Boy Scouts of America serving the nation for 100 years

I was at a great event this weekend. Our Scout troop had an Open House celebrating 100 years of the Boy Scouts of America and 50 years of our own Troop 2. The mayor, county sheriff and the Monsignor from our sponsoring organization attended. All of them praised what they saw happening at our Scout lodge in the highest terms.

And why not? There was evidence of Scouting going on everywhere. A beautiful camp site, four open fires, a BB range with targets and scores (35 points earned the shooter a patch. If you didn't get 35 points, you didn't get a patch. But you could go to the end of the line and try again.), fire building, knot tying, compass orienteering, rock climbing, first aide, hot dog roasting - and more than the occasional Scout falling down.

Several of the older Scouts had constructed two 15' tripods out of timbers from the woods. The tripods were lashed together with rope using lashing methods learned in Scouting. Between the tripods the Scouts constructed a rope bridge called - appropriately enough - a monkey bridge, because you have to be like a monkey to cross it. The bridge was crossed probably a hundred times by kids - and even an adult or two. Scores of times kids would fall off and run to the end of the line to try again.

It was a liberal nightmare. Guns, axes, knives, fires all on display and being used by Scouts. And probably worst of all for the lib crowd, boys acting like boys, knocking each other around in rough and tumble play for all to see. And we didn't even have to give everyone a trophy at the end of the day. We did have to put a stop to the Scouts who were finding their fun by jumping out of the bus windows. Yes the bus was parked at the time. We're not stupid. Someone had taken the keys out just in case.

All of the events were set up run by the Scouts. You could see the hand of adults here and there but it was about 80% Scout run.

At the end of the event everybody pitched and had the place looking like nothing had happened there in about an hour. We did leave the 15' tripods in place, because they were too cool take down right away. Sadly, they will be gone at this Tuesday's meeting. We still have to cut the grass and they'd be too hard to mow around.

The Troop has over 100 of the most diverse bunch of Scouts you'd ever want to meet. Although we're sponsored by St. Vincent de Paul Catholic church, only a small portion of the boys attend school there and a great many of the boys aren't even Catholic. They are a talented bunch. We have three go-cart racers (One is a National Champion!), an accomplished magician, a first class juggler, great musicians, rock climbers, first team football, basketball, soccer and track players, black diamond skiers and snowboarders.

Call your local council and wish them a happy 100th Anniversary. In the face of the relentless lib onslaught, they are trying to do good work for American boys.