Scouting

Scouting

By Marc Alley

Christmas 2009

My story begins in the mid-Seventies, when I was about 6, and Mom and Dad were seeing the results of us boys being bullied by the evil neighborhood Erik Pickett. He had a limitless supply of the latest toys to lure his lesser toy-owning victims. He clearly ate too much sugar, and had too little parental supervision. He had a penchant for plastic batts, cursing and violence. When he hit your head just right with a cheap plastic batt, it would cave the interior to the shape of a skull, and after repeated use the edges would break off, creating a wicked death scalpel.

“ If we could just move to the Mormon Vatican, Salt Lake City”, Mom and Dad said. “Surely there won’t be any bullies in existence to torment our wonderful progeny there!”, they reasoned. Furthermore, Dad was making big bucks with banks, IBM and Digital Corporation. Surely he could replicate this easy money in the Utah Utopia. “I’ll just start my own company with my nerdling, ingrate brother Lynn. Surely this will be better than all the big companies keeping the all the millions. Plus, I’ll be able to get more time to map out fantasy computer games in all of our spare time”.

I don’t know if I knew what leaving L.A. meant. I was leaving the orange groves that would soon be plowed over for new homes. I was leaving the Safeway with the nearby Straw Hat Pizza where I fell in love with my first love, Shirley Temple. My parents had failed to inform me that Shirley was now a 48 year-old divorcee who had, in recent years, run unsuccessfully for United States Congress , and received appointments as United States Ambassador to Ghana in 1974.

So without all kinds of precious knowledge and experience, I was moved to the Mormon El Dorado. Our first house was a rental on Princeton Avenue. Next door lived the landlord in a big, plantation style home, somewhat subconsciously signifying the true caste of the new renters. It was a nice, middle to upper-class neighborhood with a huge park a block away. Paradise. Or so they thought.

I soon found that being from L.A. wasn’t as cool as I thought, especially when everyone found out that I was quite a renowned tap-dancing violinist. My first test of manhood was at the park, and Greg Hoole challenged me to a soccer ball kickoff. “How far can you kick it?” he said as his just-kicked ball sailed off into the stratosphere. Since it was my very first kick of a soccer ball, so my greatest exertions resulted in the ball plopping only a few feet away. Clearly my feet had been trained up after the subtle flourishes of Fred Astaire, not the reverse-kicking brute force of Pele. I had unknowingly opened up a big can of whoop ass than no sissy on the east bench had ever seen.

I’d burned all of my sequined dance shirts, hid my trophies, and even quit dancing, but clearly I needed to take it to the next level. I joined soccer to show my fealty to the local thugs but it did little good, and my 6:30 bedtimes, references to being trained by Danny Kayes’ best mate and Sears Toughskin jeans weren’t impressing anyone. Mom had clearly bought into the Sears marketing campaign that Toughskins had a lifetime replacement guarantee, just like its socket wrenches, and it was almost impossible to tear out the asbestos and vinyl reinforced knees. I needed style fast, but it took several years mowing lawns to save up to buy my own Izod or Polo shirt and Levis 501s. A few years later my sole burgundy Ralph Lauren polo and 501s did a fairly good job wooing my first kiss in 7^th grade at Clayton Junior High in the back row during an assembly. She was a cute dark-eyed Jewish girl, and I was obviously influenced by my prior reading of Anne Frank. She even invited me to her Bat Mitzvah. But I digress.

Another de rigeur rite of passage in our ward was the “deacon suit”. Everyone that passed the sacrament wore a suit when they were ordained a deacon, and the white shirt that passes muster now was not acceptable. Mom and Dad bought me a nice herringbone sport jacket and I believe Brandon and Ben used it later on. We all looked pretty sharp in our somber-toned suits.

Hallelujiah for the strong Scouting program in the ward, and what a respite it was. It really allowed me to feel more like one the guys and I excelled at checking off hundreds of badge-earning requirements. In those days we still wore the collarless army green Scout shirts, and once a month, Scouts would wear uniforms to church on “Scout Day”. They really don’t do that anymore now. The leaders were uniform sticklers, and we would even roll our kerchiefs and neatly secure them with hand-painted fasteners. My favorite one was an antiqued cattle skull.

One of the boys I was trying to make friends with was Matt Jeppson across the street. He was well-liked and his proximity to my house at least made us casual friends. One Sunday Spencer Hoole grabbed Matt’s shoes and threw one out the second-story window of the church. I tried to show how tough I was by taking one away from him and giving it back to Matt. Unknowingly, I had challenged Spencer to a fight, and he was at least a year older than I was. All of the other boys whispered that the fight was to be staged in the downstairs scouting room, a log-cabin affair under the stage. It was a much-loved manly room and somehow seemed appropriate for the event, even though we were technically still at church.

Once down in the room facing Spencer, I was a little scared, as I hadn’t given a lot of thought to my strategy. Spencer was yelling at me and we were facing each other; all of the boys had put the chairs into kind of a makeshift ring. He had put his fists up but hadn’t made the first move. I figured that all is fair in love and war, and I was at a huge disadvantage being younger and smaller. I took the first swing which connected well with his lower jaw. He was obviously surprised and a little stunned that the kid he had been bullying was now an aggressor. I was able to make a pretty good show by blocking some of his blows and planting a few weak jabs. Spencer wanted to make it a ground fight(which I would have definitely lost), so he grabbed for my arm. By some miracle of good fortune, the large safety pin holding my D.I. scout shirt cuff had come loose and as he grabbed my lower arm the pin sunk deep into his hand. He yelled in surprise and frustration and it was kind of funny to me because no one in the circle really knew what my secret weapon was. He tried grabbing my arm again and got the business end of the ping again. The fight ended pretty soon and I think I ended up with a bit of a black eye. While walking home alone I let myself cry a little, mostly from pentup anger and fear. Mom had a pretty good talk with Sister Hoole. I don’t think she understood that this was a somewhat necessary, although barbaric rite of passage, and I did get a measure of respect after that, and was picked on a lot less. I was still uncool but better accepted. It felt good to at least stand up to the guy.

Not all of the Hoole boys were bad news. They oldest Hoole boy was actually one of our Scout Advisors. One of our overnight campouts turned into an unfortunate 2 nights. In those days there weren’t as many rules about having 2 leaders there at all times. Roger Hoole had invited along a Japanese exchange student that was staying with their family and he was our same age. While crossing a stream in the canyon, the boy slipped and had a very serious head injury. Roger rushed off to the hospital with him leaving us alone. I remember boiling up pickle slices and putting ketchup and mustard on them for dinner. We had a great time pretending that we were lost alone in some vast wilderness, secretly wishing that we could live in our own isolated Lord of the Flies.

Some other very dedicated Scout leaders took us on one of many memorable outings, but this winter one stands out. We decided to go up to Camp Tracy and sleep overnight in January in the “Adirondacks”, or three-sided cabins. Before bed we had plenty of time to go tubing. Camp Tracy was a veritable wonderland for this activity. Camp Tracy had a wide dirt jeep trail that went up the mountain almost a full mile. Erosion had raised the sides of the trail a few feet, so once you were on your tube it was impossible to slide off of the track. Many other tubers ensured that the trail was packed and well frozen. The trail also snaked backed and forth as you increased in velocity and ended in a spine-jarring jump. I still dream about going back there and trying it out. After a few hours of laughing and bumping around in our tube chains, we had some smores and ghost stories around the fire. The boys decided to do one last tubing run before bed, while the leaders stayed by the fire. Coming around the last bend of the trail right before the jump we saw a man in a red plaid jacket holding a hatchet above his head as if he was going to swing it at us. In terror, we hit the jump and flew into the air. After we landed we realized that it was just Reed Gardner, trying to scare us by mimicking the character in the ghost story he had just told us. What a fun and crazy rush!

I hadn’t camped in the winter before that night and I learned a lot from that experience. I had a fairly good sleeping bag, but had made the mistake of not bringing any wool socks and wearing wet cotton ones to bed. I had nightmares of awaking in the morning to a surgeon getting ready to cut off my blackened nubs. I spent an uncomfortable and sleeplessl night but awoke to find only my Levis frozen stiff as a board. Lesson 2, bring a pair of dry clothes including wool socks! Even some of the eggs in my plastic carrier had frozen inside my sleeping bag. Nonetheless, I had learned that I could survive a night in the Rocky Mountains unscathed. The fact that I had acquired some basic survival skills was also very comforting to me. The shared experiences between boys of different backgrounds really brings you closer together. Later in life I would eventually become a Scoutmaster myself and teach boys how to stay warm and cozy in tents and snow caves.

On another tubing trip with leaders, I was riding down Emigration Canyon in one of the leader’s light blue Mercedes. He misjudged the ice and the whole car slid off the road, coming to rest by a large pine. However we were saved by the seventies version of air bags: still-inflated tubes filled up every available space in the rear seat.

I really enjoyed working on various merit badges and learning more about the badge counselors. One of the counselors, in our ward boundaries, Mel Jarvis, was a non-Mormon ,ex-marine, wifeless type with a hacking smokers cough. He initially seemed very gruff and angry. But once you got to know him, he was a very nice guy. He introduced me to stamp-collecting, which he loved, and even gave me several valuable stamps. He loved scouting with a passion and later received the Silver Beaver from the scouting mission for his relentless service to Scouting. He died quite soon after from lung cancer.

Pretty much everyone in my ward got their Eagle, and I was no exception. I received it when I was still 13, and we had the full Eagle Court and everyone from the troop and their parents attended. My final Eagle project had to do with a new occurrence on the East Bench. Someone had the bright idea to spray paint a template of “MX” on the bottom of many stop signs in the area. Apparently the MX missile was being built at Morton Thiokol and some people were opposed to it. The Scout Council wouldn’t approve me cleaning off the signs, so me and a group of friends spent many hours riding around on our bikes documenting which signs had vandalism. Looking back on it, I probably should have done something to raise money for orphans or something, but the years of cleanliness training had obviously rubbed off. To this day I still despise the pointlessness of vandalism and what it represents, although I do like the dedicated areas in downtown SLC that they allow some of the more talented spray artists to display their work. Somehow vandalism is OK if it shows a high level of expression and artistry and is sanctioned by the government. Weird.

Scouts has always been important to me and now even more so. Ben and I have both recently been released from our callings as Scoutmasters. In the past I have taken Gabe to several of my activities and he is a Cub Scout now. He seems to really enjoy it because I think he was influenced by seeing the older boys participate and now it’s his big chance to be “older”. I’m really looking forward to doing scouting with him. I think all boys need to learn the basics of how to survive outdoors, how to do basic cooking, how to work as a troop, and getting back to see the beauty of nature. One of the things you also learn in scouting is that activities don’t always go as planned and that’s OK. It’s important to adapt and make it happen anyway. It’s important to just be together and realize that it’s OK to do stuff with the guys and develop friends with other boys or other men. Only Scouting can accomplish this.

I recall a recent event in which we invited the 11-year old boys to come accompanied by their Dads. The Dads sit near the fire and I participate in their friendly and relaxed banter. The boys: their expectant and excited eyes and measuring of each other, their games of counterplay and mock fighting, their waving of smoking firesticks and role plays of anticipated danger, their desire to be liked and accepted by their friends seems very familiar to me as I gaze into the fire smiling to myself.

May Scouting live long and prosper.