[Philmont] Just A Boy Scout

With reference to stiring up a pretty good quiet weekend banter about the Mountains of Oklahoma, let me say that all I ever wanted to be in life was a Boy Scout.
   
  One of the things I really enjoyed in Scouts was playing revelle on the bugle. Revelle invokes people to do things, like get up in the morning even though still half asleep.
   
  So, I played revelle via email and surely did provoke some responses. All were good hearted and that is good because good hearted is how the challenge to Oklahoma and it's Indian wastelands was meant. Not harm or deragatory intended.
   
  It's also unique that a response came from a Hanson headed for PTC. My Scoutmaster was a Hansen, Einar Hansen to be exact. And he went to Philmont long, long ago for training also. wood Badge. The very first Wood Badge at Philmont which was the second taught in the USA. And if I ever get to do the same, I'll take his beads out of my top dresser drawer and wear them as my own as he suggested I do long, long ago.
   
  The first Scout trip I took was in the summer of 1957 with Mr. Hansen to Oklahoma
   
  The purpose of the trip was to attend the Indian Pow Wow in Anadarko. Well, when we got there the Indians went on strike and refused to Pow Wow. There were Indians sitting around everywhere doing nothing but just sitting around doing nothing.
   
  Now to be shot out of the saddle, my Scoutmaster, Einar Hansen took advantage of the moment and we did a lot of interviewing and visiting with Indians. He was a great student of American Indian lore and all that surrounds it.
   
  Also included in the trip was a ride through the Wichita Mountains and the nearby buffalo refuge. Of course we had to take pictures of buffalo and not from a distance as we did not have long lenses back in those days.
   
  We used our Scout stalking skills to get close to the buffalo and get some good photographs without so much as an offhand glance from any of them. Later on we located a rather doscile looking longhorn steer in the prairie country of Oklahoma no less. We decided that we needed a close up photograph of him also. He was not as laid back as the buffalo were and we all made a sprint to our Scoutmasters Kaiser Manhathan automobile post haste.
   
  Then we traveled over to the Arbuckle Mountains, another Oklahoma pseudo pset of mountains.
   
  So, on my first Scout trip I made it to virtually all the mountains Oklahoma has to offer.
   
  And just to show you that I have charity in my heart, for the Oklahoma State fans, many years later, we, my alma mater and me, loaned you Billy Tubbs for a few years of comic enjoyment around the basketball court and if that isn't enough a year of my old high school classmate and neighborhood chum, Jimmy Johnson.
   
  So there you have it. Oklahoma is dear to my heart and I cherish the fact that none of you took the bait and ran with a foul hook and got your feelings hurt when I jabbed at you a little. It was meant to test yoru awakeness, not stirr your aire.
   
  As Calvin Gray tells it, I'm just an old coon ass who don't care what you call me just so you call me when it's time to eat.
   
  And since it's almost breakfast time on Monday morning, it's about time to eat. Have a nice week.
   
  John LeBlanc
   
   

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As you gather around this virtual campfire with fellow
Scouts and Scouters, do your best to be trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient,
cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
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Received on Mon Oct 29 03:15:09 2007