Virtual Campfire

[WisconsinMomma]

Oh yes, I got my left and right mixed up. Long day, doh!    11 y.o. on left, 13 y.o. on right.    11 y.o. is working on 2nd class,  13 y.o. is working on first class.    They have done some merit badge classes together but definitely have their own interests too.    Thanks!

Edited March 28, 2018 by WisconsinMomma

[Eagle1993]

My father was a shop teacher in the 70s-80s.  One day a teacher came in with a towel on his hand asking my father if he could watch his class while the other teacher went to the nurse.  My dad said sure and went to the classroom.  The kids were all silent and pale.  My dad asked what’s wrong and one of the practical joking students said ... Mr. XYZ ‘s finger is over here.  My dad said “well why don’t you bring it up and leave it on the desk” (thinking it was a joke).  He did, it wasn’t.  I’ve always tried to be careful with saws after hearing that story.

[ianwilkins]

I went on a three day first aid course for work a year or two back. You know when you go on courses and there's that one person that always has a story or anecdote or two. I got about halfway through the course before I suddenly realised...I was the anecdote guy! Nothing too serious, but I'm not sure anyone else on the course will be signing up to be a leader any time soon, as one of them said "Scouts sounds dangerous!" Ooops!

[Tampa Turtle]

18 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

I'm totally just wandering by to show off my boys' updated merit badge sashes, 11 year old's is on the right, 13 year old's is on the left.  

My 13 y.o.did his family project for Family life and has his chore log done.  It's been months and months but he's getting there.  11 y.o. is/was having difficulty for swimming, getting down to the bottom to pick up an object. He'll get there eventually. 

Proud  mama!

 

I like how they do not have exactly the same badges like some brothers and there is a good number of non-Eagle required! Good work.

[Tampa Turtle]

18 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

I went on a three day first aid course for work a year or two back. You know when you go on courses and there's that one person that always has a story or anecdote or two. I got about halfway through the course before I suddenly realised...I was the anecdote guy! Nothing too serious, but I'm not sure anyone else on the course will be signing up to be a leader any time soon, as one of them said "Scouts sounds dangerous!" Ooops!

I love going to summer camp and swapping 'worst stories in our Troop' with other scouters. We one scout accidentally stab another in the thigh with a K-Bar knife. That sometimes won. And the time some of the older scouts took a leaders keys, snuck out of summer camp, and 'borrowed' his car. When at 3am it was discovered they went missing someone 'fessed up that they said they wanted to get something to drink. Since the camp was in the mountains in a 'dry' county they eventually they were found 45 minutes away at a country bar, in uniform, drinking beer. I sometimes win on that one. 

For some reason they were never kicked out and managed to make Eagle. Stars on the High School football team or something. Right before my time.

[ianwilkins]

11 minutes ago, Tampa Turtle said:

I love going to summer camp and swapping 'worst stories in our Troop' with other scouters.

I think I could probably trim the fat from anecdotes about last year's summer camp down to about a 20 minute stand-up set.

I'd probably quite enjoy coming to said US scout camp about now and doing the same as you, I could pull out all of the co-ed stories just to frighten the pants off you.  

Won't put any of it in writing, we have a rule about "not bringing the scout association into disrepute" 

[Eagledad]

We had several doctors in our troop with a lot of stories for the campfire. But I quit listening to the emergency room doctor's stories because they kept me up all night.

Barry

[Tampa Turtle]

18 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

Won't put any of it in writing, we have a rule about "not bringing the scout association into disrepute" 

Very wise. 

[Tampa Turtle]

15 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

We had several doctors in our troop with a lot of stories for the campfire. But I quit listening to the emergency room doctor's stories because they kept me up all night.

Barry

I work down the hall from some Fire Inspectors who all have many years working out of the station and as paramedics. Yeah some of those stories are both funny and horrible at the same time. 

[ianwilkins]

45 minutes ago, Tampa Turtle said:

I work down the hall from some Fire Inspectors who all have many years working out of the station and as paramedics. Yeah some of those stories are both funny and horrible at the same time. 

I once went on a training course at the London Underground, about how to work on the underground safely. Yep, had a few funny and horrible stories in there too, like the driver that decided he needed a whizz, like he often did, so opened the door in the middle of the end of the carriage, and didn't wave it about as much as he normally did, didn't break the stream. Apparently 400v DC through the .... is not good.

[Tampa Turtle]

11 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

I once went on a training course at the London Underground, about how to work on the underground safely. Yep, had a few funny and horrible stories in there too, like the driver that decided he needed a whizz, like he often did, so opened the door in the middle of the end of the carriage, and didn't wave it about as much as he normally did, didn't break the stream. Apparently 400v DC through the .... is not good.

My grandfather was a NYC firefighter who once was carrying a lady down a ladder from a 4th story window. The lady had barricaded the door, put her head in a gas oven, and turned on the gas. Neighbors smelled gas called the FD but they couldn't break down the door. It was the 1940's and apparently grandpa didn't have a breathing device then, got too much a dose of gas, and passed out going down with the lady on his back. Bounced down the ladder all the way and while he was hurt he survived.

At which point in the story us hero worshiping youngsters asked if he had managed to save the lady. His reply was (edited for spicy language) 'heck no, I fell on top of her and she brook my fall. Doesn't bother me...crazy woman wanted to kill herself anyway." At which point he would start on to 'worst car crash' stories and mom would whisk us away. He didn't seem all that bothered but then again he drank pretty heavily.

Grandpa went on partial disability, retired young and became a fire chief in a one-horse New England town. My father liked those years as a boy (and a scout) because he got to live in the 2nd floor of the fire house over the engines. Since the town was so small it didn't even have a theater on Friday nights they backed the equipment out of the garage and showed movies on the wall for 25 cents. My dad would run upstairs and make popcorn on the stove to sell for a dime. He said a lot of folks didn't have the dime and so he gave it away. Occasionally folks would later bring him stuff in exchange which is how he got a live grenade from a returning G.I. And THAT was Dad's good Scout story which included an explosion, what ever happened to Whiteys ear, the police, and a lot of cigarettes.

I never learned who this Whitey was. He was in another scout story where he shinned 20' up a skinny tree to look for a (supposed) bear and was too scared to come down. His patrol's solution was to chop down the tree with Whitey on top. Occasionally many years later when my dad's old pals would swing by Florida to visit after a few drinks I would hear one of them say "remember when we cut down Whitey's tree?" 

[Tampa Turtle]

Ah yes I believe Whitey got revenge on one of the boys, Donnie,  when they were playing 'tank' in the woods with some old wooden packing crates they would crawl inside. Donnie was  buttoned up inside the 'panzer' so the rest of the scouts put brush and leaves on top ("for atmosphere" my dad would say) and set it on fire. Donnie bailed out of the flaming 'tank' in most realistic fashion. Dad said he was not worried as they all had the "Firemanship" merit badge and an old seltzer fire extinguisher they used to put it out which was fun too.

I think the Troop was basically my Dad's patrol of friends and hoodlums and going boy scout camping was walking 30 minutes out of town into the woods with cigarettes, canned goods, and the occasional can of beer. Sometimes they would stop by the Scout leaders house on the way out Friday afternoon and he might swing by with a car on Sunday monday  to check on them and drive them back in time for church where my dad was an alter boy (!). Dad ended at Tenderfoot (cars and girls) but I still have his Bugle which my son played and took on campouts. I also have his old handbook, the green 4th edition. I loved reading as a boy because it argued that scouts were encouraged to bath more than once a week and it would not make them sick. 

[Oldscout448]

1 hour ago, ianwilkins said:

I once went on a training course at the London Underground, about how to work on the underground safely. Yep, had a few funny and horrible stories in there too, like the driver that decided he needed a whizz, like he often did, so opened the door in the middle of the end of the carriage, and didn't wave it about as much as he normally did, didn't break the stream. Apparently 400v DC through the .... is not good.

'Tis also no bad thing to be wary of electric fences hidden behind some brush.  7,000 volts even at a few miliamps is a bit of a shocking surprise.   

No, it wasn't me but I did learn some new words that day.  Not to mention a few new dance steps.

Edited March 29, 2018 by Oldscout448

[Oldscout448]

Last winter at our Klondike Derby I was visiting another Troop sitting around the campfire after dinner and one of the younger Scouts asked if I could tell stories of the old old days because I was the oldest person in Camp. Started to protest that I wasn't and then I realized that I was. Because everyone older, and wiser, than me had gone home to sleep in their warm bed instead of camping out in the snow.

Sometimes it's hard to remember how many years have gone by and I wonder if I can tell the stories of the egg and the big bull, or the gasoline and the burning Arrow,  or the out  of control covered wagon that  went crashing thru another troops campsite?  I mean its not as if we actually aimed  at the  scoutmasters tent!  ' We swore a solemn oath not to tell anyone but after almost half a century?  

 

Edited March 29, 2018 by Oldscout448

[RememberSchiff]

39 minutes ago, Oldscout448 said:

Last winter at our Klondike Derby I was visiting another Troop sitting around the campfire after dinner and one of the younger Scouts asked if I could tell stories of the old old days because I was the oldest person in Camp. Started to protest that I wasn't and then I realized that I was. Because everyone older, and wiser, than me had gone home to sleep in their warm bed instead of camping out in the snow.

Sometimes it's hard to remember how many years have gone by and I wonder if I can tell the stories of the egg and the big bull, or the gasoline and the burning Arrow,  or the out  of control covered wagon that  went crashing thru another troops campsite?  I mean its not as if we actually aimed  at the  scoutmasters tent!  ' We swore a solemn oath not to tell anyone but after almost half a century?  

 

A scout told me not to worry as the "statue of imitations" has expired.

Now back in the day, we challenged other troops to play Buck-Buck...