Going where the helicopters cannot follow

It must have been a slow news week or else Time, Inc. has laid off the people in charge of ferreting out real issues.  The November 30th Time Magazine cover trumpets the dangers of “over parenting,” aka “helicopter parenting.”

This anxious parenting bit is nothing new.  When our sons were in the Montessori School in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the mid-80s, I thought we were in the epicenter of that kind of behavior—“Yes, I know that those are the school rules, but this is our child . . . .”

We see over-parenting in Scouting, but in this organization we have one big advantage over schools and other places who suffer from the parental obsessives:  we take the Scouts where their helicopters cannot follow:  out in the wilderness.

Paria Canyon Paroxysms: BLM website is the pits

Our troop plans to hike Paria Canyon during Spring Break in March.  Paria is a wonderful slot canyon that begins in Utah and comes out at Lees Ferry along the Colorado River in Arizona.  Hikers slosh along--often in the river--for 38 miles.  At its narrowest, the canyon is about 15 feet wide with sandstone walls that go up hundreds of feet.  A wonderful place, but not one to be caught in during a summertime flash flood.  That's one reason we go during Spring Break.

Making the Cover of Backpacker Magazine

Our troop is headed for Paria Canyon on Spring Break in March, assuming we can snag some permits in the next 10 days.  The cover of the January 2010 issue of Backpacker magazine has a photo of Buckskin Canyon, which terminates into Paria about eight miles down.  We always spend our first night up in Buckskin on a high bank.

Seeing a place I've been on the cover of a magazine always brings out two opposing thoughts.  First, I'm thrilled to see some place I've been in a magazine.  Right after that thought, however, I always think "Dang, now everyone will want to go there."

I've never through-hiked Buckskin, which is supposed to be the longest slot canyon in the world.  When we go to that area, in late March, it is very cold in there, and the pools of waist-deep water make it tough.  We usually hike up it from Paria for a couple of miles, however, and it is always awe-inspiring. 

The kinds of Scout parents we want

Our troop is approaching maximum size, and we are facing an onslaught of potential new members.  While we decide just how large we can reasonably go, we kicked around the idea of what kind of parents would jump a Cub Scout to the front of the line.  Here we go, starting at the top:

• An ER Physician. Having that kind of medical expertise on wilderness trips and summer camp would be primo.  We once had a pediatrician father in the troop, and he was wonderful.  I once saw him remove cactus spines from a Scout with duct tape, and hiked in Alaska with him as well.  

Keep myself physically strong

One of my personal saints, H. L. Mencken, said it best:  "There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong."

Exhibit A in simple solutions are the "no tolerance" policies in schools regarding pocketknives.  It happens every year--a Scout goes on a camping trip, leaves a knife in his pocket or day pack, goes to school, the knife gets found, and he gets suspended as if he were a member of the Crips or Bloods.  In cases such as that, no tolerance equals no sense. 

Exhibit B is the new Scouting policy for overweight leaders and boys.  The "Annual Health and Medical Record" sounds innocent enough--a new medical form--but the devil is in the details.  Here's a paragraph from Scouting magazine (my emphasis added):  "The Annual Health and Medical Record, which takes effect in January 2010, restricts participation in high-adventure activities based on standardized height/weight ratios. For wilderness outings where health care is 30 minutes or more away, Scouts deemed too overweight won’t be allowed to participate."

This is, so to speak, huge.  And it is wrong.

Eulogy for a Scoutmaster

I wrote this in 2001, when word reach me that Fred Dellinger, one of the Scoutmasters when I was a boy, died.  His granddaughter sent me this photo, in which he looks younger than I am now.  He seemed so impossibly old when I was a Scout.

On the day that Fred Dellinger, Jr. died, about 40 Cub Scouts of Pack 171 and their families woke up just west of Boulder, Colorado in the Rocky Mountains on what for many of them was their first Scout camping trip.  When they came out of their tents at Camp Patiya—8,000 feet above sea level—they could see the snow-covered peaks of the Continental Divide.  They could smell Ponderosa pine, and they could feel the crisp bite of fall in the air.  If one could write a script for a perfect first Scout camping trip for a boy, this was it. 

Old School Summer Camp

I had a chance in September to visit one of the older summer camps in America.  Adirondack Camp is located in upstate New York on a peninsula extending into Lake George, which is parallel to the southern end of Lake Champlain.  The Camp began as a boys camp in 1904--six years before Scouting was established in America--but now welcomes boys and girls ages 7-16.  The camp is quite rustic; take a look at the lodging below.

Campaigning for Senior Patrol Leader

Last Monday our troop had an election for Senior Patrol Leader, a six-month term. Scout troops, as much as possible, are boy-run organizations, and the adult leaders do not select Senior Patrol Leaders (SPLs).  We set some requirements--First Class rank, attendance at meetings and camping trips--but the boys nominate and elect their leaders.  Our troop nominated over 12 candidates, and each made a short campaign speech.

I take it that extemporaneous speaking is not much taught in schools these days, judging by the performance of the candidates.  After the first two spoke, most of the others delivered more or less the same speech, with a few variations.  Some potentially good SPLs did not do their best on the oratorical front, and one reduced his chances mightily by promising to replace dodge ball, a staple of almost every meeting, with something "more productive."

There are few youth activities where a boy is given as much power as a Senior Patrol Leader--not in high school clubs, and certainly not on sports teams.  Senior Patrol Leaders and their assistants plan and run meetings, plan outdoor activities, and when in at camp or a Klondike Derby find themselves responsible for supervising the activities of 50-plus boys--not an easy task. 

Over the years, I've seen some troops elect ineffective leaders, and when they do, six months can seem like a long time.  When it came to voting last week, however, our Scouts made a good choice, and the troop will be in good hands for the next six months.

Norman Rockwell, teenage editor at Boy's Life

The November, 2009 issue of Vanity Fair magazine has an article on a most unlikely artist for the with-it and hip:  Norman Rockwell.  I remember his covers of the Saturday Evening Post many moons ago, and he did quite a few paintings over the years related to Scouting.  The one above is called "Scout Homecoming." 

What I did not know was that Rockwell was the art director of Boy's Life while still his teens.  According to the VF article, he earned $50 a month and could assign work to himself. 

Field-testing the REI Halo sleeping bag

I bought a new sleeping bag for the first time in about 10 years.  After much research, I settled on an REI Halo +10 down bag.  I was wanting a 0-degree bag, but got talked into a +10.  I've had a -30 degree down bag for over 15 years for winter camping, but had always stuck to synthetic filling for warmer trips.  Why?  Two reasons.  First, I hike a lot of slot canyons, and if you get a down-filled bag wet, you are in a world of hurt.  Second, if you've been sleeping in a bag for six or seven days and it has gotten funky, you can wash a synthetic bag in your home washing machine.  Not so easy to do with down. 

No pay cut for Scouting CEO

The October 1, 2009 edition of the Chronicle of Philanthropy takes a look at how many heads of non-profit groups have taken pay cuts as their organizations suffer through hard times.  Out of 195 organizations surveyed, 29 percent of the CEOs had taken pay cuts.

Not our guy.  Robert Mazzuca, the Chief Scout Executive, gets paid $543,782 per year.  The head of the US Olympic Committee, by comparison, receives $589,493, while the head of Boys & Girls Clubs of America makes $593,926.

It takes a lot of popcorn sales to pay that salary.

Welcome to Insurgent Scouting!

This blog came about because of an image problem of the Boy Scouts of America.  In recent years, mostly since the Scouting headquarters moved from New Jersey to Texas, Scouting needlessly got caught up in the culture wars of this country.  Those stances, combined with other factors, have resulted in Scout membership falling and Scouting activities increasingly being banned from public spaces.  Some parents won't even consider letting their sons join Scouts.

This a tragedy--for the organization, for our country, and--most of all--for boys. 

Properly run, a Scout troop can be one of the best experiences in a boy's life, so to speak, with great outdoor adventures, useful life skills, and a whole lot of fun.

This blog will discuss Scouting, the outdoors, gear, and what used to be called "the rugged life."  It is written by someone who spent 12 years as a boy in Cub and Boy Scouting, and who has served as a Cub and Boy Scout leader for 22 years and counting.

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