embarrassing moments

[Scouterclaude]

As with anything you have been involved with for many years there will be embarrassing moment and events, sowhat was your most embarrassing thing in scouting.

 

Mine was back in the mid 90s, I was scoutmaster of a troop of about 40 scouts. I had very good help and support from my five assistant scoutmasters, one of which really liked to work with the new scouts to earn their Toten Chip. On this particular campout we had probably six or seven scout that had just crossed over from cubs and he wanted to get them off on the right foot. He set up an axe yard and then instructed the scouts to find some wood so they could learn to use a bow saw. At the same camp there was a Cub Scout Pack having a family/Pack picnic, they were going to be joined by a scout troop later in the day for their crossing over ceremony. The scouts found some really nice, straight, timber about 4 in diameter and about twelve feet long. They worked all afternoon cutting up the wood and had made a great stack of fire wood. While all of this was going on I was making my rounds observing all the scouts in my troop and their activities, some were fishing, some were hiking, some stayed in camp to cook, or just hang out and of course the group working hard on their Toten Chip. I felt content knowing all was well in Camelot. About 6:00 in the evening the scoutmaster of the other troop walked up to us (myself and my assistants) and asked if they could have back the poles for their Monkey bridge back so they could do their crossing over ceremony, I looked at the pile of firewood as all my assistants kind of wandered away. Realizing what had happened I got all the scouts together(both troops) and instructed them to head out into the woods and without cutting down trees find anything we could use to make them a bridge. Two hours later between the two troops working together there was a wonderful bridge, they did a cross over ceremony and then joined us for a great campfire. What started out to be an embarrassing situation turned into a learning opportunity, great fellowship, and a story worth telling over and over.

 

[LIBob]

That's a great story, and one that will be tough to follow.

 

Although some of the silly stuff I did on my first Webelos overnighter (circa 1978) is STILL being talked about:

 

Prior to my first Webelos overnighter I had done extensive reading about camping, backpacking etc. I was a big fan of Daniel Boone etc. and had already proudly learned things like camp near a source of drinking water, pull your food up into a tree to keep it safe from bears etc.

 

Wel, when you arrive at Ockinickon SC in Bucks County PA the FIRST thing you see is the Lake. We drove about a mile in parked the cars and walked the last 200 yds to the campsite.

 

I noticed the latrine on the way in but was in formed "it's an outhouse." It was, (still is), but waht I didn't realize is that it had running water for cooking cleaning etc.

 

We unpacked and settled in and the Webelos Den leader assinged us duties to set up camp. I was handed two buckets and told to get water . . . .

 

 

I bet you can guess the rest, but just in case:

It takes a VERY long time for an 10-year-old boy to walk and entire mile with two gallon buckets of water. I am not a quitter, never was, so i did not give up. More than an hour after I was gone they informed camp staff they had a missing camper and sent out search parties.

 

Sometime later, it was now after sunset and they adults were getting truly worried I wobbled into camp with two of the sloppiest most algae-filled buckets of lake water you could imagine, extremely proud of my accomplishment.