Musings on scouting

We enrolled the boy in cub scouts and took him to his first Camporee this weekend. So I’m going to indulge myself in some nostalgia.

I was both a Cub and a Boy Scout, my wife just missed scouting in Poland and regrets it. I believe it was banned during the communist days and reestablished at end of the Soviet occupation.

Historical note: during the Nazi occupation, the Polish scouts assisted the Armia Krajowe (Home Army) as couriers, and in the Warsaw Uprising carried food, water and amunition. They were called “the Grey Legions.” (The color of Polish scout uniforms.)

A splendid time was had by all. The baby sister also got to run around the campground in an ecstasy of delight. My wife says this is exactly the kind of activity she wants the kids into.

Me too. And, well I’m not going to cop an “In my day we were REAL scouts attitude” but…

Baden-Powell was a British spy during the Boer War, and the old scout manuals used to go into some details of his career. Including the fascinating story about how he used to pose as an eccentric butterfly collector and conceal drawings of fortifications in elaborate drawings of butterfly wings.

Baden-Powell asked his good friend Rudyard Kipling if he could borrow characters from ‘The Jungle Book’ for scouting. Which is why you find Akela, the Head Wolf showing up in Cub terminology. Kipling also wrote The Boy Scouts Patrol Song.

Scouting originally was supposed to be just that – an organization to teach the skills of a military scout, and the character and fortitude necessary to survive and keep functioning during wars and emergencies.

It was also supposedly inspired in part by the age regiments of the Zulu nation. How’s that for multi-culturalism?

In an online edition of one of the first scout manuals I came across instructions on what to do if you find a dead body! (They amount to “don’t disturb a potential crime scene, note the area and fetch the pros.)

A late 1950s scout manual I used to own (and sorely miss) was chock full of inspiring scout stories such as the French boy scout who was tortured and murdered by the Gestapo rather than tell where Dad and his buds in the Resistance were.

When I was at Boy Scout camp, we used to (gasp!) shoot guns! I think they’ve got BB guns for the Cubs here. I don’t know if gun handling is still a part of scouting in this part of the country but I mean to find out. I read once that scouts in the UK used to teach quarterstaff fighting.

Robert Heinlein incorporated scouting into one novel, ‘Farmer in the Sky’ and one novella, ‘Lost Legacy’ (found in ‘Assignment in Eternity.’)

Scouting is, of course, under attack by certain elements of the reinvent-human-nature Left. I think that says more about them than it does scouting.

And just for fun, here’s

The Boy Scouts Patrol Song

by Rudyard Kipling 1913

These are our regulations–
There’s just one law for the Scout
And the first and the last, and the present and the past,
And the future and the perfect is “Look out!”
I, thou and he, look out!
We, ye and they, look out!
Though you didn’t or you wouldn’t
Or you hadn’t or you couldn’t;
You jolly well must look out!

Look out, when you start for the day,
That your kit is packed to your mind;
There is no use going away
With half of it left behind.
Look out that your laces are tight,
And your boots are easy and stout,
Or you’ll end with a blister at night.
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!

Look out for the birds of the air,
Look out for the beasts of the field–
They’ll tell you how and where
The other side’s concealed.
When the blackbird bolts from the copse,
Or the cattle are staring about,
The wise commander stops
And (chorus) All Patrols look out!

Look out when your front is clear,
And you feel you are bound to win.
Look out for your flank and your rear–
That’s where surprises begin.
For the rustle that isn’t a rat,
For the splash that isn’t a trout,
For the boulder that may be a hat
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!

For the innocent knee-high grass,
For the ditch that never tells,
Look out! Look out ere you pass–
And look out for everything else!
A sign mis-read as you run
May turn retreat to a rout–
For all things under the sun
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!

Look out when your temper goes
At the end of a losing game;
When your boots are too tight for your toes;
And you answer and argue and blame.
It’s the hardest part of the Law,
But it has to be learnt by the Scout–
For whining and shrinking and “jaw”
(Chorus) All Patrols look out!