Scouting In Days Of Yore

[Subdeacon Joe]

@Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967

 

Did you teach this?

 

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

Nope.  

 

            

 

             

Edited February 17 by Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967

[Cholla]

That stuff was gone long ago. I joined in the 1970s, just after the change to what was then the modern curriculum and uniforms. My friend was still able to follow the old track, which had all the skills I wanted to learn, like tracking, camp craft, etc. I had to learn all the modern social skills and wear that goofy red beret.

[Trailrider #896]

Robin and Little John?

[Cholla]

Way back when I was a wee lad my mom found a series of books about the adventures of a troop of Boy Scouts. They were from the first half of the 1900s and much like the Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott books. Good books but nothing like what scouting was like in the 70s and later. 

[Rip Snorter]

Check out Selous Scouts and the relationship.

[Alpo]

15 minutes ago, Cholla said:

Way back when I was a wee lad my mom found a series of books about the adventures of a troop of Boy Scouts

Might be these.

 

https://www.goodreads.com/series/54624-the-boy-scouts

 

12 books published from 1913 to 1917. Start off with some kids just starting a troop, and the last one takes place in France during World War 1.

[Cholla]

8 minutes ago, Alpo said:

Might be these.

 

https://www.goodreads.com/series/54624-the-boy-scouts

 

12 books published from 1913 to 1917. Start off with some kids just starting a troop, and the last one takes place in France during World War 1.

The one cover looks like what I remember. We also had The Radio Boys, which made me want to become a HAM radio operator. I built my own crystal radio (and won the school science fair) by following the directions in one of the books. However, I failed at winding my own coil and had to buy a pre-made coil at Radio Shack. I never did get a HAM radio when I started thinking about the outcome. Did I really want to spend night talking to old men around the world just to exchange call cards? The more I got into cars and girls, the less the idea had appeal.

[Alpo]

I've got the entire series, although I've only read the first one.

 

It's 1912. Boy scouts just came to America in 1911, so nobody in this town really knows anything about it. And this kid moves in from another town, where he had been a scout. So they form a troop and he's the senior patrol leader, and they're going on their very first camp out.

 

And everybody puts on their pajamas. Now that seemed kind of strange to me. In all my years of scouting I never saw anybody wearing pajamas. But they put on their pajamas, except for the rich man's son. He put on a night shirt. And they teased him about it. But one guy had brought a spare pair of pajamas and loaned them to him, and the experienced Scout told him that you do not bring a night shirt on a camping trip.

 

Although they did not ever say so specifically, I think one of the scouts was black. Because everyone else talked normal English and he kind of talked like Stepin Fetchit - real heavy Southern drawl/dialect.

[Cholla]

Yes, my mom bought books so I could read about growing up in the early 1900s, only to find out the world wasn't like that anymore: hippies ruled the streets, girls wore miniskirts, and guys who wanted to be HAM radio operators were absolutely not cool.

[Hardpan Curmudgeon SASS #8967]

57 minutes ago, Alpo said:

 

It's 1912. Boy scouts just came to America in 1911, so nobody in this town really knows anything about it. And this kid moves in from another town, where he had been a scout. So they form a troop and he's the senior patrol leader, and they're going on their very first camp out.

 

 

Uh... 1910.  

[Alpo]

I thought all good stuff happened in February of 1911.

[Subdeacon Joe]

Unfortunately for me, almost all the men around who were Scoutmasters and other leaders were USMC vets of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam.  Some were still in.  They treated it as a "Boot Camp Lite."  Really big on strict discipline,  not so much on leadership and teaching. I guess more of a Hollywood parody of Boot Camp because Boot Camp does a lot of teaching along with the strict discipline. 

[watab kid]

i was a scout in the late 50s and early 60s , we weren't trained with a pike nor a bayonet , we did walk with the staffs when we hiked tho 

[Chickasaw Bill SASS #70001]

reckon , it would be considered too violent to teach in todays world 

 

CB