Tenderfoot No More

Wolf! It’s way past my bedtime, but I cannot go without a shout out to you. So glad to see you posting here. Quick story about my always in trouble (in a good way) nephew. Once, when approaching a Girl Scout cookie table at the entrance of a grocery store, he asked if the Girl Scout cookies were made with fresh Girl Scouts. Sweet dreams.

Hi Wolf – I’m late to the party, as usual. Scouts was a very memorable time for me as well – I bow to your Tenderfootness, you are the first person I have met who spent more time as a pre-Tenderfoot than I did…

Beans in the fire is a great way to start off Lunch!

One Winter Saturday, a few of us went out for a 5-mile hike. Mind you, in Iowa finding a place to do a 5-mile hike that doesn’t involve cutting through at least 2 farm-yards is a real chore!

At mid-hike, we stopped for lunch and lit a small fire. It was cold, and besides you were allowed to cut down and burn REAL trees back then – none of this stove thing you gotta do now!

Bob, my good buddy, was rummaging through his clothes looking for his knife and found a live .22 cartridge in his jacket pocket. Guns ‘N Ammo are always interesting for kids that age, any age for that matter, and even tho’ we all were good shooters we all had to take a look. So Bob passed the cartridge around the circle so we could each verify that yep – it’s a live .22 shell – and eventually it got back to Bob.

As lunch went on, I got up to pour some water from a canteen into my cup. No drinking from the common canteen – that was something we might have done if girls were around just to gross them out, but amongs’t us guys, with no girls to try to impress with our manliness, we always used our own cups.

So I’m over next to a tree, bent over away from the fire with an open, full canteen of water when Tommy asks, ” Hey Bob – what did you do with that .22 shell?”

Bob casually says, ” Oh, I tossed it in the fire”.

Eyes wide open, 4 boys instantly teleported themselves behind the tree I was standing in front of.

Bent over.

Pouring water from a canteen.

With my butt pointed at the fire…

Before I could even think to set the canteen down, there was a loud POP and a cloud of sparks flew from the fire. I knew that I was dead – no pain, but you know how shock prevents the body from realizing it is in great pain and all that. First-Aid…

Then, I heard the whine of a ricochet from way down the hill and I knew that I had not become “No Entry RF Dude” – meaning that the doctors would have found an exit wound but not an entry wound – and that I would be able to walk home that day.

A story that I told my parents many, MANY years later 😉

Ahh, Wolf – you bring back such sweet memories! Thanks for your story!!!

I made it a bit farther in the Boy Scouts, but it was pretty dysfunctional. I got tired of the arrogance and intolerance pretty fast.

I have to admit that I tried. When I left, I was owed five or six merit badges that I had paid for.

Wolfie! Good to see you my friend. Enjoyed your story. I did the brownies for three years and then feigned attendence and pocketed my dime dues for a few weeks before telling my mom I was done with it.

Wolf, really funny post!! I did the cub scout thing and my mother was one of the “den mothers.” I hated it and quit pretty early on but my mom stuck with it and stayed on. In retrospect it must’ve been really embarrassing for her. Sorry, mom!!! 🙂

Cub scouts, Boy scouts, brownies, campfire girls. As if there weren’t enough rules one had to observe as a child. I did Brownies for a year then I was out. I remember selling little gifts door to door. I realized at that point I couldn’t bullshit too well. So, I guess it was worth something.

I would definitely have been the Girl Scout who’d get her hands caught in the cookie jar! Interesting thing to write about, Wolf. Obviously, it brings up memories for all of us.

I was never in scouts because I thought it was totally lame,

But I dig those girl scout cookies. Love them Samoas.

🙂

One thing I remember from girl scouts was making mock angel food cake in a coffee can over the campfire. It was pretty disgusting.
I was a girl scout for a long time.
My leader, Mrs. Krauszer, took us from Brownies all the way through high school. That’s right. I was a girl scout in high school.
Mrs. Krauszer’s daughter, a classmate of mine, passed away when we were juniors but she continued with our troop. We raised enough money to charter a greyhound bus and tour the US for a month after graduation.
We weren’t completely dorky. We painted a bikini on the greyhound logo and we didn’t look too terrible in our avocado-green uniforms and knee highs. We were from California, after all, and we sported dark tans and hair naturally bleached from the sun. We caused quite the stir when we pulled up to the Juliette Low (founder of the girl scouts) birthplace in Savannah. For some reason they didn’t take too kindly to our “California” ways and it was obvious they wanted us to leave. Well, they didn’t have to ask us twice.
That trip is something I will always remember.
Once our scouting days were FINALLY over, Mrs. Krauszer kept in touch with all of us. She gave us handmade gifts for weddings and baby showers. To this day, my daughter has a tiny dress Mrs. Krauszer smocked and hand-embroidered for her when she was a baby.
My scout leader was a remarkable woman.

I got kicked out of campfire girls. Really. Debbie Hobbs’ mother was our leader. Debbie had the ability to crack me up big time.

Come the father-daughter dance, and our troop (which was Napolean Dynamite-ish in its total lack of skills) was to sing some stupid ass song about being “God’s Little Rainbow” or some other crap.

So Debbie and I had a giggle fest, and after disrupting the other girls, had to go sit down without providing one second of talent to the talent show. My daddy loved me anyways.

Not so much Mrs. Hobbs. The next day, she phoned my mom and suggested that perhaps the Brownies MIGHT be a better match for me.

True story. And thus I became a Brownie/Girl Scout. Also without talent or badges, but at least I had a troop.

Welcome to The Planet Wolf! So happy you’re test-driving.

Somewhere along the line, Wolf, you learned how to be a gentleman. It’s great to see you.

Wolf!! When I was growing up, Scouts was like prep-school for Nixon’s “silent majority”… I doubt much has changed. Must be prep-school for Tea partiers nowadays.

One thing your piece reminds me of, is the stuff I used to do in band camp when I was in high-school. The better (read: more popular as well as talented) musicians would be first- or second-chair in their chosen instrument. I played trumpet in high-school, was lousy at it! Never made it beyond fourth-chair in my trumpet-section. While a completely different scenario from Boy Scouts, I do relate, & feel your pain… 😉

Never had the “lip” to be a good trumpeter… Glad I gave that up & took up the bass. Anyway, great write-up, bro!

Wolf, this brought back a lot of interesting memories.

I grew up next door to an Eagle Scout.

He was my friend all through grade school, but as we moved on to middle school and then high school our paths diverged.

He became an Eagle Scout, he grew into a tall, broad-shouldered, blond, steely-eyed, church-goin’ type who was equally popular with the ladies as he was with the community leaders of our small town.

I was tall.

My one saving grace is that the further he followed that path, the more suspicious of him my parents became, until I was no longer allowed to hang out with him.

LOL they sure were cool. Thanks for the great story.