The world needs Boy Scouts, I am sure of it...

I never wanted to be in scouts.  As a child, our neighbors were heavily involved in Boy Scouts as members, scouters, and volunteers.  Over the early years of my youth, I would watch them come and go to regular meetings and activities in their uniforms and think to myself that I never wanted to do that.

“Too much hassle….too much conformity….short pants with green socks?!”

Consequently, I never gave the scouts much thought until, many years later, my son was in the first grade and my wife told me that I was taking him to Cub Scouts.  We argued; me dead set against it largely because of the stereotype I had of it.  She arguing for it largely because of the stereotype she had of it.

In the end, she prevailed and I took him to his first Cub Scout meeting. I recall it was very foreign to me – all this talk about “Akelas” and “Weblos” was over my head.  He had a great time – walked out of the meeting holding my hand and just beaming.

With wild hair and happy eyes, he looked up and me and asked “Dad? What’s the best I can be in scouting?”  Uncertain of the answer due to my own scouting inexperience, I replied “I don’t know, maybe an Eagle scout?”

He looked down, set his jaw and then told me “well that’s what I want to be then, an Eagle Scout.” I remember thinking at the time that just the week before he wanted to be Batman.  But, we signed up and I committed to go and stay involved as long as he wanted it.

Several years of Cub Scouts followed and I was still very much ambivalent about scouting.  Can’t make a derby car, no real outdoor skills at that point and my co-workers were all decidedly weary of me lugging Cub Scout popcorn to every meeting.  To me, scouting was just another commitment in an otherwise very hectic schedule. I was never completely at ease with it.

Complicating all of that was the issue of exclusion.  One of my best friends from school was gay.  I didn’t find out until years after we were in school together. When the topic came up, I remember asking him why he never told any of us.  “It’s hard,” he confessed.  “Very complicated.  I thought you guys wouldn’t want to be friends anymore…”   

I remember it as a turning point in my life – the realization that normal events associated with growing up; discovering that you are attracted to other people, dating, relationships, and holding hands – all of those deliriously awkward moments of adolescence are made infinitely more complicated for the teen who awakens into a world where he or she is gay. I remember thinking it was simply beyond absurd, and a bit painful, to think he believed we would abandon him because of who he was. I shared this with him and he said in a voice more weary than his 22 years “trust me, people hate me.”

 

The moment left me with some sensitivity to the issue – my good friend suffered for years worrying about what people would think of him, worrying that he had to keep a significant portion of his life not just private, but super-secret private.

So it was that in 2000, I was in law school and, like many in law school at that time, I spent more than a few minutes in any of a half dozen different classes debating the different constitutional merits of either party’s case in Boy Scouts of America et al. v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (2000).

I carried a lot of the feelings generated by my friendship with John into these debates in school.  The law was more than likely clear.  So too was the predictable outcome of the Supreme Court vote.  The joke in school was the true story that one of the Justices voting to uphold the ban wrote that he actually thought homosexuality only occurred in prisons, on desert islands and in forced survival situations like shipwrecks and plane crashes.

Given that, and as a student of the law, I was pretty much certain that the 2000 US Supreme Court wasn’t going to create a protected class of people based on sexual orientation using the Boy Scouts as the fulcrum to do so. And history shows that they didn’t.  A 5-4 court upheld the BSA’s exclusionary policy as a manifestation of BSA’s freedom of association. In other words, legally it was the right call according to the US Supreme Court.

Fast forward ten years to the fall of 2010.  My son, then 10 years old and in the 5^th grade, was riding out the waning moments of his Cub Scout career as a Weblo.  His Cub Pack went from having around 60 kids to having no more than 6 kids ten years after the BSA v Dale decision. I was eager with anticipation for the moment I could tell him “well, good work with Cub Scouts.  You gave it a first class effort but it looks like this is the end of the road.  No Boy Scouts, no Eagle Scout.  Let’s move on to the next great challenge…”  

So I had been rehearsing, mentally, the “talk” with my son for several weeks during my morning commute.  I practiced the talk I planned to have with my wife and him several times and had just about refined it to the level where I was ready to pick the date by which I would break the news that we were leaving the dream of Eagle Scout behind us.

There was a camporee planned and I expected the Cub Scout presence to be very small – perhaps just one Weblo family (us). That would present the perfect opportunity to introduce the topic of how we were spinning our wheels with this backward looking organization.

Perhaps adding accelerant to the fire burning inside of me was the fact that for this particular weekend, I was forced to say yet another “no thank you, we have a scouting event” when a colleague offered free football tickets. These tickets were to the annual Michigan State/Michigan football game. 

To say I was ambivalent, ten years post-Dale, is generous. I was in fact itching to move on from scouting and pursue other ways to kill off a beautiful autumn weekend in Michigan. Free football tickets aside, by the fall of 2010 I had no love lost for the Boy Scouts of America. I fundamentally disagreed with the exclusionary policy.  It seemed to be based in prejudice and was contrary to anything I believed in terms of civil rights.  I was actively looking for ways to get my only son away from something I considered bigoted and irrational.

Committed to the idea that this would be our last scouting event, I loaded up the car and went to a fall camporee at a scout camp in Central Lower Michigan. Nothing extravagant. Not at all far from our home, but a very nice camp with a long, uphill curving driveway leading in. 

It was a camp I hadn't been to before.  Set among gorgeous rolling hills heavily wooded with stands of hardwood and pine, it appeared to be a first rate camp. As we worked our way up the neatly paved drive leading up the slope, I noticed there were – spaced out at even intervals – neatly lettered yellow signs arranged along the camp’s driveway. 

They stood dappled at the tree-line on the edge of the forest – almost as much a part of the landscape as the plentiful cedar and white pine.  They said, in successive order “A Scout is….  trustworthy …… loyal ….. helpful ….. friendly ….. courteous ….. kind ….. obedient ….. cheerful ….. thrifty ….. brave ….. clean ….. and reverent.”

They didn't say anything about sexuality, or law books, or politics, or courtrooms.  Just plain old words describing extraordinary virtues. They described the essence of scouting.  Scouting, in that moment, began to crystalize for me as something that could not, and should not, be defined by a single polarizing issue.

Something about each handmade sign caught in my throat as I drove by.  My father died when my son was 5 years old. Much of this whole “being a dad” thing has ended up me doing it without the benefit of my father to guide me on what’s right for a kid. The signs were handmade, tidy, but with faded paint.  They had been there a while but were tended to by someone who had an eye toward their importance.

For my son, the day was one to climb the “Victory Tower” and to Shoot BB Guns and to have all kinds of scout fun.  For me, it began what was a serious reflection on what scouting would come to mean for me personally; what it truly meant to me as a dad. It began a period for me that I later recognized as my time to consider how I could best spend my efforts in bringing up a boy with timeless values and a solid sense of confidence and service.

Those signs staring at me from the shadowy tree-line were the beginning of a new commitment for me with scouting.  I did not have the conversation I planned and practiced with my wife and son.  Instead I researched the scout law and eventually sat down with my son and had a different conversation:

“Michael, the world needs Boy Scouts.”

Not the kind of thing any who know me as a bleeding heart, mushy-headed college liberal would expect me to say.  Growing up, the term “boy scout” was a put-down.  Something synonymous with a “goody two-shoes” or “teacher’s pet.”  But I was convinced of it then and am doubly certain of it now. 

“The world needs Boy Scouts.”

I have watched my son grow from a Tenderfoot to a newly minted Life Scout.  Have joined him on countless service projects in our community and watched him mature from a tiny little fellow in pants and shirt way too big, to a solid young man who, in the thick of the worst thunderstorm I have ever endured outside, reminded me "Dad, this happens every time I come out with the scouts.  Trust me, you're going to be ok."  His mom and I have followed his travels from Montana hiking over the Great Divide down to Florida Seabase where next month we will take our SCUBA certifications and test our mettle SCUBA diving in the ocean. 

“The world needs Boy Scouts.”

Along the way, I was lucky enough to get involved as an Assistant Scoutmaster, Unit Commissioner and as a member of a great Wood Badge patrol (Owl) at C2-271-12.  My Wood Badge experience was held at the very same camp where I had my scouting epiphany several years before.

Having spent this time and energy; having come to embrace the idea that the world needs Boy Scouts, I’ve also become convinced that the Boy Scouts need the world.  I had the good fortune of joining scouts from 22 countries at the Michigan International Camporee in the summer of 2012. There it was my pleasure to join in the community of international scouting and discuss with them the development of  scouting in other countries.

If you accept that the Boy Scouts need the world, then you must also accept that the Boy Scouts need to reflect on the aims of scouting as originated, not by the BSA v Dale case in 2000, but rather by the words and vision of Lord Baden-Powell when he cultivated this dream.  The Boy Scouts exist not because some council in New Jersey won a legal battle in 2000.  They exist because of the vision of an extraordinary man in 1908.

Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting, wrote the original Scout law in the publication Scouting for Boys in 1908. Included in that text is the tenet that a Scout is a friend to all and a brother to all other scouts.

"A SCOUT IS A FRIEND TO ALL, AND A BROTHER TO EVERY OTHER SCOUT, NO MATTER TO WHAT SOCIAL CLASS THE OTHER BELONGS. If a scout meets another scout, even though a stranger to him, he must speak to him, and help him in any way that he can, either to carry out the duty he is then doing, or by giving him food, or, as far as possible, anything that he may be in want of. A scout must never be a SNOB. A snob is one who looks down upon another because he is poorer, or who is poor and resents another because he is rich. A scout accepts the other man as he finds him, and makes the best of him -- "Kim," the boy scout, was called by the Indians "Little friend of all the world," and that is the name which every scout should earn for himself."

“…Accept the other man as he finds him, and make the best of him…” was Baden-Powell’s approach to  differences that might arise between scouts. The presumption, unstated but obvious, is that the brotherhood of scouting transcends those differences.  It demands that we approach our neighbors – strangers and friends alike – with a bias toward temperance and a commitment to the non-judgmental.  You cannot be a friend to all if you are wagging your finger, or spewing hateful rhetoric, or passing judgment on one lifestyle while freely indulging your own lifestyle choices absent having to answer to others for them.

To be a brother to all Scouts, as Baden-Powell intended when he blazed the trail for all other scouts, you cannot approach your fellow scouts or scouters and tell them “you cannot be my brother because of who you love.”  If Baden-Powell’s words have meaning; if the notion “a brother to all other scouts” will indeed have vitality, then that brotherhood cannot be revoked merely because a scout is gay.

Making the rounds presently on social media is the story of Bruce “Trip” McMillan, a 37-year veteran professional Scouter currently living in Charlotte, N.C.  Trip’s noteworthy take on the exclusionary policy is that the practice of excluding brothers; the practice of institutionally excluding scouts and scouters based on who they love, is contrary to the community of scouting.

“Shame on us (scouting) as a movement,” McMillan says, “if we continue to abandon ‘one of our boys’ at perhaps the most difficult moment of their life.”

A brother, a scouting BROTHER who is coming to realize his developing sexual identity, does not need to be abandoned by his brothers in scouting.  He needs that community of friendship, that continuity of fellowship and virtue.  Scouting needs to be standing taller than what has been presently made of their virtues.  Scouting needs to say to that boy, “here you are among the scouts, and the scouts are among the best.  So here you will thrive.  We will find the best in you.”

Change will come.  I am sure of it.  No species on Earth has ever purposely starved itself into extinction.  So true with the scouts, whose membership continues to shrink while its “brand” has been hijacked into this issue.

Change will come when Boy Scouts of America comes to realize they need the world as much as the world needs the Scouts.

Change will come, because the world needs scouts.

Change must come, because a weary world wants for that boy scout “constant” - the virtuous helper, leader, and friend to all to continue.

Change must come, and it will come.

Dennis Armistead is a writer, labor relations professional and mediator, and scouter from Bath, Mi.  As a member of Wood Badge class C2-271-12, Owl Patrol, one of his ticket items was to write an essay regarding the Exclusionary Practice of the Boy Scouts of America as it relates to homosexual scouts and scouters.  This is his essay. All rights reserved to the author.  The World Needs Scouts©

The struggle is a good thing…

So I am blogging again today.  Looking back, it occurs to me that I have been away a while.  Baseball, tee ball, ballet (not me, the half-pint), teaching, working, scouting – all of those things that I love are taking me in a direction away from something else I love – sharing this little corner of the universe with you.  So it is that there is one thing in particular nudging me back into the electronic study where I can pace around and sort out my feelings. The Boy Scouts of America, yesterday, “affirmed” their stance on discriminating against “avowed and openly” gay scouts and volunteers.

What utter nonsense.  First and foremost, let’s just take a look at the words they use.  They “affirmed” their policy.  How does one “affirm” discrimination?  The juxtaposition of the two words in the same sentence brings to mind the inauguration speech of Alabama Governor George Wallace.  “Segregation now!  Segregation tomorrow!  Segregation forever!”

In that speech, the Governor “affirmed” his state’s policy, didn’t he?  No doubt about it that he “affirmed” his policy of never letting one group of people mix with another group of people.  50 years in our rear-view mirror, I have to ask – how did that affirmation hold up?  Was it the right thing to do?  Was it in keeping with our founding principles?  The answer is certainly “no,” at least for the humane and decent among us, it is.

So you have this “affirmation” from the Boy Scouts of America that they are going to keep discriminating against people.  They say that “a majority of their parents” want this.  Well, wait a sec – no one ever asked me.  I have been in scouting since my Star scout was in the first grade.  Can’t recall ever seeing a questionnaire from BSA mailed to our house or our troop.  How do they know what a majority of the parents want when they never surveyed them? 

I am just a volunteer, working my butt off for this great little Troop so that they can grow into strong, wise, and self-reliant confident men who make up their own minds about such nonsense.  I have no resources to donate to scouts other than my time and my commitment to the principles of scouting.  Principles like this little ditty from Sir Robert Baden-Powell:  “The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light. “  Or maybe this one:  “The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others. “  How does any of that involve discrimination based on a person’s sexual preference?

Baden-Powell is, if you didn’t know, the founder of scouting (there is considerable speculation that he himself was a closeted homosexual.  While his sexual preference doesn’t matter a bit to me, I guess since he wasn’t an “avowed” homosexual, scouting’s founder must be ok in the BSA’s eyes, because to date they ain't kicked him out).

And let’s talk a moment about that concept of being an “avowed” person of any sexual orientation.  I missed a lot during puberty, I mean there was just a lot going on with girls, and sports, and school and family life…so I could have been out fishing or playing baseball the day the village elders came around intending to make me swear a vow to be either hetero or homosexual.  I do not remember ever “avowing” to any particular sexual orientation.  I do remember seeing Dawn Wells on TV in those little red shorts on Gilligan’s Island and being pretty well smitten by that, but that is about as close as I get to “avowing” anything in terms of my individual sexuality.  Maybe it’s different for others, I just don’t remember having to swear a vow about my sexual orientation.  Seems I just grew up having the one I got.  

So this topic of the Boy Scouts of America “affirming” their discrimination against “avowed or openly gay” kids and volunteers is nonsense.  Scouting should be open to all.  It diminishes the integrity and credibility of our commitment to the Scout Law to intentionally turn our backs on kids and their parents because of something as absurd as sexuality.  As a committee member and assistant scoutmaster, I find it absolutely inappropriate that I would be expected to engage any of my scouts in a discussion about their sexuality.  Discussin gthis decision, a good friend of mine and scoutmaster pointed out the obvious, "as scout leaders who grants us that license, that charter, that permission to engage kids that way?"  No one.  Yet the scouts have forced that dynamic precisely.  By making a big a deal out of individual sexuality, the BSA has wrongly thrust that issue onto local Troops.

A scout is Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean, and Reverent.  Nowhere in there does it reference sexuality.  I will continue to love scouting and maintain my commitment to the kids in my Troop.  And I will keep faith that, at some point, the Boy Scouts of America will embrace the true meaning of their charter and open the doors of scouting to all by abandoning this antique and contradictory obsession with homosexuality.

So, today is a little more pointed than most of my entries.  I suppose that happens when you see something you love making a bad decision or heading off in a wrong direction.  The reality is that scouting, just like the scouts themselves and their volunteers, is not defined by this one issue.  There are millions of us out there who say “let the kids join; let the parents volunteer” regardless of this issue of sexuality.  Don’t mistake my passion for contempt – I love scouting and the opportunities it presents.  I am just a little sad and embarrassed today by the direction BSA is taking here.

Wherever you are today, whatever you are doing, I hope you can take some time to reflect on what is best about scouting in America; the kids. Their decency, their commitment to solid scouting principles, the promises they make, and keep, on a daily basis. I hope you can spend some time being assured that there are a million or so volunteers all pulling hard in the right direction and I hope you can join me by keeping that faith that someday, someday soon, we too shall overcome this.  Until the time that we do, like many things in scouting, the struggle to achieve will in the end serve us well.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Yours in scouting,

Dennis

smalltowndad@hotmail.com

Why we celebrate...

A remarkable series of events occurred this weekend prompting tonight's late-night post.  The weekend began with a celebration - a friend was retiring after a career spent in the military and in law enforcement.  He is my son's scoutmaster and the troop was invited to attend the celebration.  As assistant scoutmaster,I attended with them and was very happy to participate with them as they honored our skipper. The speeches and tributes were all really great, but what really caught my eye was just the love and pride his friends and family had for him. It was a great celebration well earned by a very great cop.

The next morning we welcomed three of the troop's senior scouts to our home so they could lead training exercises with a younger scout (my son).  Leading the training was necessary to satisfy the rank advancement requirements moving the three of them from Star to Life scout at our recognition banquet tomorrow night.  Life scout is the final rank a scout achieves before gaining the rank of Eagle scout.  (As a side note, less than 1% of all American men have achieved that goal - these are terrific kids and this milestone is a really good one to celebrate.  They are on their way).

So great fun was had watching these young men lend themselves to the development of a younger scout and to watch these brave and accomplished leaders handle the delicacies of offering their required training while simultaneously being whipped at Candyland, Old Maid and Go Fish by my five year-old daughter.  We will have a great recognition banquet tomorrow night.

After the boys left, we ran errands related to my nephew's Confirmation at church tomorrow morning. This rite of passage within the Methodist church carries with it a gathering of the clan and an opportunity for hearts bound by common blood to be again warmed by the common experience of family.  It will be so nice to see everyone; brother, sister, mom, cousins - just to be with them and smile, hug, drink in their good humor and the pride of another family milestone reached.  It will be a great day.

As I said, we were out running errands (new pants for the ever growing 12 year-old who, I am certain, is keeping several textile mills in business with the rate at which he is growing out of his clothes).  As it happens we live very near the campus of Michigan State University and Saturday was Commencement Day.  Everywhere we drove on campus, we saw moms, dads, proud grandparents and siblings embracing the new graduates dressed as they were in green robes and beaming from ear to ear.  There were no obvious estrangements, no observable fears, worries, or resentments - those ordinary human emotions that pop up in relationships from time to time.  From the outside looking in, all you could see was love and pride conjoined with relief and anticipation.  There too, clans were gathered to jointly mark the day with one of their own.  An opportunity not to be missed, a singular moment of shared joy too good to be traded for any other moment at any other locale.

A few of the errands we were running that afternoon also related to the Boy Scout recognition banquet planned for tomorrow night.  Given that my son is advancing to a more senior level of scouting, and that he is in my mind an outstanding young man and a fine boy scout to his troop, I'm looking forward to celebrating with him tomorrow night.  There will be a similar, albeit smaller, gathering of the clan to mark this milestone.  But the emotion is unchanged - an opportunity not to be missed.  One more chance to say to one of my family's younger young men "I see you! Do you see me seeing you?  'Cause I was wondering if you saw me seeing you because I wanted you to know how really neat I think you are."

I was reflecting on that sentiment - those goofy but heart-warming words spoken by my mother so many times in my youth - and it dawned on me that THAT is exactly why we celebrate.  To come together and say to the celebrant "Do you see me seeing you be great?  Because I wanted to make sure you knew I know how really neat you are..."

And I think that is pretty neat.

So wherever you are, whomever you are with, I hope you find the time to celebrate the good things in those around you.  We are reminded all too often that the only time we are promised is this exact moment we are living right now.  And if we are lucky enough to string together these moments and others like them in sufficient quantity, then we ought not take for granted a chance to join with our families, our friends, those people we think are really neat, in celebration.  In the end, it's our joined lives and the very living of them that we are celebrating.  To quote the great Bruce Springsteen, "It ain't no sin to be glad you're alive..."

So thanks for stopping by my blog and including me and my little corner of the world in you being really neat in your little corner of the world.

Dennis

smalltowndad@hotmail.com

Alone in a digital age, how is this possible?

When I was a young man, my dad's mother passed away.  That happens with grandparents - if all goes according to plan.  Not a single parent on the planet, regardless of faith, color or creed wants to outlive their children.  So that fact of her passing is not really remarkable.  Grandparents die.

What is remarkable is what I learned; and am learning, from it.  See, to say she was "unpleasant" as a person is perhaps the second greatest understatement of last 100 years.  The first greatest understatement of the last 100 years being that of Lieutenant Henry Wilde when he said "do you think?" to Captain John Smith of the RMS Titanic when Smith said "maybe we should go slower around this ice.".

She was extremely unpleasant. Hateful would be a better way of putting it.  And, as a consequence of her aggressive, intemperate life spent attacking everyone around her, she found herself, at the end of her life, completely alone.  Estranged from her only son, her brother, her grandkids who were the frequent targets for her venom and manipulation.  Her death came quietly, without any family near her, at a government subsidized nursing home.

After she died, I helped my dad pack up her stuff.  It was an extremely sad time.  Sadder still was what I discovered when I found her phone bill.  See - she died back at a time before there were cell phones or internet.  Looking at her itemized phone bill, the single number appearing - repeated over and over - was to the time.

Yes, "back in the day" it was possible to dial a number and have the phone company tell you "at the tone, the time will be 11 o'clock and thirty-five minutes....DING."  I can't remember what it cost, but I do remember that she was calling that number 75 to 100 times a day, every day.

I never had the nerve to ask my dad about it; it just seemed so crazy and sad. But after he passed away I mentioned it to my mother - who is very wise about the ways of people - and she told me "it was the only human voice in her life; we all need to hear a human voice.  At the end of her life, that was the only voice that could bear to talk to her..."

So today, hear I sit, decades removed from that lesson, in what you would otherwise think was a busy dad's paradise.  My wife and son are away with the Boy Scouts - a week of primitive camping, canoeing, and fishing in an area of the state so remote and beautiful that I am actually green with envy.  They will see trees whose roots date back to the time of Lincoln and whose shade protected the Ojibwe and their guests not as visitors to the forest, but as inhabitants.

Amazingly, or perhaps more accurately, blessedly - there is no cell phone coverage, no electronics, no digital anything.  Just life the way the scouts have been living it for the last 100 years - camping, cooking your catch over an open fire, stars by the divine multitude.  The week will become a colorful stripe woven forever into the tapestry of each of the lives of both mother and son. I am sure of it.

And my daughter, the 4 year-old magical human-tornado who never stops talking, is spending the week with her grandparents in "the Big City."  She will visit with her grandma and grandpa who spend their winters in Florida. She will see their friends and be shown off at church, doted over, be treated like the princess she is not permitted to be in my home. (no princesses here, this is a working household - she wants to grow up to be an astronaut, surgeon, or hard working stay at home mom - fine.  But no princesses allowed here - she is so much better than that). That being said, it's ok if she goes to grandma and grandpa's house to be a princess for a week.  All granddaughters ought to be their grandfather's princess I suppose.

So here I sit - the military channel on an infinite loop as I try and remember to do all of the stuff my wife usually does to keep this house together (water the cats, feed the plants, do the wash, mow the lawn, follow up with the doctors and dentists about appointments, pick up the trumpet from the music store...) in a house that has suddenly gone quiet.  In the last 48 hours I haven't really talked to anyone - haven't told anyone "eat your dinner, brush your teeth, don't run in the house, be careful..."  I think the only words I uttered in the last 48 hours were "oh great" when the cat barfed.

And I - I can't believe I am saying this - I miss the noise.  I miss the activity.  I miss always wondering "what next?" I miss the door bell ringing and seeing one of Michael's pals and knowing I'll be cooking for one more  tonight.  I miss Kristin chasing me down the street when I leave for work - racing me down the sidewalk smiling and waving as she races the car out of the subdivision.

The quiet reminds me of the blessings - the vitality of a house that is really a home to a busy family.  The blessings of sorting out the border wars of who gets the best spot on the couch, what time baseball starts, why the shrimp is out of bed at midnight.  There was a thunderstorm the other night and there was no one for me to reassure that everything was going to be ok.  Two days into this reverse exile, I miss the cacophony that marks the rhythm of my life.

So, wherever you are today, whoever you are with, I hope your ears are filled with the joyful music of a life made busy with love; with urgency; with the laughter that comes from busy, silly kids.  Wherever you are today, if you need to know what time it is just to hear the sound of a human voice, gimme a call and I'll chat you up, and throw in the time for free.  Thanks for stopping by my blog today.

Dennis
smalltowndad@hotmail.com

PS - before you get all teary-eyed thinking of me, I should add that, by the time you are reading this, I will be on the second tee with a good friend and I have a T-bone steak the size of a small pizza thawing in the fridge.  I think I will probably survive being on my own, if only the cats would stop barfing.  :-)

An Ordinary Extraordinary day with Scouts...

"Courage is doing what you're afraid to do.  There can be no courage unless you're scared."

That great quote from WWI flying ace Eddie Von Rickenbacker is one that is oft repeated or emulated by others.  My dad, without the benefit of Google or the internet, shared a nearly identical version of it with me as a child growing up.  On an extraordinary, ordinary Saturday morning we in my family saw, in miniature, what that quote really means.

This particular Saturday found us up at the crack of dawn, heading off to yet another terrific Boy Scout adventure.  Groggy family piled into the family grocery getter, we all headed off to Camp Kiwanis in Central Lower Michigan for a day of service to others.  Michael's Boy Scout Troop was volunteering to help with an event called "Webelos in the Woods," an opportunity for Cub Scouts and Webelos to earn merit badges and participate in some of the greater aspects of scouting, camping, and  achievement.

Planned for the younger kids were activities like Archery, Engineering, Camp FIre building and a climbing/rappeling opportunity on the camp's famous "Tower of Strength."  Parents were invited to come and hang out while the older Boy Scouts volunteered to help out at different activities around the camp.

During break periods and down time, the Boy Scouts who were present were permitted to engage in some of the same activities that were set up for the younger Cubs and Webelos.  It was during one of these times that I asked our nearly 11 year old son if he thought he wanted to a take a crack at mastering "The Tower of Strength."

Call her what you will - "The Widowmaker," "Old Cranky," or "The Plywood Pariah"; the Tower of Strength is a four sided climbing tower of ancient construction with a rock course on two sides and a rappelling surface on the third.  It is central to the parade grounds at Camp Kiwanis and casts an imposing shadow there for all of the visitors to see.

I was expecting some hemming and hawing and an eventual "no" from Michael.  He is my conservative child; my "why cannonball into the pool when the steps are right here?" child.  He is as deliberate, purposeful and cautious as my youngest is wild and carefree.  So it was that he surprised me by meeting my gaze with a huge freckly smile, and said,  "Sure, Dad, I'll give it a try."

I was doubly surprised because I knew how exhausted he must have been.  The night before there was a Walk-A-Thon event at the local school and Michael ran the entire three hours he was there; stopping only twice for water.  He logged nearly 14.5 miles in three hours of solid running merely 15 hours before we arrived at the base of Old Cranky.  So, I expected him to flop down into the camp chair next to me and tell me "maybe next time, dad."

But - he made a bee-line for the Tower.  He was suited up, given an expert safety instruction and assumed his place on the right side of side by side climbing stations set up to assault the west side of the Tower of Strength.

The Tower is a seductive temptress to those adolescents who come within its presence.  Its rock course, straight up a 90 degree wall using only your brain, arms, hands and legs, tests strength, courage, and flexibility.  The reward for reaching the top? Rappeling down the other side.  That's the rule of the Tower - the only way you get to rappel down is if you can find the grit within you to climb up.  It's not uncommon for kids to have to use successive trips on different visits to the camp to work up their courage to make it to the top.

Now the fact is that anyone climbing is first and foremost in the hands of trained, certified climbing instructors.  So, thing one - the kids are always safe.  Thing two - they are tied off in expert climbing fashion and, if everyone has done their job right, should be able to make the effort at climbing the wall with no real possibility of falling.  Those things being certain, however, try convincing a ten year old 15 feet off the ground and 15 feet from the top that he is no danger whatsoever.

So it was that Michael approached the course.  He is lean, and strong, and very flexible and the first 15 feet up were achieved without even breaking a sweat.  Then, at the midpoint of the wall, he became uncertain of which handholds to take and had the courage to tell one and all "I'm afraid, can you lower me please?"  He didn't cry or scream out, but there was no doubt he wanted down.

Anthony scales the wall to help Michael

What he didn't see was that a fellow scout, Anthony, a whirling dervish of a kid with wild hair and a broad, energetic smile, was preparing to assault the second route on the exact same wall.  He called out "Hang On Michael!  I'm coming, I'll show you the way!"

The crowd around the Tower also called out to Michael "Hang on, Don't quit!  You can do it!"

In a flash, Anthony, a confident and skilled climber two years older than Michael, zipped up the left hand side of the wall and, pausing ever so slightly when he got next to him, said to Michael, "c'mon, you can do this.  Follow me."

Michael, all eyes on him now, re-mounted the wall with vigor and commitment and, when he couldn't find a foothold, used his hands and arms to pull himself up to the next spot where his boots could find purchase.  Families from Scout packs we had never met before called encouragement to him "You can do it!' came a call from the archery range.  "Don't quit, Michael!' called out a dad from behind his young son. A complete stranger standing next to me called on to Michael as if he was his own, "You can do it buddy!  You're almost there!"

Slowly and surely he made his way to the top and successfully summited The Tower of Strength on his first try.  We all cheered.  I cheered hard, knowing how tired and afraid he must have been.

Rappelling down !

I watched with pride as he rappelled down the smooth side of the Tower.  I wondered what I might tell him later of his extraordinary ordinary day in Scouts and it occurred to me that not a single person in the world would have held it against him if he said "I'm tired, and scared, and for crying out loud gimme a break I ran almost 15 miles on 10 year old legs just last night." No one would have judged him if he insisted on being lowered from the Tower.

But...instead...

Instead of having done something no one would have held against him, he (with help from fellow scout Anthony) achieved something now that no one will ever be able to take away from him.  He saw his fear, and mastered it.  He stood fast and colored in the lines of his character with bravery and achievement and did the very thing he was sure he couldn't do.  He did on an ordinary day what is the ordinary mission of Scouting and the parent volunteers who work so hard at making these days possible.

And, in that regard, he had an extraordinary, ordinary day at Scouts.

So thanks for stopping by my blog.  Wherever you are today; whoever you are with - I hope you are spending time with people whose courage lifts you, inspires you, and reminds you that there is bravery yet within all of us, if we just look for it and sometimes have the help of others to find it.

Dennis
smalltowndad@hotmail.com