Beavah

In 1984, American breadwinners who were sixty-five and over made ten times as much as those under thirty-five. The year Obama took office, older Americans made almost forty-seven times as much as the younger generation. I think this kind of shift yeh can't attribute just to some kids not working hard enough. And we have to admit that both social security and medicare are among the largest intergenerational wealth transfers around. That's not free market, packsaddle. That's our generation usin' the mechanisms of power to vote ourselves largesse at the expense of the young. Da notion that young folks aren't capable (and that therefore us old folks have to control 'em and tell 'em what to do) is part and parcel with the prevailing trend. Beavah

Yah, as I was thinkin' about the other issue with the supposed neurological development of teens and young adults, I came across this piece: http://www.esquire.com/features/young-people-in-the-recession-0412?hootPostID=5f6f984b7be4ad7b0db41c62d0de5b0d While there are aspects of it that are badly slanted to the left, it captures with some data and reflection some of the sense that I've been feelin' for some time now. In law and society we have been buildin' up a culture of discriminatin' against young people. In many ways like all such stuff it comes from the majority wanting to protect and enhance its privileges, and the majority in our nation is gettin' older every year. Like all such stuff, folks try to find ways of justifyin' it, and most of da folks who are involved don't even recognize what they're doin' or the harm they're causing. In Scoutin' we have a whole mess of us old fellows (and ladies!) who actually care a lot about young people, and see 'em every day. So we're the most likely in our generation to stand up for the young. I'm curious what yeh all think. Beavah

Yah, no problem with the back to back posts, eh? And no problem with not understandin' me. Yeh won't be the first. I talk with a funny accent. I spun off the bit about teenage neuroscience since it seemed like an interestin' separate topic that other folks might want to jump in on, so my thoughts on it are over there. I reckon that's the big difference in terms of viewin' water or other outings, eh? If yeh begin with the assumption that poor judgment is biologically inherent in young people, then that will determine a lot of the way yeh think about and treat young people. For example, you assume that impulse control is somethin' that yeh can't manage through instruction, discipline, mentoring and youth leadership. I disagree. I have never had any problems at all with youth impulse control in water sports in many decades of doin' an awful lot of paddlin' and sailing with kids. Leastways, no more than adults on a per-person basis. At best guess, the per-person incident and injury rate for adults has been higher than for youth. I think what yeh might be mistaking for poor impulse control is actually just the normal process of trying to learn. Young people are willing to try things more readily, and make mistakes, where adults are not. Is it poor impulse control for a young lad to try a new snowboard move and crash? Or is tryin' new moves and crashing an essential part of learning? How many adults do yeh know who do the sort of snowboard aerials that kids can do? I still remember way back when we used to hunt wooly mammoths and I was a young lad drivin' with my dad. I did a "boneheaded" move and turned left in front of oncoming traffic. Near miss, no bent metal, thanks mostly to the other driver. Now yeh could say that I lacked impulse control and just suddenly turned left, which I'm sure is what it looked like. And yeh could say that I had sat for a lecture-demo on left turns in drivers ed, as I'm sure I had. But da truth of the matter is that I hadn't learned from the lecture when and how to apply da rules, and it wasn't impulsive at all - I just didn't yet know where and what to look for in that circumstance. I'd been drivin' for a while, but hadn't yet encountered the busy intersection with a truck in the opposite left turn lane partly obscurin' fast-moving through traffic. My brain hadn't yet learned which signals to prioritize, and I wasn't lookin' in the right place. In fact, if yeh did an fMRI study, I'm sure yeh would have found different signals goin' on compared with an experienced driver. The point, though, is that had nuthin' to do with age, and everything to do with experience. The issue isn't 16 year old drivers, it's drivers in their first year of driving experience. In fact, in areas like college towns where yeh get older inexperienced international drivers people tell me they're worse than the 16 year olds. It also had nuthin' to do with what I was taught/lectured, it had to do with being taught is not the same thing as having learned. Learning requires that the learner be able to do and perform, not sit and watch. And if yeh did an fMRI study of an adult novice snowboarder vs. one of these teenage young upstarts, you'd find very much more well developed neural responses and structures in the teen, eh? Because real learning changes the brain, not vice versa. So I believe "impulse control" is an instructional and discipline issue, and that if yeh address it with better instruction and learning you will find that the problem will go away. Young people can and do manage non-swimmers on river trips safely and reliably all the time. Beavah

Yah, so in the parent thread a new forum member brings up the notion that has become popular of late that adolescents and teens are, for neurological/developmental reasons somehow fundamentally incapable of judgement, impulse control, or other higher-order processing. The implication whenever this gets brought up is that adults have to take care of these young people into their mid-twenties, because they are by virtue of biology incapable of exercising good judgment on their own. I am obviously on one side of this argument, because I think this notion is complete balderdash, but it's an interestin' and important topic for those of us who work with kids in an outdoor environment where judgment is important, and learning judgment is important. If yeh look at this, this popular press notion that everyone keeps repeatin' comes out of a few very small-scale fMRI studies on selected population, and is purely speculative on the part of the researchers in those papers. But da popular press does what sells copy, and this speculation became a titillating finding. That it flies in the face of decades of cognitive science research is ignored. That it is contradicted by cross-cultural behavioral studies is ignored. That to my mind is the hallmark of a prejudice, eh? Yeh take isolated, small out of context study speculation as "fact" and ignore a mountain of data that says otherwise. As an old fart in an aging population that has increasingly chosen not to have kids, I think one of da worst prejudices we have developed is our prejudice against young people. Traditional scouting is counter-cultural in that way, and therefore practices like youth leadership and patrol method are under assault. Youth can't be trusted to lead or be on their own with their patrol because their biology isn't adequate. We of course have seen those kind of claims in uglier ways involvin' race and gender as well over the years, and I personally don't see these as bein' any different. We had this discussion recently about how young adult ASMs should be viewed with suspicion: http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=331624&p=1 which raised similar issues. There I pointed to a good, readable article that I felt addressed the science: Scientific American Article That's my view, but I reckon it's a good thing to discuss, because a belief that teens are incapable really does have profound impacts on how we view patrol method and youth leadership in Scouting. Beavah

At least once a week on the news you hear about how somebody was robbed, beat up, or killed by "several " people with the same colors as each other. Yah, I think this is the principle source of our national neuroses, eh? Most people think that because something is prevalent on the news that it's prevalent in real life. I remember many years ago, when I broke down laughin' at a news report that had gone and found out a bush plane somewhere in East Africa had crash landed. I guess they couldn't find any other plane crash that week, so they had to fill the "plane crash" segment of the evening newstertainment from somewhere. But if yeh just watched the news uncritically, yeh would believe that planes are dangerous because they're crashing every week. Same with school shootings and school violence, eh? People are terrified about it now. "Lockdowns" have become part of school culture for kids. Fact is though, there is less school violence and fewer school shootings than 30 years ago. The difference is that now when one happens it gets carried on the news nationwide. And if there hasn't been a good racially or religiously-tinged shootin' this week in da U.S., we'll go find one in France. So yep, it is prejudiced to believe that white NASCAR lovers would harass someone. I know lots of those folks, and they'd be more likely to step up and defend a fellow. And I don't worry about being in "black" neighborhoods. They aren't suspicious, they aren't gang-lovers, they're just fellow Americans. But I'm not naive, eh? I grew up at a time when discrimination was more common, and I recognize the occasional latent racism in myself. It happens sometimes for all of us who are my age. Maybe a group of young black men, maybe gravitatin' toward older white folk at a party or function. The key is not to accept it as justified but to fight it in ourselves and others. When I catch myself, I go out of my way to change my behavior and just go meet and talk to the person. Like all personal ethics, yeh have to work at it, and yeh have to step up and help other people to work on it too. That way maybe, just maybe, it will be a sad legacy that dies with us and isn't passed along to our kids and grandkids. One of the ways we do that is by not excusing the actions of George Zimmerman. A fellow who pursues, corners, harasses, and ultimately shoots an unarmed youngster has no excuse. That could have been any of our children, any one of our scouts, out walking while wearing "suspicious" clothing. If we cannot defend each other's innocent, unarmed children with one voice in this country, then it's time God did away with the lot of us, leavin' a mighty pillar of salt as a warning to humanity of the wicked folk who betrayed the promise of this great land. Beavah

Yah, with only 2 patrols, I'm not sure yeh need an SPL, eh? How hard is it for two people to coordinate with each other? If the do-nothing SPL and the active ASPL were both Patrol Leaders, the difference between the performance of the two patrols would become obvious to everyone and the first patrol would make a change (or the Patrol Leader would get with it... lots easier to be competitive than it is to be "talked to" by lots of adults). I also agree with jblake. The SPL is a coordination role, and the people who are in the best position to evaluate a boy for taking on such a role are his fellows on the PLC, who have seen how well he has organized and coordinated and know what it takes. Havin' the random general scout pick often doesn't work out very well. If the boy is from another patrol, how's a first- or second-year lad supposed to make an informed decision? How good a speech he gives? No need for an SPL until yeh get to 3 or 4 patrols. Beavah

I do know that if you go into a predominantly black area, "some" of those people will give me grief and cause trouble because there are those who are the bad aples of the group. Yah, hmmm.... Yeh know, I think this is the definition of modern racism. I know that's hard to take, but I reckon the lesson of Tayvon Martin is that we all slip into racism and racial stereotyping in ways that are genuinely unfair and harmful to others. I've traveled on foot, at night, as an old white fellow in predominantly black urban areas and nobody has ever been anything but friendly and helpful. The notion that a neighborhood will be unfriendly because of the race of the folks who live there is racist. And that is the lesson here, eh? Relatively upstanding citizens who start to distrust folks because of their age, gender, and skin color can lead to us not treatin' people as the Scout Law requires, and that hurts people and communities. In this case, it resulted in the death of a fine young man who was only walking to the corner store to buy a snack. But even without that sort of hideous outcome, this prejudice leads to distrust and harms the community. Black parents should not have to go out of their way to tell their sons to watch out for and behave differently around white people, because we're suspicious, discourteous jerks that may harm their kids. Beavah

Yah, sorry scout_father, I'm afraid yeh got the neurology research wrong, eh? That's the problem with the popular press reportin' on science. It's funny to me that so many of us older folks bought this nonsense. Just goes to show our own prejudice. What real cognitive and neroscientists have told me the science actually shows is that learning actually causes changes in the brain, and that young people are better learners than us old folks. After certain ages, some parts of the brain get more "fixed", and it becomes harder to learn. For learning a foreign language, that happens pretty early on. For learning judgment and some higher order things, the brain doesn't get "fixed" until the mid-20s. So if yeh haven't learned some things by then, it becomes hard to learn. That doesn't mean that kids can't learn that stuff fairly early on. In fact, in many other cultures around the world (and in the US a century ago), adolescent boys are considered full adults, and they do not exhibit the same behaviors that kids in the US do. They are trusted to hunt and run farm machinery and apprentice in trades and every other variety of thing where they're just fine at impulse control. Da notion that kids lack impulse control is an excuse we've developed for our poor parenting and teaching. If it's biological then it's not our fault, and we can keep right on with what we're doin' or even make it worse, rather than confront the consequences for kids of our own choices. A lad who can drive a car at 16 is certainly capable of operating a canoe at 14, and personally I just haven't had the issues that scout_father describes. We use youth as assistant Canoeing MB counselors and lifeguards and whatnot at camps across the country. Beavah

Yah, hmmm... Just sharing perspectives, eh? Always good to hear feedback and think about things. I guess my experience is just different than scout-father's, eh? I've never had any trouble at all with older boys with lifesaving skills takin' care of younger fellows and non-swimmers on the water. Yeh remember this was just fine and even encouraged in the BSA for most of its history. Honestly, a lad who has been with a troop for many years doin' trips is far more reliable in my experience than adults who are new or only occasional participants. Bone-headed moves are evenly distributed between adults and youth, and are based on experience, eh? I know I've made more than a few over the years, even with experience. Eagle92 is quite right in his observations as well. But da bigger issue is still the discipline one, for both youth and adult participants. I guess if I felt the discipline issue was such where I had to put a nonswimmer in my own canoe, I also wouldn't be willin' to take the rest of mixed-bag "swimmers" down the river. I'd want to correct the behavior issue first. So maybe it's that I trust the lads more, or maybe it's that my expectations of their behavior is higher, or both. The latter would make me uncomfortable from a safety perspective, the former from a scouting one. Just MHO, somethin' to think about. If yeh read some of the historical threads, you'll find that I agree with yeh completely on the merits of EDGE. There are all kinds of other ways to think about teachin' and learnin', many of 'em better. I think, however, that goin' with just lecture-demo is still not a good thing, and that just about all of the other ways of thinkin' about learning would say the same thing. I reckon most canoein' MB counselors at summer camp discover that a significant fraction of the lads for one reason or another have some difficulty gettin' back in a canoe, even after it has been demonstrated. SeattlePioneer's approach is the one I find more fun and effective. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

At my first meeting, one old guy (in full Scout garb) actually turned and walked away from me when I answered "No" to #1!!! Hasn't spoken a word to me since. Yah, hmmmm.... I apologize to yeh, Engineer61. There's really no excuse for that, and I'm sorry that the fellow never took to heart the Scout Law in the way he lives his life. Some folks, too, are just socially awkward, and from time to time yeh just have to make allowances. I would welcome yeh, but then as everyone knows I'm not much of a knot-head. Beavah

Yah, I think mostly this is just innocent, eh? It's sort of the natural icebreaker type question. The same way college kids ask each other what their major is or where they're from. If yeh showed up at a meeting of the Kennel Club you'd expect people to ask yeh about your dog. If yeh coached football you'd expect people to ask where yeh played football as a youth. If you're a guy in uniform at a Boy Scout event yeh have to expect to be asked about Eagle. Now, I agree with Lisabob as well, eh? I don't much care for the singling out Eagle Scouts as adults in front of other adults. It's a kids award, and if we're recognizing volunteers we should be recognizing 'em for their volunteer contributions as adults. But yeh can make some allowances. I think it's more like alumni at tailgates wearin' the old school colors and being proud of alma mater. It can sometimes get a bit silly, but it's mostly just a fun sorta show of institutional loyalty. Beavah

Yah, thanks for callin' this up, RememberSchiff. I had lost track of it, and just assumed the city would settle. The law granting attorney's fees on civil right challenges to government actions is pretty clear, eh? From a legal perspective the city's actions were incompetent and foolish. Whether yeh attribute that to "taking a principled stand" or "being intransigent in their government-sponsored discrimination" I reckon is a matter of perspective. It will be interestin' to see if they're willing to waste more tax dollars on an appeal. Sometimes I think when cities lose cases like this the proper thing to do is to bill all the residents directly for the judgment. That would be a good test whether the "principled stand" was really that of the electorate. It might also make citizens pay a bit more attention in the next election. Beavah

Yah, hmmm.... Welcome to da forums, scout_father. Thanks for your comments. Hope yeh stick around and sit for a spell. One thing in your post struck me as somethin' that we all should think about, and because it's a safety thing I figured yeh wouldn't mind the feedback and would take it in the right spirit. If yeh remember your Safety Afloat training, you'll recall that Cartoon Joe goes to great length to have yeh chase Safety Sandwiches all around the screen, and the "bread" of the Safety Sandwich is qualified supervision and discipline. I think if you're really finding that "it's very difficult to control the horseplay of kids" that the answer isn't (just) to protect the nonswimmers by puttin' 'em with adults, eh? Yeh need to rethink how you're doin' things so that yeh can maintain good discipline for all the boys and adults. Also worth it to remember EDGE, eh? Just demonstratin' getting into a canoe isn't enough for lads to learn. They actually have to "do" - first with guidance, then on their own. Beavah

Yah, I once heard a friend tell me that his uncle said that a kid he knew from scouts told him that a fellow said to another guy... Nah, I'm not goin' to judge a fellow scouter based on 5th-hand hearsay like that. I do agree with VeniVidi wholeheartedly, though. We want boys to learn things because learning is fun and worthwhile, and to Be Prepared. We want lads to pay attention because a Scout is Courteous and because that's how yeh help the patrol succeed. We recognize kids who learn those lessons with awards, but if we're tellin' 'em to do it for the award then we'll never achieve our real aims of developing character. Character is what yeh do when yeh don't expect an award. Perhaps the real issue here is that instead of the SPL tryin' to address a whole big group, the troop needs to think about Patrol Method and have the PLs working with smaller groups with tighter social connections. Beavah

Yah, hmmmm... Can't say whether to cheer yeh all for havin' this conversation in public or raise my eyebrows and shake my head. I'm not fond of silly amateur legalisms in a scouting program, because I just don't think it teaches character and values. Debating the meaning of what "is" is was deservedly mocked when it came up in the legal case of a former President, but that sort of lack of character originates in debating what the meaning of "report" is in a youth program, eh? The better value to teach is not to argue balls and strikes with the umpire in a game, especially when you are asking for that umpire to spend time with yeh on a very short deadline. There's also an aspect of the Golden Rule among leaders. If you want fellow scouters to stick by you when you get challenged on your judgment calls, yeh have to be willing to stick by them. Even when yeh think they might be wrong, just as you'd hope they'd trust you even if they think you might be wrong. The same rule applies when the two of yeh eventually become parents, eh? It is healthiest and happiest for your kids if you support each other in all your decisions about the kids, and if yeh support the other adults in your kids' lives - coaches, teachers, babysitters, scoutmasters. Yah, yah, there are always exceptions in extreme cases, but not in this kind of trivial crap. Yeh can find all kinds of things to joke about to build rapport with the lads or lighten the mood without doin' it at the expense of other leaders. And as teacher/scout knows, it doesn't matter if you're closer in age to the 17 year old than to moosetracker, the bright line of demarcation is when yeh are in a supervisory position. Not to worry, this is a mistake we all make. Hopefully we all have friends and families who call us on it, because it is one of those things that can get us in real trouble if it becomes a habit. Beavah

Yah, actually NealonWheels posted the wrong link. This particular thing seems to keep changin' with every recent G2SS revision, and national isn't the best at updating their site. The most recent G2SS revision specifies that it's just a swimmer adult, not a trained lifeguard adult. Which then begs the question why a trained lifeguard youth wouldn't be a much better choice than an adult who crawled through his swim check. http://scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS/gss02.aspx#i As a longtime, ACA-trained paddlin' instructor, I'll stick by what I said rather than try to guess what the G2SS will say next month. Beavah

The trip doesn't change the fact that Scout is a non-swimmer and should not be on the open water. Yah, I'm not sure that a creek of 250cfs quite counts as "open water". In spite of our suggestion/request, Scout was placed in a canoe with another Scout, not an adult. Yah, this is a case where your lack of experience is showin', I reckon. Puttin' a lad with an adult in a canoe creates trim problems, because the adult is usually so much heavier. This makes the canoe harder to maneuver and more likely to get into trouble. Furthermore, rescue is not goin' to be accomplished by the other fellow who was dumped into the river, it's goin' to be accomplished by the buddy boat(s). So for safety, it's more important to have the better rescuers in a nearby boat paying attention. But yeh do provide a great example of well-intentioned parents without enough experience tryin' to insist on a setup that will actually make their boy less safe. Kudos to your son's scout leaders for knowin' their stuff and exercising good judgment. Now to the heart of the matter: Did your son have a good time? Maybe even learn some stuff? Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

Yah, interestin' weather yeh are havin' out there in northern Arizona, eh? A pretty extreme event. I take it that despite your worries and a highly unusual extreme weather event, junior Engineer is home just fine and all. Glad to hear it. Hope that helps allay your fears for the future. Beavah

Yah, dScouter15, if it's their stuff, it's their stuff, eh? I think the error here is treating their stuff like it's the council training team's stuff. For every course, there should be a formal request of "Hey, George, do you think we could borrow your gear again for this course?" And every single time yeh make the request an answer of "No" should be perfectly OK. The folks who own the gear can take their toys and go home any time they want to for any reason, and the only honorable response is "thank you VERY much for supporting our training team over the years." I'd throw a party for the guys or at least make sure they are honored in some way at the next council function for offering such huge and dedicated support to the training program for so many years. If the direction of the program has changed and some new folks have come in, then it's up to them to deal with the issue of finding new gear appropriate for the new direction. Maybe this time around the council will want to purchase it, or maybe one of the new folks will donate it, or maybe you borrow it from a troop for the weekend in exchange for a small donation to the troop or a bit of "make & mend." The need for gear should not hold up necessary change. Change should be based on what will provide the highest quality support for the units in the district, and nothing else. If yeh keep the right attitude in these things then there's no need for all the "personalities" and angst. The program should go where it needs to go to support the units, and the loan of gear should never be assumed. The two issues are independent of each other, and should be kept independent of each other in everyone's minds and behavior. Beavah (This message has been edited by Beavah)

I also asked my son to conceal the sheath knife. Yah, hmmm... so now the lad is carrying a concealed weapon, eh? Better to have it out and obvious rather than concealed. No need to conceal anything that's perfectly proper. B

I had to laugh and wingnut's comments. That about sums it up. This is why G2SS is now over 100 pages. It's a bit like a welfare job for some staffers. The only activities which should be "reviewed" are ones that are empirically showin' higher-than-average accident/incident statistics. And then I reckon they should probably be "reviewed" by some folks who actually have experience with the sport. Yah, we see troops doin' this occasionally. Gear is not expensive, eh? Just takes some climbing webbing, a few carabiners and a garda clutch. I've actually never seen anyone doin' this using an (expensive!) crash pad. Seems like inappropriate overkill. Crash pads are fairly small, eh? They don't move with the fellow on the line, and they're also not really designed for this sort of low height fall. Havin' a spotter is fine for beginners or for old guys, more as instructional or psychological support. I can't imagine it really being a safety issue. After all, the height of the line is by definition below what Climb on Safely recommends for spotters being needed. This truly is one of those activities where da minimal safety issues are just obvious. Like not riggin' the thing so high that yeh end up singing soprano. Beavah

I am glad Beavah cured me of those impulses Hee hee! Well, yeh know, OGE, I would probably have let it go except he used the "N" word 4 or 5 times in the thread. It was just a bit too ironic to have the fellow then accuse others of usin' it. I hear yeh with respect to just dumpin' the uniform. Yeh hear folks talk about just dumpin' Eagle Scout as well. Heck, I know some schools that have just eliminated Valedictorian for the same reason, eh? The adults just screw it up for the kids too often. Me, I sort of like the uniform method, and advancement. Done right, both are real assets to a program. I sorta like a valedictory too, eh? Better to listen to a bright kid than a bunch of old coots prattlin' on. Beavah

Nah, still balderdash. There are thousands of more fun, more interesting, more lasting ways in scouting to teach boys responsibility or accountability. Eight whole methods and binders full of program helps and miles on miles of God's wide open spaces to be challenged and shared with friends. If we're wastin' it on bureaucratic paperwork trackin' games, we're not doin' it right. That's not Scouting, it's an internship with the IRS. It's not up to a lad to go keep redundant records and xerox pages and set up remote backup servers. The boy does his job by strivin' to learn scouting skills and learning to work with his patrol mates. When he's done his duty, it's our job to Recognize him, not make him fill out forms and copy pages. Beavah

Your definition of "atheist" doesn't matter; what matters is how the national BSA interprets their own requirements. Yah, I think this is exactly correct, eh? We've tried and failed and are trying and still failing to get Merlyn to understand his own point here. I am certain that he will never understand it, because the only way to make his case against the BSA is to make our position simplistic, so that he can think himself wise by attacking it for being simplistic. The way yeh tell how a people interprets their own laws is to watch how those same people act with respect the the law, eh? And in turn, to how their officials generally respond and use discretion. To bring up an old thread, if yeh were just to read the letter of the law, a teenage girl who takes a suggestive picture of herself and sexts it to her boyfriend is engaged in the felony production and distribution of child pornography. But despite some cases of unusually zealous prosecutors, the way most people would handle it is in a more low-key fashion, talkin' to the kid, and/or to the parents. And when the issue does get into more formal arenas, things ordinarily get plead down and reduced to somethin' much less than a felony. Leastways, unless the girl insists it is her right to disseminate nude photos of herself and her friends to whomever she pleases, for hire. In those rare cases, the letter of the law may have to apply. It's similar with the BSA and membership issues, eh? Our real position is nuanced, and subject to the sort of discretion that SeattlePioneer describes. Nobody is really runnin' around throwin' atheists out the first time they declare they no longer believe in God. Usually, when I ask scouts what they mean by "God" I have to agree with 'em, eh? I don't believe in that either! Even in times when things become more formal, the BSA uses its discretion and makes every effort to resolve things with understanding and good grace, in a way that is mutually respectful and allows folks to continue in the program. Only in the cases that parallel those of the girl above does it ever come down to a membership decision, eh? In those rare cases where adult atheists want to use a young lad to proselytize, and so undermine our desire in the program to teach something about duty to country and more than country. Beavah

No, the correlation is between the airline pilot and the scoutmaster. And yeh can pull up the hour-by-hour data on the river from the USGS stream tables. Different rivers get affected differently by runoff from tributaries, eh? A flash-flood in a side canyon does not mean that the main stream is significantly altered. Especially when the upstream dams ordinarily retain more water in such conditions specifically to mitigate what you're talkin' about. You're actin' like a novice airline passenger who reads a book about horrid air turbulence and then thinks a report of light-to-moderate turbulence along a route is enough to question the captain who's been flyin' the route in all kinds of conditions with all kinds of people for the past ten years. Relax. So far every time you've fretted about this stuff over the past 2+ years on the forums, the lad has come back just fine, eh? What you're talkin' about is ordinary stuff for any of us who regularly take kids on paddle trips. Beavah