Idiot Scoutmasters: No Pizza For You!

You can't spend almost 13 years in any organization without a few wild and crazy stories.  During that time you are also going to catch people on a bad day.  However, some Scoutmasters always seemed to be having a bad day.  Due to all the time I spent in the Boy Scouts of America I have managed to write quite a few stories in my "Idiot Scoutmaster" series.

What makes this story so strange is I think my patrol just happened to catch our Scoutmaster, Mr. Brasher, at a bad moment.  I'm sure something had to have happened to him earlier in the day to put him in a foul mood.  What's funny, is that, I wasn't even the one who was:

A:  Being a pain.
B.  Running my mouth.
C.  Trying to get his attention.
D.  Or even talking in general.

The conversation started with two of my Patrol members, Mark and Brian.  They were top notch quality human beings.  Eventually, they both ended up earning their Eagle Scout rank.  This was back before they changed the rules and made it much easier to do so.

We were talking about our upcoming campout, and what we should cook.  We had gotten into a bit of a rut.  You know, sandwiches and hot dogs.  Brian brought up the question of if we could actually make a pizza outdoors?  The flour didn't need refrigerated.  We could carry a stick of pepperoni as well as vegetables.

The only question Brian had was how to keep cheese from spoiling.  Mark brought up that we could carry a can a parmesan cheese since that didn't need to be refrigerated.  Brian immediately thought, "Oh yeah!  That's a great idea!"  He couldn't believe that he hadn't thought of it.

It was at that time that Mr. Brasher came out of nowhere, and laid down the law.  "We're not cooking pizza out camping!"  I have to admit I was completely caught off guard.  I said, "But we have the grill that we use for hot dogs.  Couldn't we just set the pizza pan on top of it?"

Again came the stern and final decision.  "We're not cooking pizza on a campout!"

I have no idea what set Mr. Brasher off.  I mean, our patrol was just spit-balling ideas when he came in with the drill sergeant routine.  What made him so angry about pizza.  Had he never heard of wood-fired pizza?

Was he afraid our pizza would turn out ugly?

I want to reiterate that I've been in troops with Boy Scouts who didn't act like Boy Scouts.  But Mark and Brian were some of the best troop members I've ever come across.  They really were model Eagle Scouts.

I think back to the words of wisdom from my Father.  "I don't know why you stayed (in the Boy Scouts) as long as you did?"  Maybe I was gathering material for all this writing gold?  No, that's not it.  But if art is suffering, then I suffered during quite a few backpacking death marches.  So now I don't feel one bit terrible about writing my "Idiot Scoutmaster" series.

For more great reading of my Idiot Scoutmaster series, follow these wonderful links:

Idiot Scoutmasters: I'm The Idiot Scoutmaster! 

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2020/03/idiot-scoutmasters-im-idiot-scoutmaster.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Idiot Committee

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/12/idiot-scoutmasters-idiot-committee.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Dishwashing Paradox

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/02/idiot-scoutmasters-dishwashing-paradox.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: Once Bitten, Forever Stupid

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2019/01/idiot-scoutmasters-once-bitten-forever.html

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

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2018/09/idiot-scoutmasters-true-story-of-scouts.html

Bored Scoutmasters and the Tale of the Wampus

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2014/07/bored-scoutmasters-and-tale-of-wampus.html

Adrian reminisces about his childhood days with the Boy Scouts

https://angjellockheart.blogspot.com/2011/02/adrian-reminisces-about-his-childhood.html

Idiot Scoutmasters: The Dishwashing Paradox

This post is a continuation of my "Idiot Scoutmaster" series.  I spent a long time in the Boy Scouts of America, and dealt with a lot of idiot Scoutmasters.  Admittedly, they were volunteers and not professionals, but I still question a lot of their so-called logic to this day.

The Boy Scouts of America have a certain way to wash dishes.  It's actually a very good method.  Basically it goes like this.  You have three tubs.

The first tub is the hot water and soap tub.  This is not really any different than washing dishes at home.  You have hot water, soap, and a brush/rag.  Again, just like washing dishes at home.

The second tub is a cold water and bleach solution tub.  This is known as the cold rinse pot/tub.  So just in case the hot water and soap wasn't enough the bleach in the second tub will kill everything.

This leads to the third tub.  This is just hot water for rinsing.  Hence the name, rinse pot/tub.  The clear hot water will clean off any bleach that is remaining.  After that, hand dry and put away the dishes.  Easy right?

Well my Scoutmaster Mr. Brasher had other ideas about dishwashing.  We only used two pots since that's all that would fit on the Coleman stove.  But Mr. Brasher had a secret to dishwashing.  Let it be known that I am quoting him exactly.

"You want the dish water to be so hot that you can't touch it three times."

This, of course, lead me to the thought, "Well, how can I wash the dishes if I can't actually touch them?"  And when I say he wanted the water hot I mean like this.

I honestly saw him do this weird quick move with his finger three times in the hot water.  He would then say, it wasn't hot enough.  I looked at him like the idiot he was.  He had what looked like a trigger-finger move for quickly touching the hot water three times quickly.  He kept doing it about every minute until his finger was burned enough that he couldn't stick it back in the water.

Seriously, it hurts to even remember this.  I know what you're thinking, "Well Boy Scout, why didn't you let the dishes soak for ten minutes before you attempted to wash them?"  I have an answer you might not have thought about.

You see, I am in Florida.  I've put a thermometer in the sun during the Florida summertime.  It hit 130 degrees F. in the sun.  So think about this.  Boiling water is 212 F.  The temperature in Florida is 95 F. in the shade, and 130 F. in the sun.  So just how long will it take for the temperature of a boiling pot of water to come down to manageable levels?

Let me tell you the answer.  It doesn't.  It doesn't come down to manageable levels.  No matter how long you wait it will still burn your hands.

Since the first pot is so blasted hot Mr. Brasher figured we didn't need a second bleach tub.  So the dishes would go from the first pot (boiling water and soap), to a second pot that was just... you guessed it... more boiling water.

I'll admit, the dishes were clean, but it took us Scouts an hour to wash dishes.  And remember, we'd have to do this three times a day.  Honestly, we spent most of our time just cooking and then washing dishes on campouts.  Literally six hours a day was devoted to just cooking and washing dishes.

Now maybe that's not a bad thing.  I do cook well, and I've never had complaints about my dish washing.  So I do have to thank Scouting for that.  But I will say this.  When I wash dishes I make sure NOT to use boiling water.  Hot?  Yes.  Boiling?  No.

For more of my interesting Scouting stories follow these links:

Idiot Scoutmasters: Once Bitten, Forever Stupid

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

Bored Scoutmasters and the Tale of the Wampus

Adrian reminisces about his childhood days with the Boy Scouts

Idiot Scoutmasters: Once Bitten, Forever Stupid

Last year I decided I would write blog posts about stupid things my Scoutmasters had done while I was in the Boy Scouts of America.  This is my second article.

Here is the first:

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


My story again revolves around my Scoutmaster, Mr. Brasher.  Needless to say, he had a alternative way of teaching us boys.  When it came to First Aid, he had a belief that immersion was a better teacher than learning by the book or from a teacher.

We were at some sort of camping event with other troops.  We would go to one station, and learn First Aid.  We would then go to another station, and study something else.  Well, it was a few hours after we had learned First Aid, and we were being instructed about another subject.

Out of nowhere I saw Mr. Brasher screaming like he was in pain, as he started running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  It was then I heard him scream, "It bit me!  It bit me!"

I thought, "He's just been bit by a snake!!!"  It only took 0.02 seconds later for me to realize that he was acting like he had just been bitten by a snake to see what we would do.  Still, this kind of behavior had become normalized to me.  I was the first one to run up, and yell at him to, "stay calm!"
A few hours earlier at our First Aid class we had learned the importance of keeping a snake bit victim calm.  We were told to tackle the person if needed.  Anything to keep them from running around, and increasing their heartrate.

As a twelve year old I was proud that I was the first one to grab him, and yell at him to keep calm.  You know, he actually kept up the act yelling back at me that, "He was bit by a snake!  It bit me!  It bit me here!"  But now that I think back on the incident, it's weird how normalized that sort of behavior became to me.  But then again, I was only twelve.

The real kicker was that Mr. Brasher actually had a snake.  A rubber snake.  He had brought a rubber snake along on the camping trip just to pull off that stunt.  That's the kind of mindset I had to deal with.

Bored Scoutmasters and the Tale of the Wampus

As I have written before, I was a member of the Boy Scouts of America for roughly 12 1/2 years.  That's counting the years I was a Cub Scout, Webelo, Boy Scout, Assistant Scoutmaster, and employee at Philmont Scout Ranch.  So when I write about my time with the BSA, I can remember it anywhere from being an eight year old kid to an adult leader.

The BSA like any organization is going to get it's good and bad people, whether they are kids or adults.  Looking back, I know there were a few things I shouldn't have done that made life hell for my Scoutmasters.  And likewise it was paid back to me by a few snot nosed brats that needed a good paddling. 

Believe me, they don't all look like this:

The problem with being a Scoutmaster is that you are either bored to death while the Scouts are off doing their thing, or are inundated by 20 to 30 youths with too much energy.  So, it comes to the point where payback stops being a bitch and starts being a demonic force that will scare the pants off of any camper.  Case in point:  The Wampus. 

Now I live down in Florida and when it comes to the woods it means lots of wild hogs.  I have actually run into a pack of them while out on a trail with the rest of my troop.  They are big scary looking things that have a bad attitude.

I remember being told to take safety precautions around camp.  Always use the buddy system.  Make sure trash is in it's place.  Don't go off the beaten path.  Why?  Because of the wampus.  That's right, it was an animal that was off the wild pig line, but had broader shoulders like a bear, and bear like claws.  It also made a lot of noise, and squealed.  It liked to eat Scouts, so make sure to mind your Scoutmasters. 

Really, before South Park came out with Manbearpig, there was the wampus.

Really, it was a great scare tactic for bored Scoutmasters. 

But here's a fun fact.  What does a wampus sound like?  Well, it sounds a lot like a ghost howler.

http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-a-Ghost-Howler/

I preferred using the metal baked bean cans, but they have a good overall method.  And why not make good use of them?  Those little bastards have driven me to drink before.  And I don't even drink.

But back to the point.  The wampus.  It turns out however we were wrong all along.  I searched google, and found out a few things.

Wampus cat

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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A cougar

The Wampus cat is a creature in American folklore, variously described as some kind of fearsome variation on a cougar.

Oops.  It turns out the tale of the wampus kind of got twisted by the time it got to our ears.  Here's the Wikipedia description:

Description[edit]

The wampus cat is often compared to the Ewah of Cherokee mythology, in that it was a woman who disguised herself in the skin of a cougar to spy on the men of the tribe, as they sat around the campfire with their wolf brothers, and told sacred stories on a hunting trip. When the woman was discovered, the tribe's medicine man punished her by transforming her into a half-woman, half-cat, who supposedly still haunts the forests of East Tennessee.^[1] In folklore, it can be seen as one of a number of fearsome critters. In some sections of rural East Tennessee, the legend of the Wampus Cat takes on a more sinister tone. It is said that the Wampus Cat is a spirit of death and the earth, and when her cry is heard, it means someone is going to die and be buried within the next three days.

So that's my tale.  The truth is once the kids get to be Boy Scouts it gets to be a little harder to scare them.  However, it's the Cub Scouts, Webelos, and first years Boy Scouts that you can really scare.  I recommend it to bored and angry Scoutmasters.  It's just a heck of a lot of fun.  I'm sure all the campers will find it funny after years of therapy.