Nineteen Years of Scouts

Sorry to my three readers, but I'm going to go all sentimental and stuff.

A little history.

I joined Tiger Cubs, the lowest level of Cub Scouts, back in around 1986. I was all of six years old at the time, and in Kindergarten. I honestly don't even remember it. But I went through the motions, got my Arrow of Light (Highest Cub Scout award) and moved on to Boy Scouts.

I joined Troop 50, and just sort of never left. I'm a bona fide Eagle Scout, and I could have left after I got that. It's the highest award, after all, nothing really else to get. But my Troop was in a bit of a spot. The scoutmaster at the time was... well, incompetent. Overly strict, and just a few French fries short of the Happy Meal. The boys didn't like her. She was also misusing troop funds and treating the scouting outings as a family vacation that she had to bring the Scouts to. (She brought her parents, siblings, etc. to our camping trips, for Pete’s sake.) She was killing the troop. So I didn't leave, I just stayed on (at first by just not going away, and then as Assistant Scoutmaster) and did my best to hold my troop together. By the time she was done, we had only two boys left, down from around a dozen. I took over the recharter that time and took some "Creative License" to make Council think we still had the five minimum. It was dishonest, but I wasn't letting my troop die.

Eventually, she was pretty much run out of town, and a few other former Eagle scouts took over for a while as a buffer between permanent scoutmasters. I couldn’t take over any capacity bigger than what I was already doing, because I was in college at the time, and it was enough of a problem just to keep myself involved. But eventually, we got a new Scoutmaster who did quite well. An honest sort, with a lot of time to spend on the troop and a vested interest in making it better. Eventually, we also signed on a second Assistant Scoutmaster. We’re now back to about a dozen boys. A bit low on the cash, but we’re not in dire straits. The troop is doing well.

Meanwhile, my life has become more hectic and a lot less fun, and I just no longer had time to sacrifice to my troop.

So after nineteen years as a Scout, almost fifteen of them spent in Troop 50, and with five years behind me as an adult leader, I was forced today to step down from my post tonight.

Four-fifths of my life has been spent in Scouting, either as a youth or an adult leader, and I honestly can't remember the time before I was in the BSA. And now it’s done.

I’m a bit bummed.

But that’s all I got. Rock on, kids.