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Be Prepared


My sister Dee was working until late on Monday so she asked if I couldn’t take her son to his Boy Scout meeting. It wasn’t a regular meeting, it was a “let’s get on the same page” meeting about an upcoming leadership training course the scouts will be going on in the next few weeks. He was the only one from his troop (pack? den?)

Anyhow, we’re supposed to meet at a church. As we’re driving in we see a bunch of scouts in an outdoor pavilion – I was assuming that it was going to be IN the church… you know, one of the ‘activity’ or ‘multi-purpose’ rooms. No.

So my nephew checks in and we sit at one of the picnic tables. The scout leader comes by and talks to my nephew and one of the other guys comes and shakes my hand.

“It’s nice to see so many fathers here tonight” he says.

“But I’m not—“

“Good to see you!” and he walks away.

So I don’t correct him. I mean, it’s not like I’M going on this leadership course.

So each of the youth leaders gets up and discusses his part in the planning. My first impression of each is either they’re very macho or very gay.

Scout #1: “I have a flare gun, should I bring it?”

Macho Scout Leader: “Negative. No firearms of any kind”

Scout #2: “Should I bring my Scout Handbook?”

Gay Scout Leader: “That would be fabulous, just super”

It makes me uneasy about the general leadership but I’m not my nephew’s parent. What should have taken about 15 minutes of concentrated information dragged on for about an hour.

When I was younger my brother was in scouts. We used to go camping with them all the time. I tried cub scouts when I was younger but it didn’t really ‘take’.

My brother is a scout leader for his son’s troop (pack? den?)

This entry is not very interesting so I’ll end it here.

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