The Last Boy Scout

I am reminded every Christmas about my time in Boy scouts when I see the Christmas tree sales signs start popping up in early December. It makes me happy to think that the Boy Scouts are still around and active in my community. At one time, I to helped sell Boy Scout Christmas trees, earned badges, went to camp, and helped old ladies cross the street.

The Boy Scouts offered me the right male guidance and general peer-group comradery that helped shaped my higher moral and ethics today, giving me a firm grasp of my social-philosophical convictions and actions. Unfortunately, over the last few decades Boy Scouting has been on the decline, and many young boys are missing out on the learning and the education benefits of the Boy Scouts.

The First Boy Scout

The Boy Scouts were created by Lord Baden Powell, a British officer, and a name that should stand in some high regard for naturists and military historians. Originally a Victorian era institution of pre-paramilitary training the Boy Scouts were less militaristic than military cadet schools, supposedly more agile than the Brownies and Girl Guides, and variably secularized, but heavily affiliated, with manly protestant religious organizations during its history, but this of course would different depending on the region the Scout troop was operating.

The Boy Scouts organization was initially quite effective in community and civic engagement, creating a sense of collective virtue. That young boys in Scout uniforms were viewed in society favorably. Hence, wanting to be a good Boy Scout gave the young man the moral courage to perform good deeds and take on and learn the lessons of the outdoor environments.

Images of young boys in their uniforms helping old ladies with their shopping bags, or helping a neighbours cats out of a trees, were for much of society, the images that pop up in our minds when we perhaps used to think of scouting. Although over the years young boys participation in these groups has been steadily declining over the past twenty years, to a point where it’s barely relevant to most youth and society today.

For a young boy growing up in the late twentieth century Boy Scouts were one such place for a young boy to develop outdoor skills and sharpen their pocket knives. Starting out at age five to seven youth there is the Beavers organizations, from 8 to 11 the progressed through the cub scouts, then were graduated into the boy scouts. We are all socialized creatures, broken free from a womb, only to end up into another sort of a womb of adolescence.

Orienteering and the Compass

The value attributed to a public’s engagement in civic society is a good measure of a societies health and well being. However, participation in charitable, religious activity, social organizations, charities and institutions, (not sports), has all been on the decline for around fifty years, and its not a good sign of socially health. As in high civic engagement in youth is usually a premise for engagement in an ancilliary activitiy as an adult, e.g., volunteering, politics, etc.

Not long ago it was common for people to participate in several civic organizations, e.g. rotary clubs, fraternities & sororities, freemasonry, elk, and various church groups. Perhaps no greater organization saw as much participation in North America as the Boy Scouts.

Giving young men a uniformed purpose and the space and leadership to explore group/team social dynamics is a positive attribute leading to the development of better social organization. At one time the Scouts were one of the more popular youth organizations, with a majority of youth participating. For a variety of reasons modern scouting remains less visible in youth today.

Stats, stats, stats, stats. stats…(what is extreme?) provided by Scouts Canada

Memo: Effective Immediately: 8th Glenmore Boy Scouts-Disbanded. HQ…

The Boy Scouts is an organization meant to help mature and educate young men in outdoor activities and community engagement. I like to think now that my time in Scouts was a very rewarding and beneficial learning period, unbeknownst to me as young tempestuous boy. But it’s disappointing to see that the Boy Scout is on the decline in Canada.

It was thirty years ago when my scout troop disbanded suddenly, whimpering off into some unknown scouting history, almost forgotten except for those who are left to remember it. I remember the day it happened, it was a cold and rainy Vancouver evening and my Mom and I drove into an empty church parking lot. The question on my mind was, ‘where is everybody?’

The 8th Glenmore was a scout troop for young boys, for which I was a part of for 7 years. The day it ended, sitting in that parked car, the simple fact was that none of my troop showed up. For some reason I held out till the end, but no scout is an island upon himself. Not even my scout master showed up to formally end it in a more respectful way, people just stopped showing up.

I wasn’t expecting my scouting experience to end this way, it’s hard to fathom endings when you are twelve years old. In many ways that night brought out a small end to my childhood. I would miss the outdoor adventures, education and games. I probably would forgot

In retrospect my time in scouts needed to come to an end, as it does for everyone else in youth organizations. However, what I wasn’t expecting was it to end with my troop disbanding, a troop that in many ways was on the decline, but for it to cease to be was a sting, and it still irks me a bit today, the Boy Scouts .

Not referring to the movie “The Last Boy Scout” a classic 90’s action-comedy.