A Scouting Story

In the Dark

It’s 4:15 am on Easter Sunday.  After a wonderful Saturday evening out with Jenn and the kids, 4:15 is “way too early” for anything.  But the “younger dogs” are up, and excited, and need to go outside. There’s nothing else to do, other than stagger out of bed, and let them out into the darkness of our fenced-in backyard.  They’ll be back soon, the lure of “carrots-carrots-carrots” is too strong, then it’s try to go back to bed.

But of course, by then it’s too late to go right back to sleep.  4:15am on Easter Sunday morning actually holds a fond place in my memory.  When I was a kid, twelve and thirteen and fourteen, the Easter Sunday morning darkness was reserved for Boy Scout Troop 229.  

We lived in Kettering, Ohio, a south suburb of Dayton, in the late 1960’s.  Dad was running the TV station there, and I started my Scouting career in Cub Scout Pack 229 at Southdale Elementary School.  Back then, that was what most suburban boys did, start out with fifty other boys in the blue of a Cub Pack, then transition as a “Webelo” to the connected Boy Scout Troop.  Soon I started working my way up the “ranks” of Troop 229, both individually (Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, Eagle) and in leadership positions.  I was an Assistant Patrol Leader, Patrol Leader, and finally the Senior Patrol Leader, the “head kid” of the Scout Troop.  

Head Kid

So on Easter Sunday morning I was the “SPL”,  the boy in charge, and there wasn’t much choice for me about staying in bed.  The City of Dayton held an Easter sunrise celebration at the Carillon Park, located just on the south side of downtown.  The Carillon bells would ring in the rising sun, and there were songs and prayers to celebrate the day.  Our Troop was in charge of handing out the programs and directing folks in the dark as they arrived.  

It was a “full dress” Boy Scout exercise, with our (then) green uniforms, complete with our Troop’s own neckerchief.  Each Scout wore all their accumulated medals, some of us “clinking” as we walked.  We also had the red “Jac-Shirts” for the usually cold Easter mornings. Then there were the merit badge sashes, the round emblems marking our progress towards the ultimate individual rank goal:  Eagle Scout.  Six of us were working together, earning specialized knowledge of things like First Aid, Canoeing, Camping, Hiking, and Citizenship, and also skills like Drafting and Woodworking.  

It took twenty-one merit badges to get to Eagle, and having a crew working together made it easier.  That was especially true when it was time to do our “Projects”, the culminating service project that each Eagle candidate was required to create, plan, and carry out to prove that they had the organizational and leadership skills to meet the “Eagle Standard”.  You couldn’t do it on your own, you had to involve others to make the project work.  And since we all needed each other, it made the effort easier to get done.  All six of us were awarded our Eagle Medal together.

Sleepy Eyes

Looking back I feel a lot of sympathy for Dad on those Easter Sunday mornings.  He and Mom enjoyed Saturday nights more than I knew at the time, and Dad was the only driver in the house.  So it was up to him to get me to the Carillon Park in the darkness, something I’m sure he wasn’t very happy with.  But he never complained to me.  I’m sure there was a lot more coffee involved than I realized at the time. 

It was a challenge for me, corralling thirty-some sleepy kids in green and red in the cold darkness at the Carillon.  But I had good Patrol Leaders who each had their squad of kids to marshal into the right positions, and our “well-oiled machine” of kid leadership got the job done in spite of the sleep in our eyes. 

Scouting Way

Easter Sunday morning was just one example of the Boy Scout “way” of teaching leadership to young boys (now boys and girls).  After the ceremony, we got a chance to check out one of the original Wright Brothers airplanes, housed right next to the bells.  Dayton was the Wright Brothers home, and while they flew first in North Carolina, it was in the fields near where we rode our bikes that they really developed the machine that changed the world.  Orville Wright had only died twenty years before.  We marveled at the wood and canvas “kite” with an engine.

Then it was head for home for Easter Sunday – breakfast and Easter baskets and family.

It’s amazing how much Boy Scouts impacted my life.  The skills I used as a teacher and a coach and an organizer I can trace back to the teachings of the adults in Troop 229 in Dayton, and even more Troop 819 when we moved to Wyoming near Cincinnati.  And talk about habit:  my “medals” from Scouting are still in the top drawer of my dresser, ready to pin on a uniform shirt (that surely wouldn’t fit) in a moment’s notice.  

I was trying to get an outdoor fire going at the restaurant last night, as we sat outside in the wind watching it whip up Buckeye Lake.  Jenn commented – “well, he’s an Eagle Scout”.  Some things stick, even fifty-plus years later.  

The Sunday Story Series

• Riding the Dog  – 1/24/21
• Hiking with Jack – 1/31/21
• A Track Story – 2/7/21
• Ritual – 2/14/21
• Voyageur – 2/19/21
• A Dog Story – 2/25/21
• A Watkins Legend – 3/7/21
• Ghosts at Gettysburg – 3/14/21
• Lessons from the State Meet – 3/28/21
• More Lessons from the State – 4/4/21
• Stories from the Road – 4/11/21
• A Bear Wants You – 5/1/21
• My Teachers – 5/9/21
• Old Friends  – 5/23/21
• The Gift – 6/6/21
• Echoes of Mom – 6/20/21
• Stories of the Fourth – 7/3/21
• Running Memories – 7/25/21
• Lost Dog of Eldora – 8/1/21
• Dogs and Medals – 8/8/21
• The New Guy – 9/5/21
• Stories of 9-11 – 9/12/21
• The Interview – 9/26/21
• Night Moves – 10/3/21
• Funeral for a Friend – 10/11/21
• National Security – 10/24/21
• Boots on the Trail – 10/31/21
• Taking Care of Mom and Dad – 11/14./21
• Dogs Found and Lost – 11/21/21
• Watching Brian 12/12/21
• Stories from Shiloh – 12/19/21
• Team Trips – 12/26/21
• Uphill, Both Ways  – 1/9/22
• Old Trophies – 1/30/22
• The Last Time – 2/7/22
• Olympic Miracles – 2/13/22
• Mind Numbing – 2/20/22
• Track Weather – 4/3/22
• What’s Missing – 4/11/22
• A Scouting Story – 4/17/22