Camp Hazing the good kind

[eagleSM]

OldGreyEagle,

 

 

i totally agree with your statements....

 

for me , it was an OA Ordeal.... they thought is was funny; but i was left hospitalized.

 

there is no such thing as hazing of the "good kind"

 

eSM

 

 

 

 

 

 

[johndaigler]

Great post, OGE!! And, thank you for the show of trust in all of us who read these posts. Luckily you weren't injured like EagleSM, but that loss of trust in the older Scouts is often as great a loss. A lot of boys would fade from that point on and slowly disappear. Thanks for sticking around!

 

What a shame that the older boys missed out on OGE as an Eaglet!

 

 

jd(This message has been edited by johndaigler)

[Skyhook]

No wonder the outing has gone out in scouting and the program is becoming more citified every day. Kids need to learn to deal with things. If you can not handle it get out. It is people which guard the kids like you people seem to which have caused things like coloombine. Kids no longer learn to deal with small things and they are small things. They think well I have every right to shoot someone because they are not taught to live in the real world. When I was a kid there was a recuriting poster called Boys To Men that the boy scouts did it was one of my favorites. But now it is boys to pansey but I will stay in and follow the rules even if I think they are wrong.

And Grey eagle if it was so dagone bad why did you stay in and why do you sit and gripe about everything now.

I think this lets protect our kids at all cost will some day kill the program and it is almost as bad a home schooling. I am the largest employer in a 20 county area and I also refuse to emploee home schooled kids because I feel like they are so protected they do not know how to deal with people. Protect the kids but still let them become adults and know what it is like to have to deal with the small agravations

charles

[Spiney Norman]

UH-OH!

[Spiney Norman]

Skyhook,

I was with on this thread until hearing the stories of the "veteran" members of this forum. At first I thought the old skyhook, smokebender, shore line routine was just in good fun.

Then I read OGE's tale and made me reflect on my own experiences at camp. He's right. Hazing just should not be tolerated on any level.

Scouting is still all about outing and we can have just as much fun without hazing.

 

I recently completed my ordeal for OA. After swearing SWMBO to "secrecy" I related my experience. She thought it was just plain out and out hazing. Even after I explined the reasoning behind it all she still would not change her opinion. It just goes to show you that one person's idea of fun and or ceremony can be another's idea of hazing.

[Skyhook]

I did not mind the ordeal so much even though the thought of eating a raw egg about killed me doing the eating of the raw egg reall did me in but I lived. But I did think the brotherood was to much I still bear a scar across my hand where the guy cut me and I bled a long time. I am glad they did away with the one. I think sometimes it is according to the kids who are doing the cerimonies. Our next move after this guy was to use the little thingies that the diabetics use to prick their fingers but with hipatitus and Aids we of course no longer do any of this stuff. Excuse my spelling I am trying to write up some other stuff and rushed

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Skyhook, I am not quite sure where you got the opinion that all I do is complain; you will have to enlighten me on that one. And as far as sitting and griping, I am registered as a Troop Committee member, A Venture Crew Advisor, An Assistant District Commissioner-Venturing and past District Advancement Chair and am still serving on the District Advancement Committee. If I gripe, I certainly dont do it while sitting. This past weekend I served as Staff on a Scoutreach Campout held for our Council, Crew members and I helped teach knots, first aid, flag ceremonies, scout oath and law, woods tools and fire making. Then on Sunday at 4 I was at the council office attending the Council Venture meeting. And you know what? I am not singular in my activities; I know several leaders who do as much or more than I do. I shudder to think of Eamonn's or Bob White's schedule or a lot of people I cant think of right now.

 

If you do a retrospective on my posts, you will see I am consistent in upholding the requirements, neither adding to or taking away anything. If that is being soft, I take full blame. As a Venturing leader I provided support on a Whitewater Trip to Maine where we had a two-day river trip as well as a high ropes course and outdoor climbing. Again, if the crew produces sissies, dont tell that to the four young ladies whose first whitewater trip (real class 3's) was last Sunday who want to do it again as soon as possible.

 

Apparently you are well into adulthood and have formed your own opinions on what constitutes hazing and what is just having a good old time so I don't expect to change your mind. I think making sure a scout meets the requirements for every rank, meets the qualifications for every merit badge they earn goes a long way to giving the kids coping skills. If the scout doesnt swim 100 yards, the last 25 yards of which being done with the elementary backstroke and floating one minute, he doesnt become first class. Making kids work at known published goals in as safe as possible environment teaches coping skills. It teaches them how to work towards earning something. The scout program has numerous challenges built in it as it strives to accomplish its goals, you may find it tough to prepare a young person to make ethical choices over his lifetime by providing an environment of lies and humiliation where he can expect deceit from his leaders and learns its ok to torment the weak. When it says to pitch a tent and sleep in it, thats what the scouts in the troop do, and they are proud they set it up themselves, no matter how many attempts. Its meeting a requirement. If you think I am destroying the program, I would like to know more about your line of thinking. And if you think I am the type of person who caused Columbine, you are going to have to explain that a lot better.

 

Many people home school for a variety of reasons, and while I am not an advocate of it, I am sure their childrens spelling and sentence structure isnt any worse than that of which you have displayed

 

I do apologize to you if this thread took a different turn than you expected. Perhaps you wanted to be reminded of happier times, and exchange stories of the idyllic youth you had. People would share other fun times of searching for skyhooks and smoke benders and the fun they had. The problem is youth also read these forums and I cannot let any mention of hazing go by without condemning it. I have to let the youth know that I think its wrong, that many other adults think its wrong and there are some adults who have no problem tricking kids for their own amusement. If you want to send a kid for a walk at night, have him do his finding directions at night requirement. With a buddy (wink at Unc), dont send him after mythical objects. Make sure he meets the published requirements and you will have helped shape a citizen of character and one of personal fitness.

 

[OldGreyEagle]

Eating a raw egg? Cut hands?

 

I apologize, I guess looking for a skyhook would be fun, at least you were bleeding or in danger of contracting salmonella!

[Skyhook]

Yes I am having a bad day people. The hurricanes have drenched the cotton fields and it is costing me a fortune because they can not get it in and I can not buy it and gin it. So Im a little out of sorts..

Sorry grey eagle I did not mean to ruffle feathers.

Yes I am set in my ways and this is my 49 year in scouting

sorry folks gotta go

 

[Bob White]

"and back then it was harmless"

 

NO, back then it was allowed.

 

Less outing in scouting???? Since when is teasing and hazing considered an outdoor activity? Here I always thought it was the swimming, skiing, caving, camping, canoeing, hiking, climbing, rappelling,and service projects that we do every month that made scouting an outdoor program.

 

Now we are told by Skyhook that if we aren't hazing children that we have lost the outing in scouting!

 

 

 

[Skyhook]

Ok I thought I had to go to the bank but my son is doing it. I can tell you this grey eagle, I am a district comish and this used to be a council to itself here in Kaintuck but I do adhere to all rules with an absolutness {tis that a word} which freaks people out. I think scouting in the south has always been a little bit different and always will be. But I will always follow all rules I believe rules are made for a reason even if I do not always agree with them. I love scouting and outside of my kids ,grandkids and great grandkids it is my passion . I love above all the history of dan Beard most people think he only worked around Cincinatti but I know of troops in 9 states he helped found and I am writing a history of this and do not know what I will do with it when I get done. So I did not really mean to say you where gripey but if we get one more rain in Western Kentucky, W. tennessee or Mississippi I will absolutly have to be tied down. And yes grey eagle they used to cut for the brotherood rites but hopefully they have banned this all over the US now I know that to my knowledge it is not done in the south anymore. But even though it caused me a lot of problems because I bled a lot the dagone egg is what about killed me

Bye

[dsteele]

What prevented you from cooking the egg?

 

When I took my ordeal, they brought us one raw egg. The smart guys made a fire and heated up a rock. They then fried the egg on the rock and had breakfast.

 

Even the dumb ones like me boiled the egg in a paper cup full of water and ate a hard-boiled egg for breakfast.

 

Unc.

[Eamonn]

I don't like Hazing.

Don't know how many kids that we lost from Cub Scouts due to a very stupid initiation "Ceremony".

In fact the actual ceremony wasn't half as bad as the horror stories that were told each story worse then the last. Still the story was enough to scare young Lads from joining the troop.

I like to think that I am not an old misery guts. I enjoy a good laugh and having fun as much as any one does. Still laughing with someone is a lot kinder then laughing at someone. I don't think that has changed over the years and goes in the North, the South and even across that big pond.

Eamonn.

 

[Double Eagle]

For better or worse here's a few:

50 feet of shoreline, canvas coolant, turning off a chemical light by snapping it again, box of grid squares, left-handed smoke shifter, 100 feet of flight line, right-handed cresent wrench, left or right handed knife, fork, spoon, or cup. Whether used as a joke or not, you would be amazed at what a scout or scouter brings back. Sometimes it backfires on the requester. I had an older scouter

[Double Eagle]

Continued from the previous reply: I had an older scouter ask for a smoke shifter and we brought back one disguised as a frisbee. Fanned in the left hand, it was left handed. Fanned in the right, right handed. Canvas coolant came back as a bucket of water. The jesters became shocked when we actually produced the mythical items. It soon became an imagination challenge on both sides. Good fun done with good intentions.