Favorites that guide you.

[jmcquillan]

Scouting is the target of many these days. Even among ourselves, we rarely all agree. Ignoring those who would force their change upon us, and focusing only on that which drove us to join the legions herein, I wonder about the little things, the favorite things, the guiding things that we've learned along the way. I have some favorites that always bear consideration when I'm involved in one of my greatest hobbies....Scouting. One goes like this:

 

A Little Scout Follows Me

 

A careful scouter I ought to be,

A little Scout follows me.

I do not dare to go astray,

For fear he will go the same way.

 

Not once can I escape his eyes,

Whatever he sees me do, he tries.

Like me he says he's going to be,

That little Scout who follows me.

 

He thinks that I am good and fine,

Believes in every word of mine,

The bad in me he must not see,

That little Scout who follows me.

 

I must remember as I go,

Through summer sun and winter snow,

I am building for the years to be,

That scout who follows me.

 

What favorites do you have?

 

[P_Swigs]

Thanks for the outstanding poem! It truly represents what responsibility we as adult leaders have with the boys and young men that follow us.

 

I took a group of Cub Scouts to a Resident Camp a couple years ago and the camp had this saying on the doors to the dining hall. It kind of echos your poem.

 

"Don't worry that Scouts don't always listen to you. Worry that Scouts are always watching you."

 

The moral... the same as in "A Little Scout Follows Me". We should lead by example.