Blog 57 – 6-24-15

I was a pretty wimpy Mama’s boy as a lad. If you read my blog called The Prayer Cloth you already know my mother worried about me a lot. It was her idea that I join the Boy Scouts. Ric “Butch” Chambers my near neighbor and friend was big into scouting and his brother Mike and also several of my sixth grade classmates as well. I turned eleven, the required age, in late November 1961. So in early December I joined a Boy Scout Troop.

My folks as many of the folks around us in East Lake were not well to do. Funny expressIon “well to do.” We were not middle class, only Dad worked as was the case for most families in the fifties early sixties. Five thousand a year was the poverty line for a household of four and we hovered very near that line most of my years growing up. So the scouting uniform and equipment was an additional strain on my families meager budget. But they spent it because they loved me and didn’t want be to always be such a wimp.

I remember Mom bought my uniform, Scout Handbook (I still have it) and a Scout pocket knife at Sears in downtown Chattanooga. When I was trying on the pants of my uniform in the dressing room of the boys department I heard a whistle over head and a mynah bird saying, “Pretty boy, pretty boy.” That bird’s remark and a few years later a few of the East Lake Junior High School girls making positive comments about my “Crazy legs” did wonders for a shy boy’s self image. Thank you to those sweet girls and thanks also to the sales ladies at Sears who taught that bird to whistle and say pretty boy.

The Scout master was a pipe smoking outdoorsman and though strict a really good example and father figure. He taught us wood craft and not just survival skills but how to enjoy nature. Ric is still in Scouting and has been a Scout Leader for many years and has passed on to many others the things we learned together as boys.

The highlight of my early camping career was a week long summer camping trip to Camp Cherokee. Dad, drove a cement truck and worked a lot of overtime in the summer months so my parents had the extra cash that allowed me to have this great experience. And it was great but my post cards home to Mom were needless to say not my best writing. That I have yet to do so please keep reading as, to quote my Brother Dahl of The Emerging Artist Studio, the artist in me is emerging.

The postcards that Mom sent with me to camp, already stamped and addressed, read:

•  Dear Mom, Having fun, first night helping build a
new walk bridge stepped on a rusty
nail. Your loving son, David

•  Dear Mom, Foot feels better after the guys dropped a tree on it.
Squeezed all the puss out. Your loving son, David

•  Dear Mom, Camp Nurse finally okayed me to go swimming. Taking
lessons, almost drowned. Your loving son, David

•  Dear Mom, Scout Master says he never saw a boy with so many chiggers.
Makes me unbutton my shirt to show all the parents visiting their sons. Your
loving son, David

Needless to say she was a nervous wreck by the time I made it home on Saturday.
I never did master swimming so I never made First Class as it was a requirement for that rank. Since I could go no higher than Second Class I dropped out after only a year. But what I learned in the Scouts has served me well. Much of Scouting is patterned after the military and those good basics helped me through two years of Junior R.O.T.C. in high school and three years in the U.S. Army. The words of the oath I swore in 1961 as a new Scout have stayed with me these many years:

On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my county.

Your fellow traveler and former Scout,
David White