January - February 2003
Edited by Jon C. Halter
Illustration by Bill Basso
Teflon? What's Teflon?
I was a Scout in the mid-1960's, and on one camp-out, I was assigned to dishwashing duty. A frying pan looked horrible. It had a brown, caked, burnt residue over the entire inside. Taking my duty seriously, I scoured and scoured with steel wool and sand, until the surface literally shined.
Unfortunately, I had never seen a Teflon-coated pan before and had scraped away the entire nonstick surface, down to the bare metal.
Our Scoutmaster, who owned the frying pan, looked at his now bright cookware and sighed. I did not realize until later what I had done to his new cooking gadget.
Michael L. Goodnight
Neenah, Wis.
What, no cookies?
At my first camporee after joining the Boy Scouts in the spring of 1937, I was assigned to make oatmeal for Saturday breakfast. My verbal instructions were to get a gallon of water boiling and put in the oatmeal, stirring as I went.
But I had not read the printed instructions, and dumped the entire container of oatmeal into the boiling water. As I stirred, the mixture grew and grew.
Luckily, I had another gallon of water boiling, so I divided the oatmeal between the two pots and added more water to each.
We had oatmeal for breakfast, oatmeal for lunch, and oatmeal patties for supper.
However, on Sunday we went without oatmeal.
Arthur J. Arseneault Jr.
Chartered Organization Representative, Pack 585
Knoxville, Tenn.
Hitch solves glitch (in setting up tents)
As senior officer of my Army Reserve unit in Corlu, Turkey, during the mobilization for Operation Desert Storm in 1991, I supervised raising the tents for our soldiers' use.
One of my sergeants reported that a number of tents could not be raised because their ropes lacked the little wooden handles that facilitated tightening the lines and eliminated the need to tie any knots.
I quickly held a brief training session and showed my crew how to tie a taut-line hitch, the standard knot for adjusting tent lines. None of the soldiers had ever seen the hitch before, and they asked where I had learned it.
I told them it was all part of basic training—for Boy Scouts! A skill I had once taught my first-year Scouts, I was now teaching to my soldiers. Be prepared!
Lt. Col. Gary Ford, U.S. Army (Ret.)
Assistant Scoutmaster, Troop 214
Liberty, Mo.
Scout uniforms send a message
On our way to Philmont Scout Ranch two years ago, the 27 Scouts and leaders in our troop wore their full Scout uniforms. When bad weather interrupted our flight, we ended up at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, trying to get on a continuing flight to New Mexico.
We stood out in the crowd as we gathered in a busy area in the terminal to evaluate our options. The line for information promised a wait of four hours, so we decided to take turns standing in line.
After I had waited in line about five minutes, an information clerk walked up to me and said that her husband was a Scoutmaster and she knew and appreciated the sacrifices adult leaders make for Scouts.
She asked me to follow her to her desk, where she promptly got our information straightened out and our tickets secured on another flight.
Thanks to the Scout uniform, we made it to Philmont on schedule.
Kent M. Marks
Scoutmaster, Troop 56
Painesville, Ohio
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