[UA] UA BSA (was RE: UA this one!)

[Chad Underkoffler]

> From: "Timothy Ferguson" <ferguson at beyond.net.au>
> Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 20:34:10 +1000

Snip B-P stuff-- didn't know about the Peter Pan bit. Neat.
 
CU> I'd agree with that. However, good leadership-- good
CU> rolemodels--  by other/older Scouts and Scoutmasters/
CU> Ass't Scoutmasters really helped defray that.

> I agree - but finding good ones is hard, especially hard
> in the US where you don't let women be Scout leaders in 
> the older sections of the male half of the movement. 

I believe the Explorers are co-ed, but I don't know enough about
that organization.

CU> When the adults were involved, gave a shit, and paying 
CU> attention, Scouting was a fine thing. When left to our 
CU> own pre-teen and teenage devices, Scouting walked a 
CU> knife-edge of horror.

> I learned how to throw knives, drink alchol, fight with
> quarterstaffs, make explosives and dig pit traps while a
> scout.  I don't do any of these things anymore, of 
> course...not even drink.  8)

I learned how to throw knives and shuriken, fight with
quarterstaves, make explosives, dig pit traps (now with
extra-added punji joy-joy), rig deadfalls/snares/spike arms,
repel using a cat's claw, sleep without moving or rolling over,
make weapons out of nearby objects, harden spearpoints in fire,
fight dirty, intimidate bigger kids, haggle, barter, and
demogoguery. That's all extra-curricular, and doesn't count the
fairly high number of actual merit badges I earned.

> BP said that scout patrols were an attempt to domesticate
> the London Street Gang and he was right.  If you leave them
> on their own, they go feral, back to their gang roots -
> complete with colours, leaders, recognition symbols
> and weapons (what Americans call box cutters in my case).

I'd agree with that. But we carried knives. Indeed, I believe I
usually carried at least two after I got my Totin' Chip.

> I doubt your lot do the whole Arthuriana thing in rovers, 
> full symbolic knighting ceremony with vigil, Flag of Saint 
> George, Bible and copy of Rovering To Success?  

Nope, it was all Native American Fusion Mystic happy-crappy; and
as far as I can tell, a weird fusion of Plains Souix and
Delaware/Lenni Lenape. Of course, that could be because this was
in Pennsylvania.

Thinking back, I am again struck but the intensity -- well, not
necessarily just intesity, more like "willfully-blind naive
intensity" -- of what I believed in. (I still have intensity in
my beliefs today, but I hope they're both better beliefs and not
as naive or wilfully ignorant.) The parallels with Hitler Youth
can be seen. All that channelled testosterone and whatnot.

I find myself thinking that the Scouts helped me find value in
myself -- not value in Scouting, mind you, but in my own
capabilities and potentials. I remember how my experiences
helped me through the normal travails of being a teenager (and
mine were fairly bad; I didn't really like myself then, and was
a weird duck in my family on top of it), and I wonder what my
life would have been like if I had embraced my self-confidence
even more.

Then I wonder what it'd be like if the Scoutmasters hadn't given
as much direction as they did, and we were left to our own
devices more.

Heck, Lord of the Flies, here we come.

If nothing else, Boy Scouts is an interesting mixing of social
strata -- I, an honor student suburbanite, went camping with
rural burnouts who boosted cars, minster's kids, goody-two shoes
with strange hygenie habits, future Cat Piss Men, star jocks,
and idiot savants.

Any UnderAge game might want to keep that in mind.



=====
Chad Underkoffler [chadu at yahoo.com]
http://www.geocities.com/chadu/index.html
"You left out a Hoongadoonga! The most important one, too!"
  - Capt. Jeffrey T. Spaulding (Groucho Marx)

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