Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Ben-San]

Remember: Football, Ghost, Mitten.  That's how you know it's sassafras.

If you respond correctly to the recognition sequence will it sell you illegal recreational chemicals?

[misterqueue]

If you respond correctly to the recognition sequence will it sell you illegal recreational chemicals?

Only if you show up on the corner between 3:15 and 4:15 like we talked about.

And your mom said you had a package of lightbulbs too.



(For the real answer this is all you need know.  If you see all three of those on one tree you can eat them and continue living, but only if you really NEED too.  They taste terrible.

[Tangle]

Can I just say I love this thread. Garfield to eating eyeballs to wilderness survival to recognizing sassafras leaves. THE MORE YOU KNOW.

And Q, what you wrote about your Rangers experience sounds like a Really Crap Time. Sorry about that.

[misterqueue]

Can I just say I love this thread. Garfield to eating eyeballs to wilderness survival to recognizing sassafras leaves. THE MORE YOU KNOW.

And Q, what you wrote about your Rangers experience sounds like a Really Crap Time. Sorry about that.

It is okay tangle.  I do not blame you I assure you.


I am just glad I am not in a place where my only possessions are a plastic tarp and a book of matches.

I am glad I am not fighting off mosquitoes under said tarp during the evening.

I am glad my breakfast consists of a banana and soymilk instead of very bitter leaves.


These things and more am I that glad for.  UNF

[lprkn]

Did I mention I hated Scouts?

When it comes to the BSA, individual mileage will definitely vary. I know that I loved my time in Scouts, that is until I moved back to Idaho, and the only troop for miles was a Mormon one. So I joined them because I wanted my Eagle, and watched as they skull-fucked everything out of Scouting that I liked in the first place.

[pmcd9]

When it comes to the BSA, individual mileage will definitely vary. I know that I loved my time in Scouts, that is until I moved back to Idaho, and the only troop for miles was a Mormon one. So I joined them because I wanted my Eagle, and watched as they skull-fucked everything out of Scouting that I liked in the first place.

Man, that is some serious scouting there Porkin'.

I have a scouting story.  I was never a member, but my brother was for a time.  One Saturday afternoon there was a spaghetti dinner fundraiser.  I was there and one of my friends who also had a brother involved were there playing outside.  Everyone else is inside the clubhouse.  We got into a game of follow the leader.  I should mention that the spaghetti dinner was held in the club house of a local little leauge park.  So i'm following Andy around and he begins to climb around on the bleachers.  I was in the fourth grade so I guess I was about 9 or 10 years old.  Andy climbs up under the bleachers and starts skinnying along a pipe under there.  I tried to follow him, but being the fat kid I could only go so far and got trapped underneath the pipe.  I couldn't get back on top so I fell and broke both of my arms.  I sent Andy to get my Mom, but he came back a minute later without her.  So I got fuckin' pissed and told him to go get my Mother in a more forceful manner.  So she comes out and is instantly horrified by what she sees.  My bone was sticking out of my wrist.  She panics a little bit, she's not really good in a crisis until she calms down.  But she got me up and took me to the car and got me to the hospital.  It didn't occur to me until much later, but there were dozens of men there, scout leaders, and not a single one of them lifted a hand to help me or my Mother.  They all saw me and what condition I was in, but not one of them even stopped what they were doing.  The only person that helped was my Mother's friend Maddie.  So in conclusion I say fuck the Boy Scouts.  They're homophobic pricks too.

~Paul

[Drygioni]

I joined the scouts for six weeks, and while I do not have any wonderful stories to tell I can honestly say it was the worst club that has ever had me as a member. During the first week I joined, I fully applied make-up to myself and wore girl's clothes. Says a lot, really.

[Golfhaus]

I was in the Cub Scouts for about two months. I thought the uniform would be neat, and Mom wanted to get me off the Nintendo. I had a good friend in Cub Scouts, but because of geography we were in two seperate groups. The one I was in was full of degenerates. I would get headaches from all the yelling and carrying on. Hated it.

[AugustWest]

I am an Eagle Scout.

Scouting was a good experience for me.  However, based on my experiences, I have a couple of comments.

1.  I was in at least 5 different troops in 3 different towns.  One was great, the others were varying degrees of mediocre.  This depended entirely on the individuals involved, especially the leaders.  I don't think it's a great idea categorically dismiss a large group of people based on a few.  That being said, Paul your story is highly disturbing.

2.  The exception to non-prejudice rule expressed in no.1 -- every professional Scouter (i.e. full-time, paid, regional staff person, not volunteer troop level person) was invariably a prick of the highest order.  I ascribe the homophobia to these guys.  I never experienced an inordinate level of homophobia in my scouting experience (other than what you'd expect from a group of 12-15 year old boys).

3.  While we camped and hiked and did other scout type stuff, we never did anything vaguely like what Q described.  That shit is intense.

[lprkn]

I also am an Eagle Scout, and it's true, the quality of your experience is directly proportional to the quality of people involved. I think that's true of pretty much any volunteer organization.

Let me just say that I don't mind Mormons, but what they do to Scouting is definitely not helping it along any.

[pmcd9]

I've only known one eagle scout personally and he was really one of the worst people i've ever known.

~Paul

[Ben-San]

I was in the Cubs, but I am not really an outdoor-type person and didn't stick with it. While I was there I did get my first chance to experience anti-Semitism, though, so learning experience there.

I know some nice guys who are Eagle Scouts and also some crap dudes who are Eagle Scouts, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that being a successful Scout says less about how good a person you are and more about how dedicated a person you are.

[Hobo Frenzy]

My best friend from like Kindergarten until my sophomore year in high school was (and still is) a Mormon. He was in scouts as were all 4 of his brothers. I think his sister was in girl scouts. The thing I want to know is, What did you Mormons do to Scouts? His dad was a troop leader so I'm curious.

[lprkn]

Well, to understand how Mormons have screwed up Scouting, you need to know how it's supposed to work.

Scouting is first and foremost a voluntary system for boys to learn about the world around them, and their place in it. Camping and the outdoors are the main tools that are used to teach the boy what he needs to know in order to be a good citizen of his community, nation, and world. Proper moral behavior is part of being a good citizen. From day one, the Scout is taught and expected to know the Scout Oath (On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, and to obey the Scout Law. I will help other people at all times, keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight), the Scout Law (A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.), and the Scout Motto (Do a Good Turn daily).

Leadership (and followership) is also highly valued, and the Scouts should take a lot of time instilling into the boys, formally and informally, the tenets and values of leadership. Boys are given many opportunities to lead in the troop, and a well-functioning troop should be boy-run.

These are just some of my personal thoughts on the subject. The Mormons made Boy Scouting the official program for their boys , and proceeded to turn it into a mandatory Eagle Scout factory.

[V-Adore]

I was a Girl Scout for six years, from first through sixth grade. (This means, in technical terminology, that I was a Brownie and a Junior.) I enjoyed it well enough, mostly as an excuse to go to summer camp and do field trips during the school year. Aside from the annual cookie drives (I sold cookies door-to-door in the snow!), the entire operation was incredibly low-pressure, which is probably why I stuck with it.

Judging by my own experiences and those of Scouts of both genders I've met, it seems like Boy Scouts is much more of a "you're in or you're out" phenomenon than Girl Scouts. With Boy Scouts, either you do it for a few months and quit, or you stick with it all the way to Eagle and maybe beyond; with Girl Scouts, you basically do it until some other social environment becomes shinier. Maybe this was because we had a classically casual Girl Scout troop (I think we never had troop leaders beyond people's moms), but even now I know far fewer people my age who were involved in Girl Scouts for the long haul than Boy Scouts, and far fewer people still involved in the organization at any level. Any more anecdotes of this sort that we can inappropriately pluralize into data?