The current incarnation of Boy Scout Troop 68 began in December 1979, nearly thirty years ago. The troop had virtually no money and only a small amount of gear that had been salvaged from previous troops. The charter organization was not able to, or chose not to, give much financial assistance to the fledgling troop. One of the committee members loaned the troop a couple hundred dollars to get things started. (That was quite an investment, don’t you agree?)

Twenty years ago the volunteers at Mel-TV, our local cable access television station, filmed a program in which five men who were Boy Scout leaders were interviewed about their Scouting experiences. I took that old vhs tape and transferred it to a dvd. I thought to myself as I was transferring the program that many of the things being said by those gentlemen still apply to Boy Scouting today. I thought I would break this show down into parts for the Melrose Scouting Productions Podcast, each part featuring one of the interviews.

This podcast video features the fourth interview from The Leaders of Scouting. Gerry W. began his adult Scouting career as a Cub Scout Pack committee member when his son became a Cub Scout. He moved to the Boy Scout committee when his son graduated into the troop. He soon became the outdoors chairman, making the arrangements for the troop activities. During this interview Gerry talked about being on the troop committee, going along on various troop outings, the values found in the Scouting program, the stunts he and the scoutmaster pulled, and his pride in seeing his son work through the ranks of Scouting.

I discovered a new blog today written by a gentleman who would like to be an Eagle Scout. But like me, he is beyond his teen years. What he has decided to do is to try to fulfill all the requirements from the joining requirements, through Tenderfoot and all the ranks, all the way to the Eagle Rank. He realizes he can not actually “earn” the award but I have to give him credit for giving this a try. He is currently working on his Tenderfoot requirements.

The national office of the Boy Scouts of America has encouraged its troops and packs to participate in an annual Scouting For Food drive for nearly twenty years. These drives have helped tens of thousands of people over the years, and have became a necessity to many of the food banks around the country. Boy Scout Trop 68 is proud to say we have been active in conducting a food drive in our community every year since Scouting For Food began.

Boy Scout Troop 68 really did not have a regular meeting place during its first year in 1980, so we would sometimes have our meetings in the clubroom of our sponsor, VFW Post 7050. It worked out fairly well but the boys could not play any rough and tumble games there. Some parents did not think it was very appropriate to hold Boy Scout meetings next to the VFW’s bar but we really did not have many choices at the time.

I recently moved up to a Flickr Pro account so I am playing around with some of the features, one of which is the ability to embed slideshows into blogs and websites. I thought for the first one I would start with the pictures from my first trek to Philmont Scout Ranch with the Boy Scouts of Troop 68, taken in 1986. Many of these pictures can also be found on the troop’s website at http://www.melrosetroop68.org under the High Adventure area.

The summer has been busy with Scouting and family activities but I finally felt it was time to add another episode to the Around The Scouting Campfire podcast.

RSS Feed – http://feeds2.feedburner.com/MelroseScoutingAudioPodcast

This podcast is found on iTunes at
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=307979159
and is a member of the family of Scouting themed podcasts at PTC Media found at
http://www.ptcmedia.net/

Show notes:
Song For The Wet Campsite – http://www.melrosetroop68.org/2007/07/song-for-wet-campsite.html

The year of 1980 was the first full year of the newly reformed Melrose Boy Scout Troop 68 which had started up in December of 1979. I joined up with the troop in April as a nineteen year old assistant scoutmaster. There was about 15 youth in the troop at the time, ranging in age from 11 to 13 years old. There was not much of a planned program that first year. We planned things from month to month, but soon we began doing yearly planning with the boys doing most of the planning.

The troop’s first camping trip was held during the summer at Uhlenkolts Lake, located about six miles from town. The grass was knee high when we arrived. It did not take long before we were pulling off the wood ticks. Lots of wood ticks. One boy came up with the idea of collecting all the ticks in a soda can which we then threw into the evening campfire. We could hear the popping sounds as the ticks exploded in the heat.

Once it was dark we placed the boys throughout the woods for a snipe hunt. Yeah, I know, we can not do that in today’s Scouting program, but back then it was not a big deal. One of the boys claimed he almost caught one of the elusive birds.

It was only a one night camping trip but for many of the boys I believe it was the first time camping without their family.

The troop did not attend a week of summer camp in 1980. There had not been enough time to prepare for it.

In August, the troop went on a one day canoe trip down the Sauk River which runs through Melrose. The boys and the adults had a great time. We even did a little fishing and swimming. Did we follow the safe swim and safety afloat guidelines? I don’t think so. I do not think anyone even knew about those guidelines yet. That came later after we attended training.

The troop attended the fall camporee at Parker Scout Reservation in September. In addition to the various activities, I remember waiting in line for Saturday’s supper and our troop receiving a ribbon during the Saturday evening campfire program. But the thing I remember most is the great egg war that involved three troops.

There was a short time Saturday during which the Scouts had free time. Some of the boys wanted to play catch but no one had thought to bring a ball to camp. A suggestion was made to use an egg. The campsite was shared by three troops so more boys began joining the game. The circle began to grow. The boys began tossing the eggs the more force. Some boys became too cautious about catching the breakable missiles. After a couple eggs were broken a few rules were made. One was that if you threw an egg too hard and the egg broke the catcher of the egg would get to throw an egg back at you.

The rules worked for awhile. Until someone threw an egg hard at another guy. Of course, the egg broke so the other Scouts were egging him on to throw an egg back. One Scout even ran off to fetch another egg to throw. Anticipation was high. Would the Scout through the egg back or not? I did not think he would. Until he did! That set off the egg battle. Scouts ran back to their camps to fetch the round white breakable ammo. By the time it was over three troops were nearly out of eggs for Sunday breakfast.

Luckily, no one got hurt, but it sure did make a mess.