Re: [Philmont]: Squeaky wheels....

Actually, we had no problem shooting Black Powder rifles at hats, etc., on
our just completed trek. We were even asked by the staff if there was
something we wanted to shoot at. The only problem was, once you put the hat
or whatever on the range, it had to remain there until everyone had shot.

Our crew leader was the first shooter. He placed his hat on the shooting
range and hit it with his first shot. He wanted only his one shot in the
hat, but the staffers said the hat had to remain until everyone had shot
(the thought being that it would take forever if each person was to place
and retrieve an article from the range). Our crew leader watched in horror
as others from various crews fired at his hat. Fortunately for him, no one
else's aim was that good. He retrieved his hat with only his own bullet hole
in it. It made for some high drama for him and some crew hilarity for us.

While there might be some restrictions on shooting at hats or T-shirts, I
noticed that there were absolutely no restrictions on the throwing of
tomahawks at articles of clothing. I watched one LDS crew at Clear Creek
riddle T-shirts and some very expensive OR hats with tomahawks. They were
laughing at the sport of it all, as kids are prone to do (especially when
they did not have to pay for the hats themselves). I suspect that their
folks aren't going to be laughing so loud when they get home.

As for trash compacting, you are correct, our Ranger never mentioned it, and
he also never mentioned human sumping. We had been previously trained to do
both, so we continued the policy at Philmont.

But I find that it's very much like everything else in Scouting. We must
take it upon ourselves as Scouters to be as well-trained as possible so that
we can pass along these things to our Scouts. As I compare the current Boy
Scout Handbook to previous editions, I notice many things are missing. Do
we, as leaders, simply teach what's in the new book or do we augment the
current literature with "cool" stuff from the old books? I believe that it
is incumbent upon us to teach the youth what they got into Scouting to
learn, even if it is not required. So, we'll continue to compact trash and
human sump because that's the way it should be, even though BSA says
otherwise. We'll also teach fire by friction and cooking without utensils,
etc.

Oops, I need to wash my Philmont stuff, so I better get off my soapbox.

BeaverBob

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Received on Wed Jul 9 10:57:02 2003