food out of the woods and do first aid in emergencies.
We didn’t object to being improved by rules which everybody knew were good, like being trustworthy and loyal and doing at least one good deed each day and being courteous and kind to people. Everybody knew because it was ingrained in the culture back then. You wanted to be a part. Besides, we all said the Scout Oath in unison so it was not like sticking your neck out and being a “goody-goody” oddball.
The founder of Boy Scouting was British Lieutenant General Robert Baden-Powell. He was a war hero and cavalry officer who trained young soldiers in scouting. He discovered that English boys were reading his manual on stalking and wilderness survival. In 1908, he re-wrote and published his book; Scouting for Boys, instructing young civilian readers on such things as tracking, mapping, signalling, knotting, first aid and other skills of camping such as swimming, sailing, climbing, canoeing and exploring generally. It was a progressive training rewarded by recognition badges along the way.
Within a couple of years the idea caught on in America, thanks to the efforts of wilderness experts like Ernest Thompson Seton, Daniel Carter Beard and James E. West, recognized as the true architect of the Boy Scouts of America.
We were Troop 21 back in the day. Our Scoutmaster, Mr. McCarley, made sure we went camping in the wilderness at least once a month, inclement weather notwithstanding. I’d usually come back from those adventures dirty, pocked with mosquito bites, smelling like a smoked sausage, sore all over and having a cold but it sure was fun. Mr. McCarley’s guiding philosophy was that you learned to stay warm in a tent in the woods in 16-degree weather by simply having a go at it.
It was a form of learning which apparently ran in my family. The picture below is of my grand dad and five of his buddies camping on the banks of the Cahaba River in 1903, several years before Baden-Powell’s book came out. They were too old to be boy scouts, anyway. Chronologically, that is.
One thing you notice about camping in the wild is that it makes you hungry. Meals were, more or less, experiments in how to make stuff that you would never eat at home. Like scrambled pancakes seasoned with tiny flakes of ash from the fire and served “rare” with freezing cold syrup. The authentic “Boy Scout” mess kits that we used were artfully crafted to cling to food so firmly that flipping anything was impossible. If you wanted unbroken pancakes, well, you had to have them “sunny side up” and eaten straight out of the pan.
But we were hungry. We had spent the night in that refrigerator known as the great outdoors. So those pancakes were tasty, especially with chewy, half raw bacon. We wolfed them down with gusto
But That Was Long Ago …
The telephone was on a “party line”, which meant good luck on making a call when you wanted to. New cars didn’t have seat belts. Old ones had no turn signals. There was no color TV, no personal computers, no internet, no McDonald’s and no cell phones or satellites. But you could still get a doctor on short notice, movies didn’t make you mad, candy bars were a nickle and music was inspiring.
Mr. McCarley taught us how to bank a fire so that it burned all night, how to recognize poisonous snakes, sharpen a knife, use a hatchet, build a cable bridge across a creek and navigate through the woods with a hand-held compass. You and your buddies felt confident that you could survive.
In July, 2015, Robert M. Gates, the ex-Secretary of Defense became president of the organization and he led the effort to end its ban on homosexual troop leaders. There is no such ban today.
In 2019 the Boy Scouts of America was renamed “Scouts BSA” and announced that the organization would admit girls and enable them to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. Culture was obligated to change and so it did. Tradition was not simply lost it was declared obsolete. Obviously, there will be no turning back.
But, my, wasn’t it good while it lasted?
“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 Boy Scout Oath)
I don’t recommend making pancakes over a smoky fire in the woods on a freezing morning but you can make some fairly good ones at home without having to fish out specks of ash. Here you go:
Ash-Free Pancakes
Beat two large eggs and 1.25 cups buttermilk (or milk of half&half) with a whisk or hand-held mixer until light and foamy. If you use milk or half&half, add the juice of half a lemon.
Stir in 3 tablespoons melted butter.
Separately, whisk together 1.5 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 2 tablespoons sugar.
Mix the wet stuff into the dry stuff very gently. Don’t over mix because it will make your pancakes tough. Then let this rest for 15 minutes while your griddle is heating (to 75 F).
Oil your griddle or large skillet with vegetable oil, not butter. Pour the mix onto the hot griddle about a quarter-cup for each pancake. When little holes appear to stabilize on the top surface, flip them over.
My mother used to tell me repeatedly “you can’t stop progress” and I guess she was right. “Progress” has moved the Boy Scouts a long way from our days in old Troop 21.
But you treasure the memories. The mind’s eye can still see us boys playing “Capture the Flag” on a moonlit ball field and there’s old Mr. McCarley making campfire coffee on a frosty morning and if you look carefully you might see one of us us dropping from a rope swing into the river and shouting “I dare you” to those on the bank.
And promising to do “my duty to God and my country.”
Captured an entire commentary on civilization today, through the lens of your story. Humorous, touching, and bittersweet.
Great photo of your grandfather!