MIKE MOTTER EDITOR AT LARGE
I know you. You didn’t go to the bookstore, plunk down way too much money, and open this book to read a tenth grade personal narrative. The main reason I had to put this disclaimer in here is because if I didn’t, the nice people editing this would butcher it into unrecognizable crap, or, in my words, a tenth-grade personal narrative. I’ve spent many days of my life sitting next to a fire telling stories, and I want this to sound like one of them. Nobody wants to read that tenth-grade personal narrative. So I’m sorry if this book has some incorrect grammar, especially if it’s something people said. I’m so sorry if the tense keeps changing, so it makes it sound better. I’m also so sorry if you didn’t read those past sentences in a sarcastic tone.
There were 40 people in my 2013 Jamboree Troop, Troop B132, meaning Base Camp Bravo, Subcamp 1, Campsite 32. There were 4 patrols of 8 people, a Senior Patrol Leader, who’s basically the one in charge, an Assistant Senior Patrol Leader, his assistant, a Quartermaster, who’s in charge of gear, and a Scribe. I really don’t know what the scribe does. Senior Patrol Leader is usually shortened to SPL. Assistant Senior Patrol Leader is usually shortened to ASPL. Then we had four adult leaders. I cannot introduce you to all 40 people in the troop, but I will introduce you to the important people.
To all the Boy Scouts out there, wherever you’re from, understand that this story is about 40 people. Not 2 million people. In Troop B132, we did things this way, as I’ve outlined in the book. I don’t know how you guys do things out where you are, but this is how it worked here in B132. My biggest leadership strategy I offer people is that there is more than one way to do things and the worst thing you can do as a leader is dismiss all other strategies. I am not dismissing all other strategies.
We had two kids and an adult leader move into my home troop, Troop 25, from Indiana. One of them ended up being my ASPL later when I was elected SPL. He did not like the way I wanted to run things, which was the way Troop 25 had done it as long as I can remember. His dad also did not like it, and he still seemingly makes up rules on the fly. I think he would be a very good leader, if he could understand that there is more than one way to do things.
Again, this book is about Troop B132. Not Troop Z368, or Q552, or whatever troop you were in. I don’t want to get angry e-mails because the way I am outlining things in here is different than your experience at the 2013 National Scout Jamboree. I have already gotten angry e-mails from people who were in the contingent, and this book hasn’t even come out yet.
Now I’ll give you a brief example of what it’s like to be a Boy Scout. Any Boy Scouts reading this, you might get away with just skimming this part.
I joined Cub Scouts when I was six years old, as a tiger cub. I worked up the Cub Scout Ranks- Bobcat, Wolf, Bear, Web 1’s, Web 2’s, and then I got my Arrow of Light and crossed over into Boy Scouts. Web’s stands for “Webelos” which stands for “We Be Loyal Scouts”.
By the time you get to Web 1’s, you’re pretty loyal. However, half of you won’t come back after your first week at Boy Scout camp. We often joke that there is no hazing in the Boy Scouts (well, not anymore, they enforce those rules now more than they did for me) because your first year is such a culture shock that it’s hazing enough. Your parents aren’t there anymore, so some kids crack from the homesickness. Others think the leaders are real dicks (and some of them actually are, you didn’t hear that from me). For whatever reason, they realize that they aren’t roasting marshmallows anymore.
Yes, I said dicks. Boy Scouts, to the horror of National, swear. That is the reason I have left this book uncensored. If you are offended by swear words, stop reading. One of the things on the list of things that could be the new scout motto (to replace “Be Prepared”) is “Your parents aren’t here”. I’ve done plenty of crazy things at scout camp my parents would never let me do, such as the one time we were biking the C&O Canal and I drank 7 cans of Coke that one night.
I also said “They realize they’re not roasting marshmallows anymore.” Boy Scouts do roast marshmallows, but not as often as people would like to think we do. We’re too advanced for that. Only Cub Scouts roast marshmallows. I know how to make a perfect marshmallow, with a perfect golden crust and a nice, melty center. It’s not even that hard, just be patient (it is actually easier, and produces a better product, to make them in your microwave). I learned these skills in Cub Scouts, and now I still spend most of my campouts sitting by a campfire. When smoke blows into people’s faces, everyone else will duck out of the way and act like it’s mustard gas. I just sit there and breathe it in.
We do a good bit of burning stuff. Sometimes when we’re done with a camping trip, we chuck all the cardboard we used that weekend into the fire and watch it burn, and sometimes we put the cardboard open side down on the fire and pretend the box is a building. I could go more into detail about burning stuff at camp, but I fear it will cost me any hope of ever landing a job (I’ve already been fired once for my love of fire, long story, but I didn’t do anything illegal). One wise old man once said, “There’s only two reasons why anyone joins the Boy Scouts: to play with sharp, pointy objects, or to light stuff on fire.”
I have countless Swiss-Army knives, plus a Gerber knife (you’ll have to go Bing it to find out what that is), another big BSA knife, and a throwing knife. A good chunk of your time at scout camp is spent sitting around the fire, carving sticks to a point. It’s an important rite of passage when you’re in Cub Scouts and get your first knife. You graduate from Swiss Army Knives to Gerbers and Switchblades when you become an involved Boy Scout.
I go camping about every month, all year. Some months I don’t go camping, but I make up for them in the months where I go camping twice in a month, or sometimes more. Rain won’t stop me, as you’ll see at the Jamboree. It rains about every other time I go camping, quite literally. If it rains one time, it won’t rain the next time, and it always rains at least once during my weeklong camping trips. This never fails. I’ve also been camping during tornado warnings, snow, a 50-mph windstorm that lasted all weekend, and temperatures ranging from -5 to 108 degrees.
National really doesn’t want you to read this book. National is the word we use to refer to the National Council of the BSA, from their office down in Irving, Texas. I occasionally hear them referred to as “Irving”, but more commonly, we call them “National”. My theory about National is that they are five people who have never left their office in Irving, who don’t know how to camp, and think that they can tell us how to camp. For some reason, National wants to spread the image that Boy Scouts live up to every stereotype that people know about them. You ever see the movie Scout Camp? That movie is basically every stereotype about the Boy Scouts rolled into one. National went bananas over it. They’re still praising it to this day.
For one, I have never heard a latrine referred to as a “Ky-bo”, as it is in the movie. Latrines are latrines, and I haven’t been in one in years. When I have to poop, I head for the nearest flushing toilet (there’s one in almost every camp, check the dining hall), or I go in a bush away from camp. When I have to pee, I use a bush. We go on camping trips sometimes where we have a designated “Pee Bush”.
The reason Boy Scouts talk about poop so much is because when you’re out in the woods, pooping in bushes, it messes with your head. We have “Group Shits” sometimes, where we go in the woods in a group and poop at the same time.
Don’t say that’s gay. The gay policy hadn’t gone into effect at any point in this story. We don’t say, “That’s what she said” at camp. We said, before May 23rd, 2013, “Hey, no gays in the Boy Scouts.” After that, after National voted to allow gay scouts, it switched to “Not ‘till January”, referring to the fact that the policy was to go into effect on January 1st, 2014. I don’t know what people are saying now.
I have no stance on the acceptance of gay people as scouts, or leaders. I won’t protest the day they decide to allow gay leaders, which is going to happen, but I won’t protest them to allow them either. I think it’s a good cause. After all, when you’re in the woods, freezing cold, hungry, trying to survive by pulling memories out of your “Happy Memories Bag”, which I’ll explain later, I can tell you what thought isn’t going to be at the front of your mind: whether the kid next to you is gay or not.
I shared a backpacking tent with a gay kid once, on our 8-day backpacking trip through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. A backpacking tent is just barely big enough to fit two people, lying right next to each other. I was fine.
Alright, enough about gays. We also spend a good deal of time talking about the opposite sex, namely, females. Females we are dating. Females we have dated in the past. Hot females we see in the hallway at school. Hot females we see camping in the same campground as us (when we’re camping in a civilian campground). We dare each other to go hit on these females sometimes, and sometimes we actually do it. I’ve even had girls hit on me before, because I’m just too sexy.
The fact that we like girls will also make National have a heart attack. I have hit on my fair share of girls at camp, and we have our own corny ways of impressing them, like tying knots. Tying knots is a common Boy Scout stereotype, and it isn’t, for the most part, true. I can tie some pretty badass knots, though.
One more thing: just because you’re in Boy Scouts does not, I repeat, NOT, make you an Eagle Scout. I will give you a review on how the ranking system works, since nobody seems to know.
When you fill out the application, take your oath, and put on your uniform, you have the rank of Scout. The next three ranks are (in order) Tenderfoot, Second Class, and First Class. To obtain these ranks, you must be an amazing camper. You must go camping at least ten times, and on these campouts, you must learn your skills. There is no one way to camp; you have to learn that yourself, and nobody learns how to camp any way except the hard way.
If you have any lessons learned in blood, which you will, you will have learned most of them by the time they hand you your First Class badge. I have my fair share of lessons learned in blood, which, for the editor’s sake, means lessons you’ve learned the hard way. Most lessons learned the hard way at camp mean you’re in for a weekend of sheer hell.
After you receive the rank of First Class, the next two ranks are Star and Life. The requirements for each of these are similar. For each rank, you must earn a certain number of merit badges (six for Star, five for Life) and a certain number of those merit badges have to be from the list of merit badges required for Eagle (four for Star, three for Life).
You must take part in service projects which total six hours of work for each rank. This is where you can build up your arsenal of people to come help you on your Eagle Scout project, because if you go and help someone on their Eagle project, they’re obligated to come back and help you on yours.
You must also serve in a leadership position for six months. For most of my scouting career, I was a den chief, which is a Cub Scout leader. A lot of people get this leadership requirement by serving as Patrol Leaders. Your patrol is your core group of guys you do activities with in your troop, and they need a leader. Most people want to serve on the Senior Patrol, which consists of the Senior Patrol Leader, Assistant Senior Patrol Leader, Quartermaster, and Scribe, which I’ll describe later.
After you’ve done all that twice over, once for Star, and again for Life, you are qualified to begin work on the ever-coveted rank of Eagle Scout.
You will earn the rest of your merit badges. You must earn twenty-one of them, eleven of which are from a list of badges required for Eagle. The other ten are ones you can pick yourself, or electives. There are so many merit badges out there, I won’t even begin to divulge the large quantity of information about them.
The leadership requirement stays the same, six months in a leadership position. Most scouts by this point are trusted by their fellow scouts to earn a position on the Senior Patrol. The Senior Patrol Leader is elected by the troop, and he appoints the rest of the Senior Patrol. We really, really don’t want it to be this way, but election for Senior Patrol Leader is really just a popularity contest in some troops.
Scratch the service hours requirement. Here’s where the arsenal you’ve been building up your whole scouting career will come in handy. You now have to plan, develop, and carry out a service project. Eagle Scout projects are immense, and usually take at least six months to carry out.
All of the above must be completed by your eighteenth birthday. You could have one final step in your project left to do and it wouldn’t matter, if you can’t do it before your eighteenth birthday, you’re done. You will never be an Eagle Scout.
Go ahead. Insult someone wimpy by calling them a Boy Scout again.
I know I just changed your whole view of Boy Scouts, literally. Those girls who were hitting on me before told me that when they were getting ready to leave. You’re welcome. We now go to the Summit Bechtel Reserve for a peek into a National Scout Jamboree.