ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, March 2, 1997 TAG: 9703030009
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: New River Journal
SOURCE: GERRY DAVIES
I went to a Cub Scout awards banquet last week - my first in 30 years. Got an intense feeling of deja vu. Then I remembered: I really had been there before.
And it hadn't changed much.
Thirty years ago it was Pack 134 (which doesn't exist anymore) in Collins Tract Elementary School (ditto). Monday night it was Pack 150 in Gilbert Linkous Elementary in Blacksburg.
The nerve-wracking energy, rambunctiousness and noise were the same. Seemed like the kids were, too, except that I'd been replaced by my son, Andy, in the ranks of boys bedecked with badges, ribbons and pins.
There were so many badges, ribbons and pins, in fact, that they looked a little like the old Soviet leadership. You remember them: a half-dozen ancient, vaguely animatronic men festooned with medals saying "Great Hero of the Five-Year Pork Production Plan."
The big difference, of course, was that the Cub Scouts had earned their badges.
Andy is a Tiger Cub, the introductory level, so he's new to this scouting stuff. Right now he thinks it's all cool trips and pack meetings and hanging out with other hyper 7-year-olds.
But if he sticks with it long enough - seven years, say, like I did - he'll understand that there are lofty goals in scouting.
First there are the adults' goals - all that "trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind" stuff.
Then there's the kids' goal, which is to collect as many badges, ribbons and pins as humanly possible.
By any means necessary.
That's my recollection anyway.
But then, we were a corrupt bunch in Pack 134. None of us would have passed the semaphore test for our First Class badges if Guy Scott, an older scout, hadn't accepted certain, uh, questionable hand gestures as parts of the alphabet.
My First Class badge is sitting in a box at home. I hope the Boy Scouts of America don't ask for it back now that I've publicly confessed. They might want the Star and Life badges, too, not to mention the Senior Patrol Leader patch.
They can't have the Webelos stuff. I earned that fair and square.
I kept them all. I don't know why. Mention scouting to me and I recall damp sleeping bags, damp clothes and damp towels, 20-mile hikes, freeze-dried trail food and blisters. And I remember particularly well the night we found out at 2 a.m. that we were camped on a skunk trail.
A skunk let us know.
Then there was the evening around a smoky campfire that a smirking veteran scout - probably Guy Scott - gave me the time-honored new-kid assignment: "Hey, go borrow a left-handed smoke shifter from the next camp."
I'd never heard of a smoke-shifter before, but who was I, a mere Tenderfoot, to question an older, wiser, bigger and meaner scout?
The guys in the other camp said I could have one if I brought back a meatball bouncer first.
So my scouting memories are not all heart-warming.
On the other hand, I can still tie a clove hitch, a taut-line hitch and a sheepshank. I've never actually found a use for a sheepshank, but you never know.
And thanks to a great scoutmaster who may have been the best Baptist birdwatcher of all time, I also got to camp in Canada, to canoe the Allagash River in Maine, and to swim a mile nonstop and get a badge that said I'd done it.
To a chubby kid from Jersey, those seemed like impressive accomplishments.
Almost enough to forget the skunk.
I worried a bit at first that scouting wouldn't hold Andy's interest. But as I watched him at the banquet, it became clear that he had the makings of a scout.
My kind of scout.
We'd supplied one of the cakes, decorated by request with dinosaurs. During dinner some kids judged the decorations, and - imagine this - each and every one won a prize.
When awards time came, the pack leader called Andy up on stage, shook his hand and gave him an orange ribbon.
Andy bounced down the steps and played with the ribbon the rest of the banquet. He even wore it to school the next day dangling from his hat.
And, hey, who wouldn't?
Not every guy gets to wear a ribbon proudly proclaiming him: "Participant."
Gerry Davies is The Roanoke Times' night metro editor.
LENGTH: Medium: 89 linesby CNB