Gold Winger

"Mosquitoes are attracted to the more odivarous person. Hence it is preffered to use non-perfumed soap OFTEN. And non-perfumed deoderant (not antipersperant)." I thought that mosquitoes weren't attracted to you if you didn't shower and did smell bad.

" Dining halls sound fairly repugnant." It depends on the dining hall. Ive been to camps where all the dining hall did was to provide a place to gobble horrible food. Ive been to camnps where the dining hall is part of the program. A song or skit with every meal. Cheering contests between troops and tables. Even presentation of newly earned rank in front of the entire camp.

HIS discussion may have started that way but MY discusssion started my way. In the real world conversations have many threads.

"Gold Winger, you haven't "explained" my motivation, you don't even know me. You've just made up stuff out of your own imagination. . ." That simple fact that you continue to respond to my comments with " . . . but that ain't true!" is evidence that I'm on the mark. As for WOSM, they aren't the end-all, be-all of Scouting in the world. There are other Scouting organizations such as the Baden-Powell Scouts who are traditional Scouts. Please feel free to form the International Society of Godless Scouts.

My son's AOL/crossover was done by an OA chapter.

Nah, Merlyn I haven't done any namecalling. I just explained your motivation for what you do. You don't seem concerned about other abuses of civil rights, the boy scouts seem to be your special target. Gern, your agreement with Merlyn is irrelvant. You're not a whiney spoiler like he is. As for waving, Goldwingers usually wonder why harley riders don't wave. :-) Also, the 400 lb woman are usually seen on harleys and usually with their shirts pulled up. Now try to sleep with that image in your mind. You can say what you want about Wings it is all the result of envy. For the record I don't have an espresso machine on my wing. I just have a Mr. Coffee and a toaster oven. Mine's the stripped down version of the Wing.

The discussion started because there may not be other options to the switchbacks. Some one stated that the twill trousers will be phased out and no longer available. I may be warm blooded but that walk to my car in 20 degree weather won't be nice in those nylon pants. If BSA eliminates other pants options, it may be the biggest mistake since they took the boy out of scouting in the 70s.

So I'm supposed to wear long johns in my uniform because you like to. Okay, that makes sense. Thanks. For the record, I keep my house at 62 and wear shorts at home.

Merlyn (a name from the cartoons) is a spoiler and spoilers are usually whiney childrent that no one liked. His whiney responses show that I've hit the mark with my comments about his motivations. If we want to talk about more discrimination that Mervy should be fighting. How about government run "senior programs" that discriminate based on age. How about government run "women's programs" that discriminate based on sex. More discrimination? Girls have to be allowed to play baseball but boys aren't allowed to play softball. That's discrimination. Both are cases of actual government money being spent on discriminatory programs. BTW, Im not looking for frogiveness.

Hatmaker and hat stores use steam to shape the hat. If you want it to stay flat, you'll need a hat press. http://www.troop17.org/hatpress.htm My campaign hat doesn't have the flat brim. I shaped it to look like the campaign hats worn by the army in the early 20th century. http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/jpg/36train.jpg

Mervyn says, "really, my mom had nothing to do with it!" Mervyn claims to be concerned about "civil rights" but does he do anything about important issues like the fact that my employer doesn't require women to tuck in their shirts but men have to? No, he doesn't. Mervyn is a spoiler. Other people are having fun and rather than find his own way to have fun, Mervyn will spend all of his time doing his best to make sure that others can't have fun. A classic example of a spoiler would be the talentless boy who always gets picked last for the baseball game so he gets his mommy to call the police and file a complaint that children are playing at the vacant lot on 37th street. That's Mervyn . . . and his mother.

" I know Scouters who wore theirs last winter and they were fine when used with an under layer." So I should wear two layers when I go to troop meetings in December? Sounds silly to me.

"If switchbacks are ever going to be the only pants choice, they'll need to make them so they fit the scouts who aren't rail thin!!" How true. They are a bit generous. My son has the smallest waist they make and they're still too big. I have a waist around a 38 and the large fit me fine. In fact, the medium fit but are bit snug in the seat. Someone needs to explain American sizing to the Chinese.

Looks like I struck a nerve. Your attempts to justify your actions sound far too much like "My mom didn't have anything to do with it!"

For someone who isn't involved in Scouting, Mervyn seems to spend far too much time worry about what the Scouts do. Makes you wonder if he was frightened by a group of Boy Scouts when he was a baby. Other possibilities come to mind. Maybe his mother wouldn't let him join because she was afraid that he'd get dirty while camping.

We flew into Colorado Springs, spent two nights in hotels, rented a van for the drive which sat at Philmont for 10 days, and paid for meals. The cost? $1300 per participant. Careful shopping and some good wheeling and dealing can result in low prices. Was it worth it? For me, yes. It was a grand adventure. Our SM and one ASM are serious hikers and have done things like hike the AT and Grand Canyon and they thought that it was worth it as well. Can you do things own your own that are similar to Philmont? Yes and you ought to do them but, in my mind, Philmont is special.

I can't speak to about Type II but being a Type I diabetic is a game of balance. Activity/food/insulin. I eat just about anything that I want but I've learned to adjust my insulin doses to compensate for food and activity. At Philmont I just ate whatever was served but I did hoard my cookies to treat lows because I ran out of Life Savers. The key was frequent testing. I was testing six or seven times a day. Two units here, two units there. A couple cookies here, a couple cookies there. I was good. Philmont recommends that you keep your rescue candy in your boot with a sock over it. Bears don't like the smell of socks and will leave you alone. For just about everything but hiking, a low carb diet works best for me. I eat the chili but not the cornbread. I eat the burger but not the bun. Climbing a 700 foot high hill with a 50 lb pack takes a lot of energy and carbs are needed.

You can cook/bake just about anything in a dutch oven that you can cook/bake in a regular oven.

I didn't skewer anyone, I just wondered why you'd use an aluminum dutch oven. As for foil dinners, I use titanium foil. No concerns about alzheimers with titanium. :-) BTW, according to Lodge, one of the big cast iron cookware companies, after a pan is well seasoned, it can be washed with dish detergent and water. You don't want to soak it with detergent overnight but washing is okay. Most of my cooking is done with cast iron. I have chili pots, skillets, chicken fryers, griddles, and corn bread pans. On the rare ocassions that I have to re-season a pan, I use whatever oil is cheapest. It all is turning into a nice black coating so flavor and quality of the oil doesn't matter. I wish my son's troop would do more interesting cooking. Left to their own devices, the boys would live on mac and cheese. The funny thing is that they see that the adults are having grilled pork chops with corn on the cob and they cry, "You're lucky! You get good food!" Hey guys, you chose the menu and when cooking is brought up the common cry is "that's too much trouble!"

If they don't want the Cubs kneeling on the zippers, they should have made the shorts shorter. Whey you kneel, your pants ride up which may well put the zipper at the knee. I do like their fabrice choice better than for the Boy Scout version. I'm really not looking forward to a cold winter in Nylon pants. I really don't like their choice of manufacturer. China Incorporated. Ultra short shorts. The good old days. I used to wear rugby shorts when I was a young man.

"What the heck, the BSA uses the terms epaulets when they are really shoulder straps (epaulets are the fringe things that are held on by shoulder straps.)" The fashion world calls them epaulettes. Epaulette is French for "little shoulder" and generally refers to any strap or strap-like item on the shoulder. Naval officers don't wear epaulettes on their whites, those are "shoulder boards."

At the risk of starting an argument, would you object to buying a baseball uniform that he's only wear for one season? "The shorts are supposed to come past the knee" Huh? Why? Is the next move "Scout Boxers" that will poke out from above the waist band?

"Cargo pocket -invented by the military to carry claymore mines." Not so. The US paratroopers had cargo pockets in WW II, claymore weren't developed until the 50's and not adopted until 1960. As for other parts of this thread, just like the military the Boy Scout have a dress uniform (oddly we call it a field uniform) and multiple uniforms for outdoor wear. My son's troop has a troop t-shirt, troop sweatshirt and troop jacket. " Boys recognize their own troop-mates and patrol-mates without a uniform." Using this argument, there is no need for a basketball team to wear a uniform. "If so, then we need to have a uniform that the kids are proud to wear in public." The style of the uniform is irrelevant, the Scout needs to be proud of being a Scout. It is cool to play soccer but it ins't cool to be a Scout so wearing the uniform is uncool. In olden days, the Scout Uniform was a rugged piece of clothing that could stand up to camping and other outdoor activities. Also, boys back then didn't have closets and drawers filled with clothes upon clothes so having a special outfit made sense so you wouldn't ruin your school clothes. It would be nice to go back to the durable uniform of olden days. One that could survive camping and rock climbing. As for helping out wherever, why whould I wear a sheriff's jacket? I'm not a deputy. I could throw an orange vest on over my uniform but the uniform would still identify what group I'm with. As for Bevah's disdain for "spit and polish," I'm always spit and polish. I wear my pants up where they belong, my underwear doesn't show, my shoes are clean and shined. My pants are pressed as are my shirts. If I dress that way normally, why wouldn't I in my Scouter uniform?

Oscar de la Renta designed the current uniform to be worn without a neckerchief, that's why it just doens't work with it. The neckerchief was added as an optional item to satisfy traditionalists. I find it interesting that in the old Scout handbooks it says that if you haven't bought a uniform yet that you wear your neckerchief with regular clothes. Now the uniform guide says the neckerchief is only to be worn with the field uniform. I wear a neckerchief when hiking. Not a BSA necker but a big triangle of cotton cloth. It absorbs sweats, can be a hat, cleans my glasses, etc.. Leave the neckerchief as cotton no poly-cotton, it irons nicely and is absorbant. Poly-cotton doesn't absorb squat. If you made it from knitted poly-razmataz, they'd look like junk and would be useless as a bandage. The neckerchief should be allowed with troop shirts or the activity shirt. It could identify units and would serve all of the useful purposes that BP said it would.

I have a poly-wool shirt that I found (new with tag) on ebay for less than a poly-cotton one would be at the Scout Shop. Strangely, it's sleeves are shorter than either my cotton or poly-shirts. It does look nice but is very light weight. The poly wool pants are supposed to fit better than the cargo pocket pants. Someday, I may order a pair.