Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 12

The Boy Scouts changed my life. What, you say? Boy Scouts? Don’t they just camp, run around in little uniforms and do good deeds? Let me change your mind a little bit. The Boy Scouts build men. Men who are self reliant, success oriented and leaders. Camping teaches self reliance, good deeds create good leaders and the uniforms are chick magnets, no matter what anyone says. If not for Boy Scouts and the men I associated with in that organization, I would likely not be where I am today.

My grandfather laid the foundation for my maturity and my scoutmaster Jack and advisor Grant framed up the house and made it more livable. In the Boy Scouts, under their tutelage, I was allowed to believe in myself and succeed with no one else looking over my shoulder. I earned every rank and every merit badge because I wanted to, not because they or anyone else pushed me. I was encouraged, though with rewards and other positive reinforcements. Grant developed a tradition that if you earned 3 merit badges in a month or moved up a rank, say from First Class to Star, you got to attend a special afternoon at his house making hoagie sandwiches and talking about whatever we wanted to. He would set up a spread out on his patio with a parachute for an awning. I always liked the parachute, it was cool to think that we were under something that soldiers had used to jump out of airplanes with. The spread was always great and we could eat as much as we wanted, which was key for me since I was growing 6 inches a year and adding 30 pounds during the same period. I was always hungry and this was one time when I was filled. The other cool thing he had was books. Hundreds of them. They were classic scifi, adventure and cowboy books. I read all of Edgar Rice Burroughs from Tartan to John Carter of Mars, maybe 20 books in all. Zane Grey was a favorite as well. I do remember Riders of the Purple Sage as a man’s book all about honor and redemption. After I would finish a book, I would bring it back and we would discuss it. That may have been the best thing of all.

Jack was just a ball of fire with tons of enthusiasm. He touched all of us and made us want to succeed just to get a little extra approval. While Jack was scoutmaster, we had about 80% of the boys get their Eagle and Duty to God. I am proud to say that I was one of them. Two of my brothers got their Eagle and my son got his as well. Will my grandsons follow in the tradition? I certainly hope so, they need to have the experience of success early as well.

Scouts was not just badges and advancements. There was camping and fishing and other outings. Scouting is mostly outings. We went to the home of the one guy in our town that was a big game hunter and watch slides and 8-mm movies of his adventures in his trophy room. He told great stories and I remember that the screen was flanked by a huge pair of bears, one polar and one grizzly. You could actually touch the claws and hair. They were massive and scary but awe inspiring. I am not a hunter, but this was a special experience. We sat on stools made of elephant’s feet. I remember the rough hair on the hide and thinking these really were mammals. Only mammals have hair.

Camping was also an experience with Amethyst Lake in the Uinta Mountains being my favorite. Amethyst Lake was just that, a blue-green gem nestled in a gigantic granite cirque at about 9000 feet. We hiked 9 miles from base camp in Christmas Meadows, up a trail that opened into a large alpine meadow filled with flowers. A creek ran down the center, beginning in a waterfall that tumbled down a cliff face about 50 feet. The lake was the source of the waterfall and you had to hike around the shoulder of the cliff to get to Amethyst. We thought it would be great to camp near the lake in the riparian zone that inevitably surrounds these lakes. It was all very idyllic and fun. The sun shone, we fished and caught rainbow and cutthroat trout. One of the guys got a fishing pole up the nose, but that was the extent of the daytime drama. Night, well that was another thing. Campfires, cooking in the cold and freeze dried food with fish was the order of the day. Some of us brought a tin foil meals which wound up being burned and undercooked. I learned that coals, not flame cooks the fastest and best but too late to satisfy my never ending hunger.

After food, we talked, toasted marshmallows and then retired to our sleeping bags. I brought a waterproof poncho and a ground cover figuring that would be enough. The sky was clear after all. Weather changes in the mountains very quickly and it did this night. Soon the wind was howling around that cirque, tearing at our little covers and sleeping bags from every direction. Then, it began to rain. Wind driven sheets of water that immediately soaked everything and chilled us to the bone. I had dug little trenches around my bag to keep the water from pooling under me and that helped but not enough. At least I didn’t lose my poncho in the night like some did. As the lightning flashed I can still see one of the boys frozen for a second reaching for his poncho as it flew away in the wind. The water encroached and I retreated to the center of my bag, seeking the one square foot of dry bag left. Needless to say, sleep never came. In the morning we were up early, warming by the fire, trying to dry out our gear for the trip back to base. I tried to clean my cooking kit with sand like they say you are supposed to. Cold water and sand do not cut grease, they merely make the grease sandy. As we were moaning about the storm and spending the night in our “sleeping pools,” we said, “Where is Reed?” Reed was my best friend, so skinny that if he turned sideways he would disappear. After some looking, we found him, fast asleep in his DRY sleeping bag. Why was he warm and dry and the rest of us were not? I think he picked a place where water would not pool and secured his cover a lot better than the rest of us. He said that he didn’t know why, but I really suspect he was the best scout that day of all of us. He followed the motto to the letter, “Be Prepared.”

The next time we went to Amethyst, we camped in the trees where there was cover, a break from the wind and places to secure our cover. We learned the lesson well. I even went there later and lived off the land for a week when I was 17. I only took fishing gear, cooking utensils and some spices. All food was local. I know that I can survive anywhere with my backpack, my fishing rod and the Boy Scout handbook and field manual. That’s self reliance.