The Arrow of Light Is Rather Dim

The Boy Scouts in America turned 100 years old yesterday! Did you forget to buy it a card?

Wired ran an article — about as long as a scouting handbook — on the organization's centennial and wonders whether it's still relevant, despite the popularity of great-outdoors shows like Man vs. Wild and Survivorman. These days it seems being an Eagle Scout means little unless you commit a heinous crime, and "former Eagle Scout" fills the role or observational irony in the news story — that is, if "former altar boy" doesn't apply.

Though I was a Cub Scout and a member of a Webelos troop, I can't say I'd push Jackson into it. (I can't speak for Sasha becoming a Brownie, either.) When I was a scout, however, I was a proud member. For a couple of class pictures, I wore my uniform, which I felt was the dressiest thing I owned, and I took pride in the badges and beads and patches on my dark blue shirt. One day each week my troop or whatever it was called would gather at our den mother's house and do some kind of craft, usually involving papier-mâché, and one Friday night each month we'd hook up with the other troops in our "pack" for a ceremony in the elementary school cafeteria.

(The night would conclude by returning home to watch The Incredible Hulk and The Dukes of Hazzard. Friday nights would get no better than this until I was 17 years old.)

Eventually, after receiving my Bear badge, I became one of the Webelos, whose troop was run by the dad of one of my brother's friends. Webelos meetings meant Wiffle ball in the gym, a short break to discuss badges and pins, followed by more Wiffle ball. Once my brother and his contemporaries outgrew Webelos, the dads of two of my classmates took over. Instead of meeting in the gym, we reported to the cafeteria and for the entire session we were lectured to about actual scouting stuff, and I quit soon afterward. At this point, the uniform started to feel kinda lame, anyway.

If Jackson wants to join, and some of his friends are scouts, I'd probably consider it — maybe I'd be a "den dad" or something, even — but I'm not going to push him into it.

Wired mentions the one president who was an Eagle Scout. Considering it was Gerald Ford, I guess that means an Eagle Scout can do just about anything. Read more...