BOR Chair learns something from Tenderfoot

[Aquila calva]

Some things need to go away. The pinky handshake was one of them. When I was a youth in Scouting in the 60s I thought it was weird. Good riddance. Would anyone like some good Dutch apple crisp? I grew the apples myself.

 

Have fun scouting.

 

(This thread made me laugh!)

 

[SSScout]

Scout fist bump?

 

Scout pinky link?

 

Scout slipnslide?

 

'Course, the Muslim Troop I Commish won't do left hand shakes anyway, so we do right hand and it's alright...

[hendrickms24]

" 'Course, the Muslim Troop I Commish won't do left hand shakes anyway, so we do right hand and it's alright... "

 

 

 

The left hand shaking issue is not done for ethnic reason not religious. If your from the middle east and Christian you would not shake with the hand you wipe with either.

[SSScout]

Hendrickms24: Greetings from the Old Line State.

 

Here in the US, I've been assured by my Muslim friends that avoiding left hand contact is cultural, traditional AND religious. But originally based on hygienic reasons, as you allude to.

They are still Scouts, and I grasp their hand.

[Eagle87]

I was a cub scout from 1977-1982 and moved up to scouting, receiving my Eagle award in 1987.

I too learned the "interlocking pinky" handshake with the RIGHT hand. Along with the secret OA handshake. Lol

 

I never learned the LEFT HANDED handshake until now that my son who is joining the Weblos rank.

 

As their Den Leader, I will teach them both, even though the left handed grip is what's discussed in their handbooks.

[Treflienne]

 

On 6/8/2006 at 12:54 PM, gwd-scouter said:

Anyway, when the young Scout was told by the adult that he was not doing the handshake properly, new Tenderfoot Scout said, "But Mrs. B says you don't link pinkies. It's just a regular hand shake but with left hands."

Scouter adult grabbed Tenderfoot Scout's handbook, flipped through the pages and said, "guess I stand corrected"!

 

On 6/8/2006 at 1:33 PM, John-in-KC said:

If you go back and look in earlier editions of the Boy Scout Handbook, you will find splitting the pinky finger WAS the Boy Scout Handshake. You made the handshake off the left hand doing the Scout Sign.

Culture shock time.

One of my new scouts was asking about the scout handshake -- working on scout rank.  So I raised my right hand in the scout sign and stuck out my left hand for a handshake --- and my ASM (also new to BSA) said "but that's not what's in the scout handbook".

Having grown up in a different scouting organization, and having done its scout handshake hundreds of times, this took me by surprise.   So I went looking back through the various old handbooks and facsimiles of handbooks and found:

In Scouting for Boys by Baden-Powell, p42
 

Quote

 

If a stranger makes the scout's sign to you, you should acknowledge it at once by making the sign back to him, and then shake hands with th LEFT HAND.

 

I could find nothing about the scout handshake in the American 1911 Boy Scout Handbook -- but maybe I just overlooked it.

But Scouting for Girls, 3rd abridged edition 1929, says, p44
 

Quote

 

With her left hand, the Captain shakes the left hand of the Girl Scout, and gives the half-salute with her right hand, (this is the Girl Scout handshake) . . .

 

So @John-in-KC and others,  did Boy Scouts (BSA) ever combine the right-handed half-salute (ie. scout sign) with the left-handed hand-shake?   Do they ever still do so?