Scouting, Volume 49, Number 10, December 1961 Page: 17
32 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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In the history of Troop 14 there's a great deal about getting wet. On the
morning their first hike was scheduled, the streets had turned into rivers,
cellars were flooded, trees uprooted, telephone wires were down. It was
an excellent morning to sleep late, and we were progressing nicely toward
that end when a high-pitched, insistent note broke through the monotonous
beating of the rain.
"Mr. Fields! Mr. Fields! Mr. Fieeeeeeelds!"
Beneath our bedroom window stood three sopping Scouts who couldn't
and wouldn't understand why the hike had been called off.
Of course, I didn't go on any of these hikes and camping trips. I have
this information only on hearsay. But I can tell you from personal exper-
ience about the Scouts" archaeological discoveries. To get down to the bare
bones of the situation, my living room was their dump.
It happened on a Saturday afternoon. Six or eight of the boys had gone
off with pickaxes and shovels to investigate a big mound of earth located
on a site of an old Indian camping ground. Jim had barely hinted that it
might be an Indian burial mound, and they were off as if it was open
house at Fort Knox.
As it turned out, the mound was indeed loaded with bones. In little more
than an hour the whole tribe came shouting up the street, burst into the
house, and dumped two big bags full of bones in the living room.
"Hev, lookit, Mrs. Fields! Lookit all the bones!" they cried. As if I were
blind! Did they tliink I had eyes for anything else in my nice, clean room?
"Indians!" they screamed. "Indian bones! Lookit this one! And lookit
here! Doesn't this one look like a leg bone, huh?"
If that was an Indian's leg bone, the white man would never have gotten
the country away from them. It was simply tremendous—fully ten inches
around—more like a cow's leg bone. And the jawbone they brought back!
It couldn't possibly be from anything but a jackass.
It was a week before the last of some long ago farmer's animals were
finally removed from the house. Now that I think about it, it's too bad
I didn t save that jawbone and have it mounted on the living room wall the
way they do with mooseheads—a reminder to Jim of what thoughtless
thinking out loud will do.
We are started now on our sixth year of Scouting—Jim as Scoutmaster
and I as the woman behind the man, the woman left behind every Friday
night and on assorted weekends. It's a vantage point from which I can view
Scouting in a special way—learn to know the boys, their faults, foibles,
and frustrations and share in their pride of accomplishment.
The past five years have been frantic, but fun. It's been a combination
of living in a circus, a goldfish bowl, and the monkey house at the zoo.
Scouting is truly a way of life for Scout families, as much as it is for the
boys themselves. I hope our phone, refrigerator, the sofa springs, and the
hinges on the door will see us through many, many more years of Scouting.
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 49, Number 10, December 1961, periodical, December 1961; New Brunswick, New Jersey. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth331727/m1/19/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.