Exxon-Mobil’s Rex Tillerson urges Scouts to get on with the “main thing,” Scouting, after historic membership policy vote

Late last month the national board, the governing body of the Boy Scouts of America, voted to open Scouting again to Scouts who have determined they are homosexual.

Scout leaders voted to change a 22-year-old membership policy that effectively banned Boy Scouts from being homosexual, or acknowledging they are gay.  The policy was a haphazard outgrowth of a 1991 policy change, still in effect, that bans homosexuals from leadership positions.  Over the past decade the issue heated up, with a few boys having completed their work to earn Scouting’s highest rank, Eagle, and then being denied the rank when officials discovered they were homosexual.

No brief description does full justice to the issue, to the change in policy, nor to the difficulty of discussions surrounding the change.  Several national groups assailed BSA for even considering the change, including the Family Research Council and members of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Discussions in some quarters were as ugly as any I’ve seen on any issue anywhere — worse than union votes in non-union corporations, worse than votes to cut teacher pay in state legislatures, worse than civil rights votes, worse than abortion issues.

Bryan Wendall’s blog, Bryan on Scouting, is a semi-official mouthpiece for Scouting — he is the editor of Scouting magazine, the monthly publication to leaders of Boy Scouting.  At the blog, where serious discussions of the new policy unfolded since February, Bryan posted a video of immediate past President of Boy Scouting National Council, Rex Tillerson, talking about the next steps.  I’ve reproduced Bryan’s introduction, and the video.  Discussions at that blog have been rather intense (but not nearly so ugly as those at Family Research Council venues, and at WorldNet Daily).

One more piece of background:  In Scout leader training, two mantras rising over the past 15 years involve reminding leaders to stick to the main purposes of Scouting in any controversy, to help get through difficulties or crises in unit management or local organization issues:  “Remember, we do it for the boys, they are the main thing.”  And, “The main thing to remember is to keep the main thing, the main thing.”  Tillerson knows Scouting, and knows Scouters, when he makes his appeal.

Exxon-Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson exhorted Scouters to get on with ‘the main thing,’ making Scouting work for boys. Tillerson is a Distinguished Eagle Scout, and past national president of the organization; he remains active in his local Scouting organizations, in Circle 10 Council in Dallas, Texas, and surrounding counties. Photo by Michael Roytek/BSA

Rex Tillerson speaks out about change and ‘The Main Thing’

“So we’ve made the decision. We’re going to change,” says Rex Tillerson. ”Now what?”

Less than 24 hours after the volunteer delegates voted to change the BSA’s membership policy for youth, Tillerson addressed a large room full of Scouting volunteers and professionals at the closing general session of the BSA’s National Annual Meeting.

In a powerful, heartfelt speech, Tillerson made his message clear: Change is inevitable, but “The Main Thing,” which is to serve more youth in Scouting, hasn’t changed. With that in mind, he reasoned, it’s time for all of us unite toward this common goal.

Tillerson, immediate past president of the Boy Scouts of America and a 2010 Silver Buffalo recipient, knows something about making big decisions and dealing with change. When he’s not serving as a Scouting volunteer, he’s the chairman, president, and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., one of the world’s largest companies.

In 1999, Tillerson worked for Exxon when it merged with Mobil—definitely a big change for both companies.

Take 10 minutes to watch the video below and listen to Tillerson’s message. Then, share it with the members of your Scouting family.

Are you volunteering in any way in Scouting now?  You should.

More:

• Exxon Mobil shareholders reject gay rights proposal (star-telegram.com)
• ExxonMobil stockholders reject LGBT protections (miamiherald.typepad.com)
• Exxon underestimated natural gas hit (fuelfix.com)
• WATCH: Former SBC President and Pastor of Johnson Ferry Baptist Church, Bryant Wright, Says, ‘We Are Pulling Out of the Boy Scouts Because We Cannot Compromise the Word of God’ (blackchristiannews.com)
• Catholic leaders urge support for Boy Scouts after shift on gays (religionnews.com)
• Boy Scouts Change Membership Guidelines to Allow Homosexuals (cnsnews.com)
• Catholic Leaders Urge Support For Boy Scouts After Shift On Gays (huffingtonpost.com)
• Boy Scouts meet to decide policy on gay Scouts (miamiherald.com)
• Tommy was a Boy Scout (tv.msnbc.com)

Flag day June 14? Heck! Fly it all week!

“The American Flag”, music by L.S.D. Rees and words by J.B. Dickson, 1862. Music Division, Library of Congress

President Barack Obama proclaimed the week of June 9 through 16 National Flag Week, in anticipation of Flag Day, June 14.

Boy Scouts from Troop 123 stand together during a Flag Day ceremony Thursday, June 14, 2012 at Veterans Memorial Park in Peru, Ill. Photo and caption from Reactions

Fly your U.S. flag all week!

Of course, you may fly your state and local flags, too.

June 14 commemorates the day the first resolution was passed designating the stars and stripes as the national flag of the united colonies, June 14, 1777. This is another event occurring even prior to the creation of the United States by the Constitution.

Here’s the proclamation from President Obama:

For Immediate Release

June 07, 2013

Presidential Proclamation — Flag Day and National Flag Week, 2013

FLAG DAY AND NATIONAL FLAG WEEK, 2013

- – - – - – -

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

A PROCLAMATION

Each June, our Nation lifts its sights to the flag that has watched over us since the days of our founding. In those broad stripes and bright stars, we see the arc of the American story — from a handful of colonies to 50 States, united and free.

When proud patriots took up the fight for independence, they came together under a standard that showed their common cause. When the wounds of civil war were still fresh and our country walked the long road to reconstruction, our people found hope in a banner that testified to the strength of our Union. Wherever our American journey has taken us, whether on that unending path to the mountaintop or high above into the reaches of space, Old Glory has followed, reminding us of the rights and responsibilities we share as citizens.

This week, we celebrate that legacy, and we honor the brave men and women who have secured it through centuries of service at home and abroad. Let us raise our flags high, from small-town storefronts to duty stations stretched around the globe, and let us look to them once more as we press on in the march toward a more perfect Union.

To commemorate the adoption of our flag, the Congress, by joint resolution approved August 3, 1949, as amended (63 Stat. 492), designated June 14 of each year as “Flag Day” and requested that the President issue an annual proclamation calling for its observance and for the display of the flag of the United States on all Federal Government buildings. The Congress also requested, by joint resolution approved June 9, 1966, as amended (80 Stat. 194), that the President annually issue a proclamation designating the week in which June 14 occurs as “National Flag Week” and call upon citizens of the United States to display the flag during that week.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim June 14, 2013, as Flag Day and the week beginning June 9, 2013, as National Flag Week. I direct the appropriate officials to display the flag on all Federal Government buildings during that week, and I urge all Americans to observe Flag Day and National Flag Week by displaying the flag. I also call upon the people of the United States to observe with pride and all due ceremony those days from Flag Day through Independence Day, also set aside by the Congress (89 Stat. 211), as a time to honor America, to celebrate our heritage in public gatherings and activities, and to publicly recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this seventh day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.

BARACK OBAMA

You may want to read further history of Flag Day and the Wisconsin-born dentist who created and promoted the campaign to commemorate it, Bernard J. CiGrand, at the National Flag Day Foundation site.

Joel Mielke cartoon in the North Coast Journal, Humboldt, California. Each of these flag uses is, technically, a violation of the flag code. Fly your flag on Flag Day; it’s a non-violative, non-offensive way to honor the flag, and our nation.

More:

• President Proclaims Flag Day and National Flag Week (defense.gov)
• “Sheet Music of the Week, Flag Day Edition” (loc.gov – Library of Congress)
• D-Day flag is a treasured memento for Mass. family (stripes.com)
• Saluting the Flag: Popular Parenting Pinterest Pin Picks (socialnewsdaily.com)
• Flag Day Festivities in Deadwood (rapidcityjournal.com)

Mike Rowe: The value of Scouting, even for kids who don’t make Eagle

Distinguished Eagle Scout Award Wikipedia image

Boy Scouts of America (BSA)  invited Mike Rowe to the 2012 Annual National Meeting.  They asked him to speak, but surprised him with a Distinguished Eagle Scout award.

Listen to his praise for the value of Scouting, for and from Scouts who don’t make Eagle (it’s at least ten minutes in, but this is entertaining).  Rowe has two brothers, neither of whom earned Eagle; his story involves the exploits of his younger brother, who was a Scout, and achieved the rank of Star.

It really is a Star Scout story.

More:

• Churches split on Scouts’ welcoming of gay youth (news.yahoo.com)
• Churches split on Scouts’ welcoming of gay youth (chronicle.augusta.com)
• After vote allowing gay kids to become Boy Scouts, some families call it quits (usnews.nbcnews.com)
• Sen. Toomey Honored By Boy Scouts [press_release] (toomey.senate.gov)

PBS News Hour’s Ray Suarez receiving his Distinguished Eagle Scout Award. You find Eagles all over the place. Wikipedia image

How to tell Scouts are coming for dinner

Scouts coming for dinner – Dutch ovens ready for duty at Wisdom Trail District Outdoor Leader training, Camp Wisdom, Circle 10 Council BSA, March 9, 2013.

Dutch ovens lined up for duty is a tell that Scouts and Scouters are expected for dinner, aren’t they?

More:

• Bacon, garlic team up for ultimate roast chicken (triblive.com)
• Stout Braised Corned Beef and Cabbage (survivingthefoodallergyapocalypse.wordpress.com)
• Recipe of the Week: Buffalo Chili (because the things we do with ducks are classified) (thewellnessalmanac.com)
• eat :: dutch oven enchiladas (jamieofalltrades.org)
• Braised Not-So-Short Short Ribs with Hominy Stew from A New Turn in the South (thismamacooks.com)
• Slow Cooker vs. Dutch Oven: A Conversion Guide (williams-sonoma.com)
• How to Clean a Cast Iron Pan: Tips & Tricks (ifyoucanread.com)
• Family Camping Tips (familyontravel.com)
• Camp Wisdom, Circle 10 Council, BSA (one of the nation’s better urban Scout camps)
• Dutch oven cooking Getting Started Guide, Scouting Magazine 2009
• Mike Audleman’s Dutch Oven Cooking, 1990, reposted at the U.S. Scouting Service Project
• Dutch oven recipes, and recipes for all Scout levels, Tiger to Eagle, at Boy Scout Trail
• Dutch over recipes at Scoutarama
• What you need for dutch oven cooking, at ScoutmasterCG
• Scout’s Guide to Beginning Dutch Oven Cooking, Troop 626, Houston, Texas
• Dutch Oven Care and Use (with recipes), Troop 780, Dunn, North Carolina

Woodbadge sundancers, Heart of Virginia Council, BSA

This will make some Woodbadgers jealous:

Stained glass sundancers at an unnamed site, commemorating six Woodbadge classes in the Heart of Virginia Council, BSA.  Click image for better view at original site.

From a site which is, I presume, run by Heart of Virginia Council, BSA.  I have no details on this photo, location, time.  Please add details if you know them, in comments.

A very young John Kennedy asks his father for a raise in his allowance, to cover Boy Scout dues

Can your students write this well?  This kid was 12:

Letter from 12 year-old John Kennedy, asking his father for a raise in his allowance, in 1929.  Click image for larger view.  Photo from Peter Lenahan

Found the image at the U.S. Scouting Service Project site, part of their celebration of the history of Scouting.

John Fitzgerald Francis Kennedy, President of the United States, was a Scout in Troop 2 in the Bronxville, NY, from 1929 to 1931. This letter was written when he was 12 years old in 1929.

Transcript:   A Plea for a raise

By Jack Kennedy

Dedicated to my

Mr. J. P. Kennedy

     Chapter I

My recent allowance is 40¢. This I used for areoplanes and other playthings of child- hood but now I am a scout and I put away my childish things. Before I would spend 20¢ of my ¢.40 allowance and In five minutes I would have empty pockets and nothing to gain and 20¢ to lose. When I a a scout I have to buy canteens, haversacks, blankets, searchlidgs [searchlights] poncho things that will last for years and I can always use it while I cant use a cholcalote marshmellow sunday with vanilla ice cream and so I put in my plea for a raise of thirty cents for me to buy scout things and pay my own way more around.

Finis

John Fitzgerald Francis Kennedy

Contributed by: Peter Lenahan, Bronxville, NY

Related articles

• The Scout Cabin in Bronxville, New York (Troop 2 is still going, it appears)
• Wiki Answers:  Who was the first president who was a Scout?
• Boy Sout executive gives Fort Worth dinner audience something to chew on (star-telegram.com)
• What can change a life? You. (bedfordscouts.wordpress.com)

Maine Boy Scout gets hero’s award; saved two from drowning in hotel pool

A feel good story, reprinted from the website of the Bangor (Maine) Daily News:

Portland Boy Scout earns rare award after saving two from drowning

By Seth Koenig, BDN Staff
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Posted Feb. 18, 2013, at 4:44 p.m.
Last modified Feb. 19, 2013, at 8:48 a.m.

PORTLAND, Maine — Parker Montano, 15, was in a hotel pool surrounded by about 20 other swimming and splashing youths when one, weighing almost 200 pounds, grabbed onto him and pulled him under in a panic.

Boy Scout Parker Montano of Portland, Maine; photo by Peter Montano

Now, seven months later, the Portland Boy Scout will receive one of the organization’s most rarely given honors after saving that boy and another girl moments later at the same pool.

Montano, a Cheverus High School sophomore from South Portland, will receive the Boy Scouts of America’s Heroism Award during a ceremony in Portland on Feb. 28. Montano belongs to Troop 1 in Portland.

“This is a big deal,” Troop 1 scoutmaster John Hume told the BDN Monday. “The kids are always taught first aid and rescue techniques. Most of us take CPR, and most of us never use it. Parker was able to put his training to use when people needed it most. You need to make a conscious choice to act [in a situation like the one Montano faced], when realizing full well that everybody’s going to be watching you. … Parker took action, and that takes a level of courage that’s not common.”

Montano was on vacation with his family last July when the incidents occurred. He was swimming in the deep end of a hotel pool in New Jersey when the larger boy grabbed onto him, according to a news release issued Monday by the local Boy Scouts unit.

“The pool did not have a lifeguard,” the release reads. “Both boys went underwater momentarily, and on resurfacing, the boy told Parker he couldn’t swim. Parker used rescue techniques learned in Boy Scouts to take control over the larger boy and get him to safety.”

Montano was still catching his breath at the side of the pool when he was called into action again. A woman at the scene began screaming that her daughter had gone underwater without resurfacing.

“Parker scanned the pool and located the approximately 12-year-old girl,” the Troop 1 account of the incident reads. “He swam to the girl and dove to rescue her. He pulled her to the surface and swam her to the side of the pool, to waiting adults. The girl began coughing and was able to start breathing again.”

Montano said in a statement his reaction to the two pleas for help was “like an impulse.”

“It seemed like what was right at the moment,” he said. “My mind processed it later. The fear dawned on you over what happened, and then there was a sense of relief that you were there and could help.”

The Boy Scouts of America’s Heroism Award was given to 155 of the organization’s roughly 2.7 million members in 2012. That means fewer than one out of every 17,000 scouts earned the award last year. Hume said when the Feb. 28 ceremony takes place, it will be the first time he’s seen one awarded in his 40 years involved with scouting.

“[Parker] believes there is good in the world and sometimes it needs a helping hand,” Peter Montano, Parker’s father, said in the release. “I have never been so proud of my son.”

Parker Montano is pursuing Eagle Scout status, one of the highest levels attainable in the organization. He also is an accomplished runner who is scheduled to represent Maine as part of the East Central Conference cross country team in an international meet in Australia this summer, the Troop 1 release stated.

Morals to the story:  Post a lifeguard when you swim (do not swim alone); if you have a choice, swim with Boy Scouts around who can pull you out if you get into trouble.

BSA awarded 66 honor medals and 155 other heroism medals in 2012; I know of no list of the awardees.  Does anyone keep such history?

More:

• Report in the Portland Daily Sun
• Report in the The Forecaster of Greater Portland, Maine; “Afterwards, it kind of just hit me,” he said. “I was perhaps the only person in the pool who was suited to carry them out.”
• Other almost-recent heroism awards:  West Orange (New Jersey) Times, story about Brian Boatright’s difficult hike to save an adult leader who had suffered a heart attack on the trail; KSTP report on 3rd-grade, Cub Scout Cooper Corbo’s rescue of a toddler from a precarious ledge.
• Troop 1 and Crew 1 of Portland, Maine, are sponsored by the Stevens Avenue Congregational Church

Are you tougher than a Boy Scout?

Every kid should have an opportunity to do this stuff. This promises to show Scouting in its better works.

What do you think?

Are You Tougher Than a Boy Scout, On the National Geographic Channel starting March 4, 2013 at 8PM eastern time.

More: 

Advertisement for Are You Tougher Than A Boy Scout, Naitonal Geographic Channel

• Don’t miss the ‘Are You Tougher Than a Boy Scout?’ website, new trailer (scoutingmagazine.org)
• Are You Tougher Than A Boy Scout? (boyslife.org)
• National Geographic Resists Calls to Place Disclaimer On `Are You Tougher Than A Boy Scout?’ (ahgksmo.wordpress.com)
• Portland Boy Scout earns rare award after saving two from drowning (bangordailynews.com)
• Boy Sout executive gives Fort Worth dinner audience something to chew on (star-telegram.com)
• Backpacker’s Blaze mention of the new program
• National Geographic Channel site for the program (episode descriptions, photos, and, at some future date, video)

Boy Scout membership standards decision delayed for more discussion

Dallas’s Circle 10 Council, BSA, issued this statement from Council Chief Executive Pat Currie, about the discussion of changes in BSA membership policies. FYI.

February 6, 2013

Dear Circle Ten Family,

We appreciate your participation and support of Scouting as we help equip children with the life skills to become a good, strong citizen. This year we will celebrate Circle Ten’s 100th anniversary, and our focus has remained the same, working together to deliver the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. I would also like to take this opportunity to update you on the recent discussions within the Scouting family regarding our membership standards policy.

After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy.

To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May 2013.

America needs Scouting, and our policies must be based on what is in the best interest of our kids. We believe good people can disagree and still work together to accomplish great things for youth.

Going forward, we will work to stay focused on that which unites us. Be a part of this discussion by staying engaged and continuing your role in Scouting. The kids in your community need you.

Sincerely,

Pat Currie
Scout Executive/CEO
Circle Ten Council, Boy Scouts of America

Quote of the moment: Herbert Hoover, on credit, in Des Moines, Iowa, 1932

Herbert Hoover, 88, attended the opening of the Hoover Library in West Branch, Iowa, on August 10, 1962, 30 years after his speech in Des Moines defending actions to shore up the credit of the U.S.  At this 1962 event, former President Harry Truman came to pay respects, mensch that he was; Truman is walking ahead of Hoover here.  Photo from Travel Iowa blog, and probably from the Hoover Library and Museum

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

• Herbert Hoover, address at Des Moines, Iowa, October 4, 1932. — The Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Herbert Hoover, 1932–1933, p. 467.  (courtesy of Wikiquote)

_____________

Just a month before he would be crushed at the polls by Franklin Roosevelt, President Herbert Hoover returned to Iowa, his proud home state, to deliver this speech in Des Moines, detailing actions his administration had taken over the previous 18 months to save the U.S. and world economies.  Much of this action had been out of the glare of popular press.  Hoover hoped that by explaining the difficult battles his administration fought behind the huge oak doors of boardrooms and international diplomacy, Americans might appreciate more what he had accomplished, and not focus so much on the fact that the Great Depression still ravaged millions of Americans.

In today’s anti-credit political environment, it is interesting to see one of our most ardent businessman presidents defend credit. In an irony unappreciated in today’s political discussions, much of the discussion in 1932 between Hoover and Roosevelt was over which one could better manage to get to and keep a balanced budget.

The full speech is available at The American Presidency Project housed at the University of California – Santa Barbara. Politics wonks, history fans, and economists will want to look at the full speech this line is ripped from, contextually bereft. Context, in this case, does not change the meaning, but deepens the complexity of the issues and time.  Hoover bragged about keeping the U.S. on the gold standard, because so many contracts and mortgages were written to be payable in gold, and not currency.  So leaving the gold standard could have enormous disrupting influence on credit.

The first of these perils was the steady strangulation of credit through the removal of $3 billions of gold and currency by foreign drains and by the hoarding of our own citizens from the channels of our commerce and business. And let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and of jobs.

Much of the rest of the speech defended Hoover’s use of government in ways that would cause apoplexy among Tea Partiers and a blizzard of critical press releases from Republicans, today:

Hoover addresses a large crowd in his 1932 campaign. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now, we have fought an unending war against the effect of these calamities upon our people in America. This is no time to recount the battles on a thousand fronts. We have fought the fight to protect our people in a thousand cities from hunger and cold.

We have carried on an unceasing campaign to protect the Nation from those unhealing class bitternesses which arise from strikes and lockouts and industrial conflict. We have accomplished this through the willing agreement of employer and labor which placed humanity before money through the sacrifice of profits and dividends before wages.

We have defended millions from the tragic result of droughts. We have mobilized a vast expansion of public construction to make work for the unemployed. We fought the battle to balance the budget. We have defended the country from being forced off the gold standard, with its crushing effect upon all who might be in debt. We have battled to provide a supply of credits to merchants and farmers and industries. We have fought to retard falling prices. We have struggled to save homes and farms from foreclosure of mortgages, battled to save millions of depositors and borrowers from the ruin caused by the failure of banks, fought to assure the safety of millions of policyholders from failure of their insurance companies, and fought to save commerce and employment from the failure of railways.

We have fought to secure the disarmament and to maintain the peace of the world. We have fought for stability in other countries whose failure would inevitably injure us. And, above all, we have fought to preserve the safety, the principles, and the ideals of American life. We have builded the foundations of recovery.

Now, all these battles, related and unrelated, have had a single strategy and a single purpose. That was to protect your living, your comfort, and the safety of your fireside. They have been waged and have succeeded in protecting you from infinitely greater harm that might have come to you.

Thousands of our people in their bitter distress and losses today are saying that “things could not be worse.” No person who has any remote understanding of the forces which confronted this country during these last 18 months ever utters that remark. Had it not been for the immediate and unprecedented actions of our Government things would be infinitely worse today.

Instead of moving forward we would be degenerating for years to come, even if we had not gone clear over the precipice, with the total destruction of every ideal we hold dear.

Let no man tell you that it could not be worse. It could be so much worse that these days now, distressing as they are, would look like veritable prosperity.

In all these great efforts there has been a constant difficulty of translating the daily action into terms of public understanding. The forces in motion have been so gigantic, so complex in character, the instrumentalities and actions that we must undertake to deal with them have been so involved, the figures we must use are so astronomical as to seem to have but little relation to the family in the apartment or the cottage or on the farm.

Five months after Hoover’s Des Moines speech, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover in convertible automobile on way to U.S. Capitol for Roosevelt’s inauguration, March 4, 1933 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If Hoover made that speech today, every fellow at the Hoover Institution would sign a petition demanding his impeachment, never mind that he’s not president any more.

____________

A few notes about the photograph at the top:  This photo shows two former presidents, Herbert Hoover and Harry S Truman, walking through a crowd at the dedication of the Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, in West Branch, Iowa, in 1962.  One might pay careful attention to how lax security was, generally — the crowd is allowed within an arm’s length of the two former presidents — and this was after an assassination attempt had been made on Truman, in Washington, years before.  Insignia on the uniforms of the police are difficult to discern, but from the uniforms it looks as if there was a combination of local police, possibly a county sheriff’s staff, and Iowa state highway patrol troopers.  I found it interesting to note that several of the younger men appear to be Explorer Scouts, BSA — one wearing what appears to be an Eagle Scout neckerchief. Cameras were special event tools, but generally not of the quality that could get a decent photograph at an event like this, except for professionals with professional cameras.  Still, visible are double-lens reflex cameras held up in hope of a proper aim, small Kodaks, one man winding film in a 35-mm single-lens reflex, and a tiny handful of home movie cameras (with three lenses on the front — wide angle, normal and modest telephoto).  Click on the photo for an expanded view, and see what else you may.  If by chance you know anything about this photo, Dear Reader, please tell, in comments.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Henry Mowry at Mowryblog.

More, and resources:

• Herbert Hoover at His More Typical: Expansionary Fiscal Policy Is Contractionary (delong.typepad.com)
• Is This How the Myth of the Laissez Faire Herbert Hoover Was Invented? (coordinationproblem.org)
• A Stray Thought on Herbert Hoover: At Least He Was Trying (delong.typepad.com)
• Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum
• More that you didn’t know about Hoover:  Iowa Public Television link to The American Experience, “The Great Famine,” the story of Herbert Hoover’s attempt to save the people of the Soviet Union from starvation in the 1920s, when he was Secretary of Commerce.

Presidents Harry Truman and Herbert Hoover at the dedication of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum on August 10, 1962 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Now we know what she looked like: Catherine Pollard, first woman Scoutmaster

Some weeks ago I was looking for a good photograph of the late Catherine Pollard, the woman who became the first well-known de facto woman Scoutmaster in the Boy Scouts of America.  Ms. Pollard filled in in 1973 through 1975, when no one else could step into the job.  This was back in the pre-intelligent Anthropocene, however; BSA’s National Council refused to accept her paperwork to be Scoutmaster, officially.  Officially, BSA didn’t allow women to serve in that role.

Times changed.  In 1988 BSA got smart and changed the rules so women could serve as Scoutmasters.  Some alert person remembered Pollard’s fight to get recognition a decade earlier.  Pollard was asked to sign up officially as the first woman Scoutmaster in 1988, and she did.

Now, I don’t recall why I needed it then, but there is an entire period of history prior to 1980, and for about 20 to 25 years before that, that is missing from internet archives.  We need to do a better job of finding non-digital and non-digitized sources of photos, graphics, and other information from post-World War II times, and get them posted on the web, for the sake of history.

A kind reader named Brian sent us this photo.  Thank you, Brian.

Catherine Pollard, first woman Scoutmaster in BSA history; in uniform with Troop 13 of Milford, Connecticut, in 1973 and 1975, unofficially. In 1988, when BSA changed rules, they asked Ms. Pollard to be the first registered Scoutmaster. Scoutmaster Pollard died in 2006.

To the memory of Catherine Pollard, whose bugle called dozens of youth to a lifetime of service, though there were those who thought she shouldn’t be tooting the horn at all.

(Y’all got other photos out there you should be sharing?  Send ‘em in.)

Forgotten art, forgotten artists: Dick Sargent, and Cub Scouts in a phone booth

Years between 1900 and 1970-something, when computers, television and digital media started to bite into artists’ work, make up a golden age of magazine illustration.

Much of that art is essentially lost now.  It appeared in magazines no longer published, and therefore having no champion for digitizing the art and prose; and it appeared in magazines that libraries, now cramped for space, are tossing away after getting access to digitized text, or through microfiche — or not at all.

Many of the images are compelling, like this one from Dick Sargent (1911-1978):

Cub Scouts crammed in a phonebooth, Dick Sargent image preserved by American Gallery

The image is archaic, technically antique, in so many ways.

• Do any phonebooths remain in America, especially of this outdoor type?  The booths had already begun to fade in the late 1970s, comically chronicled in Superman movies where Clark Kent could not find a phone booth in which to change from his reporter’s disguise into Superman’s body suit and cape.  Rapid spread of cell phones, now digital communications, and the disappearance of T-1 lines to tap into for pay phones, all contribute to make this image seriously dated (could students put a date on it by tracking down clues in the image?).
• Paper maps?  Not even a hold-alone GPS, but a paper road map (probably a freebie from a “service station).
• Cub Scouts abandoned the blue beanie at least 20 years ago, probably more like 30.
• One Scout leader?  Since at least the early 1990s, Scouting has a “two-deep leadership” rule, to prevent child molestation, under the Scouts’ tough Youth Protection rules.  At no time should one leader only be with one Scout or a group of Scouts.  Such a hike today would require a much larger phone booth, just to accommodate additional leaders.
• The axe was out of place when the painting was made; it’s a tool for older Boy Scouts.  Today, axes trend to rarity even with Boy Scouts.  Wood fires depleted the woods near popular camping sites and Boy Scout camps.  Drought conditions create local fire bans in many Scout camps nationwide in most of the past two decades — a Scout needs to know how to fire up a WhisperLite or Jetboil stove, or even a Coleman propane or white gas stove (have I told you the story of Sheldon Coleman and the Alaskan Native with the 30-year-old Coleman stove?).  None of that requires a hand-axe.
• No women leaders?  When the painting was made — early 1950s? — the only male in a direct leadership position in a Cub Scout Pack would be the Cubmaster, who is largely the ceremonial ring-leader for the once-a-month pack meeting.  Women would have been Den Mothers, meeting weekly with a Den of boys.  This is artistic license, of course — but a modern painting would look really odd without women in leadership roles, especially on an outing, and wholly apart from the two-deep leadership rule.
• It’s Cub Scouting, but there’s a clear cross-message with the Boy Scout Motto, Be Prepared.  This group is not prepared for rain at all — nor much prepared for hiking.  See any water bottles?  In the 1950s, Scouts would have carried canteens instead — but even Cub Scouts could be counted on to carry a cool, military-looking canteen.

I’m guessing this was an illustration for a magazine.  For various reasons I think it was not a Boy Scout publication, like Boys’ Life or Scouting.  Sargent’s work appeared in publications like Saturday Evening Post.  It would be fascinating to know the publication, and whether there was an occasion for the painting.  Scouting and this form of realistic painting from the 20th century really go hand in hand.  One of America’s favorite painters, Norman Rockwell, got his first job at 19 as art director for Boy Scouts of America, including Boys’ Life.  He went on to a long and very productive career, including hundreds of magazine covers for many publications, including Saturday Evening Post.  Rockwell was followed by Joseph Csatari.

American Gallery specializes in rescuing collections of work from American painters and other visual artists.  Teachers and students looking for period art from the 20th century might do well to check out that site, and do a few searches.  History, education and the internet could use a few more sites like that.

More:

• Renewed wows: Check out the changes in the November Cubcast (scoutingmagazine.org)
• Your uniform questions, all sewn up (scoutingmagazine.org)
• One Oath (And Law) To Rule Them All (boyslife.org)
• Cub Scouts Learn The Ropes At Zoo Tiger Day (wibw.com)
• “Mojave Telephone Booth is still ringing,” at Motherboard
• For teachers, document analysis sheets from the National Archives (from this list I’d use the photograph sheet), to have students analyze the painting; Scout trainers, you may want to use the same sheet, to have Scouters analyze the photo for history, and for how Scouting and youth protection rules have changed;
• Series of visual arts analysis sheets, from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority
• Painting analysis sheet from Lapham’s Quarterly

Why a campfire? (reprise)

It was more than five years ago I originally posted this?  Heck, I won’t even add links or a “More” section at the bottom.  I deserves to be repeated though, I think, especially in an election year when we wish we could gather more people around a campfire.  Here goes:

Training adult Scout leaders always produces a few puzzled looks, and occasional passionate, fearful rebukes, when I note that a campfire gives a boy or a girl an opportunity to play with fire.

No, I don’t mean, exactly, that we should let kids play with fire.  There are rules — what’s burning must be in the fire pit, is the chief rule.

There is some primal need to watch a fire, to study it, to experiment with it, and finally just to watch it go. If you camped as a kid, you probably know what I mean.

Camp fires are universal. This one was outside Bangalore.

Every kid needs to do that.  It’s a part of growing up.  It’s a necessary memory for healthy and sane adults.

Start a fire, and a kid will get a stick and poke the burning logs and, especially, the red-, yellow- and white-hot coals after the fire burns a while.  They’ll start the stick on fire, put it out, and light it again.  They’ll pull the stick out of the fire and watch the flame consume the stick.  Kids will experiment with different things on the fire, to see whether, how fast, and how they burn.

Just keep it in the fire pit.

A Scoutmaster can tell which kids have been camping. A Scoutmaster knows which kids have been able to sit around a campfire and play with fire in that way.  Kids who know fire are more mature, generally, more relaxed about the excitement of the stuff, and much more careful with it.  Scouts who have dabbled in the campfire respect fire for what it is and for what it can do, good and bad.

What you’ll remember 20 years later, or 30 years, or (God bless me!) 40 years, and I hope 50 and 60 years, is the watching of the fire as the flames die down to a red and pulsing bed of coals.

You’ll remember some of the stories — Freddy Jonas’s often-told story of racing down the Champs Elysee in horse-drawn carriages, bribing the driver of the other carriage to go slower to win the race; the story of Rulon Skinner, the best non-swimming canoe instructor on Earth, and the big canoe race in which his opponent finally tipped Skinner’s canoe, and then yelled “snake!” to appeal to Skinner’s other great fear; the night the bear invaded the camp at Ben de la Tour, a bear later found to have antlers and four hooves.  You’ll remember the s’mores, and you’ll forget how messy they are.  You’ll remember the time you waited for the cobbler to cook after someone forgot to start the charcoal, or the the time the story got so good you forgot to take the cobbler off the fire, and how the Dutch oven had to be thrown away because it never would come clean.

You may remember that little fox at Camp Carter, sneaking just beyond the light of the fire and carefully circling every chair, looking for something good to eat, to steal.  Or that stupid porcupine that, now that you think of it must have been rabid, heading straight for the fire there in the only stand of Ponderosa pine in Utah County, up Payson Canyon.  And that will trigger the story of the night the fire wouldn’t start in the Catskills, and what seemed like hundreds of giant porcupines convened in bacchanalian festivities while campers dared not sleep, in their tents.

Someone will mention retiring U.S. flags, and you’ll remember the retirement ceremony for the flag from the widow of the veteran, how she insisted that you promise the flag would be burned completely and honorably, and warned “he’ll be watching!”  You’ll remember the mass flag retirement after the lifting of the burn ban at Wisdom, and how you suddenly realized lots of flags put out lots of toxic fumes — but somebody ad libbed a part to the ceremony to add time to let the fumes clear, and no Scout noticed (you hope!).

We haven’t even gotten to the singing.

I was put in mind of the power of the campfire with a remembrance from Real Live Preacher writing at High Calling:

I remember how worried we were the first time we tried to set one of those brush piles on fire. We nervously stood before a ten-foot high, fifteen-foot wide mound with a can of lighter fluid and a couple of matches. I squirted a modest amount around the bottom of the pile and stood back while Michael threw the match. That’s when we discovered that it’s surprisingly difficult to set things on fire. Now I marvel at stories of people casually throwing cigarettes out of their cars and setting whole forests ablaze. Michael and I had a hard time starting fires even when we used diesel fuel and a blowtorch.

It takes about five hours to burn a giant pile of brush and cedar, so Michael and I would start a fire, then sit on the tailgate of the brown pickup truck and talk while we kept an eye on it. Apart from the searing heat and looking like chimney sweeps, it was fun. I’m always looking for guilt-free reasons to sit around and talk with friends. I don’t suppose I’ll ever have as good an excuse as I did back then.

A guilt-free reason to sit around and talk with friends?  A campfire is an automatic reason — guilt only obtains if there’s a ban on burning where you’re making the fire.

Carl Buell painted another one that took my breath away the first time I saw it.  Go see it. (I’m asking permission on this one; it may take a little while. Posted below with permission.)

That’s not a photograph, you can tell because it so well preserves what you remember — better than any photograph ever could –  it preserves what you remember from that campout up in the San Franciscos the night the sky was so blue so late and you could see the whole moon from the earthglow — or was it in New Mexico?  Probably not Colorado because there aren’t any mountains — oh, but if he’s looking east, it could have been south of Pueblo . . . no, maybe near Albion in the Sawtooths . . . Buell works in the east; it’s probably up in Maine . . . but he lived and painted in Marin County.

Didn’t he perfectly capture that night?

 

Does anyone have a photo of the first woman Scoutmaster, Catherine Pollard?

In the order of an Author’s Query:  Do you, or does anyone you know, have a photograph of the first woman to be a Scoutmaster in the U.S., Catherine Pollard, of Milford, Connecticut?

Best if it’s already on line — otherwise I’m looking for a photo that can be posted, for the sake of history.

Any Scouts from Milford have a photo?

More:

• What kind of Scoutmaster are you? (thescoutmasterminute.net)
• Scouting is Simple (thescoutmasterminute.net)
• Wood Badge Wednesdays, Vol. 3: Models for Success (scoutingmagazine.org)
• What is Scouting ? (boyscouttroop472.wordpress.com)
• Tom Harbin Scout Museum, Camp Wisdom, Circle 10 Council BSA (Dallas)
• National Scouting Museum (Irving, Texas)
• Connecticut Yankee Council, BSA (council serving Milford, Connecticut)

100 years of Eagle Scouts

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the Eagle Scout rank, awarded first to Scout Arthur Eldred.  2.1 million Eagles so far.

Do you have an Eagle Scout in your family?  Tell us about it in comments.

Also:

• “10 ways to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Eagle Scouts,” from Scouting Magazine
• 100 years ago today: “Arthur Eldred, a 17-year-old Boy Scout from Long Island, became the first person to earn the Eagle Scout rank.” (althouse.blogspot.com) (Not often you’ll Althouse cited here at MFB . . .)
• Twins Grant and Ross James are Eagle Scouts and Olympians (scoutingmagazine.org)
• Boy Scouts: “A few” returned medals (salon.com)