Having grown up in a neighborhood where the only kids in uniforms we saw had just escaped from somewhere, I never knew much about Cub Scouting. And I didn't know anything about the Pinewood Derby.
The idea of the Pinewood Derby is for each Cub Scout and his dad to get together and build a little model car, which then is raced when all the dens gather for the monthly pack meeting. The racing is not the important part, of course. The important part is the time spent together between the Cub Scout and his dad, time which will help cement the vital relationship between father and son that leads to a full and rewarding life when the youngster matures into an honest, hard-working, clear-eyed adult. Apparently it works. The Cub Scouts have statistics to prove that no boy who participated in the Pinewood Derby ever grew up to be a chain saw murderer.
And so the first year our Cub Scout brings home his Pinewood Derby kit, we rush down to the basement, where we spend an hour and a half together: five minutes reading the instructions, ten minutes sanding the wood, ten minutes spray painting the wood, ten minutes assembling the parts, ten minutes re-reading the instructions, fifteen minutes taking off the wheels and putting them back on the right way, and thirty minutes arguing about which end is the front.
At the pack meeting that year, while I watch hopefully, our car finishes fourth out of six in our den. But on the way home, our Cub Scout says to me: "That's all right, I don't care if we didn't win. I still think you're the best dad in the world."
The second year our Cub Scout brings home his Pinewood Derby kit, we hurry down to the basement, where we spend two hours together: thirty minutes sanding, fifteen minutes spray painting, fifteen minutes assembling, and an hour discussing why it's all right for a grownup to say words like that when the electric sander slips and grinds all the hair off the back of his hand.
At the pack meeting that year, while I watch uncomfortably, our car finishes fifth out of six in our den. But on the way home, our Cub Scout says to me: "That's all right, I don't care if we didn't win. I still think you're a pretty good dad."
The third year our Cub Scout brings home his Pinewood Derby kit, we saunter down to the basement, where we spend two and a half hours together: thirty minutes sanding, thirty minutes spray painting, thirty minutes assembling, and an hour explaining to the wife how it was possible to get red spray paint on the inside of her washing machine.
At the pack meeting that year, while I watch miserably, our car loses every race. And on the way home our Cub Scout says to me: "Boy, Keith sure is lucky. His dad never helps him with his car."
Despite my best efforts, our Cub Scout remains in the program and the next thing you know, I am a Den Leader. Becoming a Den Leader is not something you plan. It just sort of happens to you. Like hemorrhoids. One day you are spending your Tuesday evenings in front of the television set and the next thing you know you are standing there with two fingers in the air promising to do your duty. I'm not sure how it happened to me. I'm not even sure I want to think about it. All I know is that suddenly I am leader of Webelos Den 13, Pack 471.
Webelos, incidentally, are 10-year-olds who are making the transition from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts. They are at that in-between stage. Too old to sit around the campfire with their mothers, but too young to care about where the Girl Scouts' showers are.
The first den meeting is held in our basement. It is attended by six Webelos. Before the next meeting, three of them will drop. Unfortunately, my kid is not one of them. As suggested in the Webelo Leader's Book, we start the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. More or less. The problem is, we don't actually have a flag, so we have to improvise. I'm not sure the national headquarters would approve of our substitute. On the other hand, there's nothing in the Webelo Leader's Book that says we CAN'T pledge allegiance to a Green Bay Packers' pennant.
In subsequent weeks, the meetings fall into a smooth routine: Open the meeting. Pledge Allegiance to the Green Bay Packers. Take attendance. Collect dues. Discuss a topic in the Webelo's Scout Book. Play a game. Eat cookies and drink Kool-aid. Adjourn the meeting. Let everyone out the front door. Let Tom back in the front door to get his hat. Let Tom out the front door. Let Brian back in the front door to get his Webelo's Book.
Let Brian back out the front door. Let Joe back in the front door to get his brother. Let Joe and his brother back out the front door. Lock the front door. Disconnect the doorbell. Let the dog clean up the floor of its cookie crumbs.
After three months of this, I decide that what Den 13 needs is to take a field trip in lieu of one of its regular meetings. Not that the meetings are all that tough. But the door knob is wearing out and the dog is getting awfully fat. I bring up the subject during a Den meeting. "If you guys had your choice for a field trip, where would you like to go?"
"Hawaii."
"The Super Bowl."
"An X-rated movie."
I point out to the guy who suggested Hawaii that it would cost too much money to go there.
I point out to the guy who suggests the Super Bowl that the game was played two months ago. I point out to the guy who suggests the X-rated movie that I wasn't really asking for suggestions from the other den leaders.
After considerable discussion, we narrow the field trip down to two choices: We can go on a tour of the local jail or visit the public library and see a slide show on the development and evolution of the Dewey Decimal System. We decided on the local jail tour.
On the eve of the Den's field trip, the other Den leader who had agreed to go along and help keep things under control calls to say that he will be unable to make it. An unexpected medical problem has cropped up, he explains. Not being a suspicious person, I have no reason to doubt him. On the other hand, I have never heard of an emergency vasectomy.
The next day I pick up our Webelos after school and drive to the local jail. We arrive there at 3:48, which is quitting time. I know it is quitting time because just as we come in the front, I see a whole bunch of people hurrying out the back.
Inside, we are greeted by a man who says he will be our guide. He is not the regular guide, he adds, holding his short straw in a trembling hand. The regular guide called in a few minutes ago with an unexpected medical problem.
"Emergency vasectomy?" I ask.
"She didn't say."
We start our tour in the main office, where each Webelo is given a safety poster, suitable for framing or poking each other in the eyes. Then we tour the visitor's waiting room, where each Webelo is given a sample wanted poster. The poster is suitable for hanging, framing, or rolling up into swords. The guide, by this time, is asking for Valium.
We sword-fight our way through the kitchen, the laundry room, and into the booking office. In this room is the finger-printing machine. The boys just love this gizmo. By the end of this part of the tour, I've got six Webelos not only finger-printed but also now anxiously awaiting the tryouts for the next Disney Dalmatian Special. In this room, there are also assorted handcuffs, police sticks, and zappers. Hmmm... I wonder what kind of deal I could get on a set of six handcuffs.
The tour lasts 45 minutes. But it seems longer. We thank our guide, who by now is babbling and blinking uncontrollably, and head for the car. "That was neat," one of the Webelos says.
"Yeah," another agrees. "Let's take another field trip again next week."
"Sorry, boys," I say. "I won't be able to take you."
"Why not?"
"I feel an unexpected medical problem cropping up."
Of course, scouting is more than pinewood derbies, den meetings and field trips to the local jail. Scouting is also packing up the old mess kit and hiking along forest trails with a song in your heart, a smile on your lips, and a thorn in your foot. Scouting is a camp-out in the woods.
My wife reminds me of our Cub Scout's annual camp-out.
"Sounds great," I say. "Sleeping under the stars. Waking up at the crack of dawn. Fishing in clear streams in the fresh pure air. Perhaps he'll see a raccoon. Some squirrels. A tiny little chipmunk."
"It's a father-son camp-out this year," she says.
"Of course you know there's bears in those woods. Big hairy man-eaters. And mountain lions. And gorillas. And sharks. And..."
"Are you trying to say you don't want to go?"
"Listen, if God intended man to sleep outside, why did he invent mosquitoes?" "But if you don't go camping with your son, you'll break his heart. Besides it might be fun for you and I guarantee that you'll both develop a common interest." "Yeah, we'll both learn to hate camping. So just forget it. I'm not going camping and I don't want to hear another word about it."
Wordlessly, she walks to the family room and begins to make up the couch for me. Wordlessly, I pack my knapsack. That weekend we drive to Camp Hiawatha. Several other fathers and sons are already there when we arrive. One father is busy making a fire. I am somewhat surprised by this, seeing that it is in the middle of the afternoon and the temperature is in the 80s.
Another father has brought the two tents that we will call home for the next few nights. They are four-man tents, which is not to imply that four men can fit into them. A four-man tent is one that takes four men to put up. Fortunately, we have four men available. Unfortunately, they are the wrong four men. After half an hour of sweating, straining, fumbling, and Cub Scout oaths, we decide to read the directions.
Eventually the tents are up. It is time to begin the father-son activities. So we fish.
We hike. We practice ax-handling skills. Before I know it, an hour has passed.
By nightfall, all the activities in the fresh forest air have worked their magic. Little heads begin to nod around the campfire. Tired little legs carry weary bodies to their sleeping bags before 10 o'clock. The kids, on the other hand, stay up all night.
The next morning we are up at the crack of dawn. Sunrise, I discover, looks just like sunset...only it's on the other side. We have breakfast: burnt pancakes, limp bacon, and shooting pains, prepared over a crackling propane stove.
Not long after breakfast comes the part I have been dreading. Taking one last breath of fresh forest air, I enter the building at the edge of the campsite. It is what they call a primitive facility, just like the pioneers used. After being in there for a few minutes, I begin to understand why the pioneers were always moving on.
The rest of the day is spent with more fishing, hiking, and ax-handling. In the afternoon, a Boy Scout comes along and shows us how to prepare our dinners so that they can be cooked directly on the hot coals of a campfire.
"Just wrap the foil real tight, put the food on the coals, and in fifteen or twenty minutes you'll have the best dinner you ever tasted," he assures us.
At 6 o'clock we place our tightly-wrapped foil dinners on the hot coals of the campfire. At 6:05 it begins to rain. As we sit in our tent, muddy, itchy and hungry, watching the best dinners we were ever going to taste sink into a pool of soggy ashes, my 10-year-old turns to me.
"Just think, Dad, this is my last year in Cub Scouts. We'll never get to do this again."
"Stiff upper lip, son."
"Yeah. Next year I'll be in Boy Scouts; then we get to come here for a whole week." I wonder if there is anything in the Scout Leader's Book about it being okay for a scout to see a grown leader cry.
If nothing else, three years in Cub Scouts proves to be a learning experience. My scout now knows how to get wet every piece of clothing he has brought along five minutes after we arrive at a remote campsite, how to start a fire so that the smoke always blows into the tent, and how to tie a rope around his sleeping bag with a knot that won't come undone until we are in the car on the way home.
But there are some lessons I never seem to absorb. When I hear the word "banquet," I still picture elegantly dressed men and women being served Beef Wellington by white-gloved waiters. This all takes place in elegant surroundings, with gentle music playing in the background. Subdued lighting. Fine china. Expensive silverware. The Queen of England graciously hosting the elegant event. It is a fantasy that has survived approximately half a million Blue and Gold Banquets.
The Blue and Gold Banquet is a covered-dish event held each year to recognize the fact that the Pack has reached the point that is exactly halfway between the "Of Course I'll Volunteer To Help" stage and the "Oh No, Not Camp Time Again" stage. Then again, it could be merely a show of support for the Fried Chicken Workers of America, the Goulash Union, or the Teamsters For Better Jell-O.
At any given Blue and Gold Banquet, sixty out of a hundred covered dishes carried in will contain goulash. The rest will equally contain either chicken or Jell-O. "One of these times I'm going to show up with a covered dish full of Beef Wellington and see what happens."
"You always were a troublemaker," my better half says. "Now let's get going before we're late. And don't forget the Jell-O."
We drive to the Colonel's, buy a bucket, transfer the chicken to our covered dish, and proceed to the banquet, which is being held in the Gladstone Senior Citizens Center. It is not the elegant surroundings of my fantasy banquets. We arrive at the center and place our covered dish of chicken between the Goulash Surprise and the Shaved Carrot Jell-O Temptation.
When it is time for the banquet to begin, the Cubmaster announces that we will go through the food line one den at a time. Our den will be last. We sit at our table, watching Scouts punch each other in the shoulder, while the other dens go through the line. Finally, it is our turn. I carry my paper plate to the food table, where I discover that the bowls of Jell-O are warm and the goulash is unrecognizable. I pour myself a helping of Jell-O and poke through the remains of the chicken. I have my choice of two extra-soggy wings or a piece of bird that I do not recognize. I think it is a foot. I put the two chicken wings into the pool of Jell-O and carry them back to the table. By the time I get there, the Jell-O has started to eat through the bottom of my plate. I stab at a wing with my plastic fork. Two of the three plastic tines snap off. With the remaining tine, I hold the chicken down while I saw at it with a plastic knife. The plastic knife cuts through the chicken, the liquid Jell-O, and the paper plate. Trying to ignore the green stain spreading out from underneath my plate, I eat the two chicken wings, pausing occasionally to cleanse my palate with warm Hawaiian Punch. The queen doesn't know what she's missing.
After three years of Blue and Gold Banquets, field trips, father-son campouts, and den meetings, our oldest son moves on to Boy Scouts. My sigh of relief is interrupted when our youngest son becomes a Cub Scout. Here we go again!