Idiot Scoutmasters: A True Story of a Scout's Canteen

I have written of my time in the Boy Scouts of America before.  (See the links at the bottom of the page.)  As I look back, I have more angry/disappointed memories than I do good ones.  This does make for great stories on my blog, but remember,  I had to live these moments.  I have held off writing a lot of my bad memories on this blog, well, for as long as I've been writing this blog.  (Roughly 10 years now.)

This memory I have is so ridiculous that I think it's time to share it.  In fact, this may be the first of these memories I may be writing about for the next few months or years.  I don't know.  What I do know, is that, sometimes Scoutmasters make mistakes.  What I hope is that they learn from them.  I don't know if mine ever would.

I graduated from my Webelo's pack to Troop 12 when I was just ten years old.  I was younger than everyone else.  It made it tough to be taken seriously by other scouts much less get along with them.  The original Scoutmaster was Mr. Moore.  He was a bit goofy, quick tongued, and got along great with the boys.  This did not sit well with the some of the committee members, parents, and other adults.

I could see how he could rub people the wrong way, but I believe he put the boys needs and wants first.  He was asked to step down as Scoutmaster.  He refused and was fired because of it.  All the other adults/Assistant Scoutmasters had a talk with us boys.  They asked us not to quit scouting, and to give the new Scoutmaster a chance.  Some boys quit due to their disgust over the whole matter.  At the time the troop had over forty members, something I've never seen in any other Scout troop, then or since.

Mr. Cooper took over as Scoutmaster for the next six months.  He did it as long as he was able, but his job took a lot of his time.  I always got along well with Mr. Cooper.  He stepped down, and went back to being an Assistant Scoutmaster within the troop.

That was when Mr. John R. (Bob) Brasher took over as Scoutmaster.  He took the troop in unseen directions.  I was roughly twelve years old when this happened.  The first thing that happened was, he really took over.  As in, the boys no longer planed what we were doing.  He took hard control of the reins.

The first thing that was decided with no input of the boys was that Troop 12, (of Lutz, Fl.) was to become a backpacking troop.  That's when a lot of boys quit.  They wanted to be in the BSA.  They didn't want to be involved in the Bataan Death March through Florida during the summers.  And remember, it's summer in Florida nine months out of the year.

The thing I remember most about Mr. Brasher was he ability to talk out of both sides of his mouth at the same time.  He once said that, "The Boy Scouts are not a military organization."  But he also said, "We might have to teach these boys some (military) steps."

If you've ever seen Dr. Phil McGraw (Oprah's friend) spout off some nonsensical country saying, well, Mr. Brasher was the king of that.  You have to remember that I was 10-13 years old while I was in Troop 12.  I wasn't that mature for my age, and I had no idea what he was talking about half the time.

My Dad never wanted to talk bad about other adults in charge.  He didn't want to undermine their credibility/authority.  There was one incident that just made us ask what the cold hell Mr. Brasher was thinking.  It was kind of the beginning of the end as far as me having any respect for Mr. Brasher as a Scoutmaster.

The Troop was on one of its death hikes.  Again, you have to remember was summer is like in Florida.  It's 95 degrees during the day, and only drops to 85 degrees at night.  We were all carrying heavy backpacks.  Remember I was only twelve years old, and carrying a 35 pound backpack.  A lot of that weight was carrying water.  I personally carried six quarts of water when I would start backpacking.  I had two, 2 quart "wine sacks," and two plastic, 1 quart bottles.

Here's what a quart of water looks like:

When we were backpacking we would hike for one hour and rest for ten minutes.  It was during one of the breaks that Mr. Brasher flat told me I should only drink this much water from my canteen.

This is what I actually drank:

Now imagine you have been gardening, landscaping, or mowing the lawn.  If you've been out doing that for a few hours how much water would you drink?  Also, imagine you are doing that in August in the beautiful state of Florida?  Yeah.

Nowadays, outside activities are all about hydration.  Heck, now they make kids drink before activities.  Maybe that's going overboard if you are up in Canada, but when it's 95 degrees out in the woods of Florida, it's not a bad idea.  Heck, there have been times when I'm doing lawn work out here, and I'm sweating as fast as I drinking water.  I'm not being funny.  I really have done that.  

A couple of blogs ago I wrote about working on the travel trailer.  It was so hot that I ended up drinking an entire gallon of water in six hours.  Once I had showered and cleaned up, I started drinking even more.  The reality was I had actually sweated that much out.  

So when Mr. Brasher told me that I was drinking too much water I honestly thought he was completely full of shit.  But more on that later.  He actually had the audacity to walk up to my Father (days later, after the hike) and tell him, "Adrian drinks too much water."  My Dad told him, "You all are out there backpacking in this weather and you're telling him to eat beef jerky and trail mix?  And you wonder why he's thirsty?  Mr. Brasher didn't have much to say to that.  

 

But here lies a problem in backpacking that I was never told.  I didn't actually find this out until later.  Do you know what happens to a person when the following things occur?

1.  Hard work (as in backpacking?)

2.  Not taking enough water in that leads to dehydration?  

3.  Eating salty dehydrated foods?

4.  Pre-teen boys not wanting to drop a deuce in the woods?

5.  Extremely high outdoor temperatures?

I'm going to leave this WebMD link right here, okay?

https://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/what-is-fecal-impaction#1

I know folks may think that today's helicopter parents and coaches might be babying their youth, but look at what a lot of us had to deal with as kids.  Doctors say something that I wish a lot of people would pay attention to.  

They say the body has a natural system for telling a person that they need water.  It's called thirst.  If you feel thirsty, you should drink water.  It's that simple.  It's not like Mr. Brasher said, "You should only drink "this" much water."  No!  If a person is thirsty there's a reason why.  It's your body telling you to put some water in it now.  

Again, that was the beginning of the end for me with Troop 12.  I don't know if I could even call it Troop 12 by that point.  It was Mr. Brasher's Troop by that time.  I ended up getting kicked out of Troop 12 about a year later.  But that's a story for another time.  For now, I leave you with this advice.  Stay hydrated.  

And here are the links I promised earlier.

Adrian reminisces about his childhood days with the Boy Scouts 

Bored Scoutmasters and the Tale of the Wampus

50 Miler

Back when I was in the Boy Scouts of America, there was a major patch you could get for well, ... something major.  It was the 50 Miler award.  You had to go 50 miles in one week by foot or afloat.  I earned mine with a combination of canoeing and backpacking 50 miles with my troop over spring break. 

Here's the old version of the patch I earned.

In real life that patch is huge.  It's the biggest patch I own.  And you know, it should be.  It's a hard patch to get. 

So this brings me to this past week.  I have been performing maintenance at an apartment complex in Clearwater.  Mainly, they have me do the things they don't want to do.  That means I deal with a lot of garbage.  They had me walking all over the property picking up liter, and taking care of the trash cans. 

After each day my feet were killing me.  So I got to thinking...  There was one morning when I walked non-stop the first half of the day.  So even if I walked only two miles per hour, I knocked out eight miles just before lunch.  And then I went out and walked some more.  I figured each day I walked between ten and fifteen miles.  So at the end of the working week I easily had walked fifty miles. 

Buy alas, there is no 50 Miler patch for life.  But sometimes I think there should be.  At least in my heart I am glad to know that I was able to walk that much in one week.  Some of the other maintenance men at that complex said they just couldn't do what I did. 

The funny thing?  I might have to do it again this week.

Adrian Visits Rock City Gardens, Part 4

When I was at Rock City Gardens I took some video.

Here is video of the top of High Falls.

Here's the view of High Falls from Observation point.

Here is video of the Fairytale Caverns.  Due to the darkness it didn't come out too well.

If you have the chance to visit the Chattanooga area I would definitely suggest you visit both the Chattanooga Aquarium and Rock City Gardens.  Both run about twenty dollars per adult.  Around twelve dollars per child.

Adrian Visits Rock City Gardens, Part 3

Continued from, "Adrian Visits Rock City Gardens, Part 2."

As I kept walking I came up to Observation Point.

Obviously.  But the views from it are pretty amazing.  You can overlook the town, and then get a great view of High Falls.

Next you have to go through the Rainbow Hall to get a great view of High Falls.  I guess Rainbow Hall is the kind of place that Gnomes like.  Well maybe gay Gnomes.  Who knows.

Here's a great view of High Falls.

Then comes one of the tight squeeze places that kids love, and most Americans can't fit through.  I couldn't really take pictures in there due to the lack of light.

Then came a neat kind of formation.  The 1000 ton rock.

Well, what do know.  I found the Enchanted Trail.  It was in Georgia all along.  Woundn't have thought that.

So then it appears that Magic Valley is located right next to the Enchanted Trail... in Georgia.

Next came the Fairyland Caverns.  (No Smoking.)  I didn't expect Fairyland to have so much sea corral in it.  Kinda strange.  I would have taken more pictures, except that it was so dark in there I none of my pictures would come out.

At the very end of Rock City Gardens there was this semi-older water wheel.  You don't see too many of them these days so I took a picture of it.

More to come in, "Adrian Visits Rock City Gardens, Part 4."

Adrian Visits Rock City Gardens, Part 2

I will continue my trip through Rock City Gardens from my previous post.

Next up was something really neat.  Rock City had dual bridges.  Look at the pictures and I'm sure you will understand why.

First up was the Swing-a-long Bridge.  If you remember the bridge at the end of "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," well, it was kind of like that.  But before that they had a nice little pavilion where you could rest.  It was built right into the rock.

More signage.

Here's the view from Swing-a-long Bridge.

Here are some pictures of Swing-a-long Bridge from the side. 

If you don't have the stones to cross Swing-a-long bridge, you can always walk across Stone Bridge.  It's a lot more stable.

Lover's Leap is quite a sight.  It's perfect for picture taking.

Lover's Leap was carved out by High Falls Waterfall.  Again, it's perfect for picture taking.

Here's the view from Lover's Leap.

There's a courtyard up on the top of Lover's Leap.  It's called Seven State Flags Courtyard.  There have been seven flags that have been posted on top of Lookout Mountain over it's lifetime.

For the brave, young, or those with a stronger back than me, there is a climbing wall.

This is one of my favorite pictures that I took.  On the side of the path was a flowerbed of Black Eyed Susans.  Again, I personally think that this is one of the better pictures that I took.

Tortoise Shell Rock.  Again, I wonder how it got its name.

This part of the path is called Fat Man's Squeeze.  Yes, it really is.  I'm kind of glad I lost some weight because I'm not sure I would have fit through otherwise.  It is definately not wheelchair accessable. 

This is the view of Stone Arch Bridge.

More to come in "Adrian Visits Rock City Gardens, Part 3."