Hello fellow Eagle Scouts!
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Let me add my congrats too. Its an acheivement that will help you throughout the rest of your life. I'm an Eagle Scout too and have 2 Silver Palms (54 merit badges). Still have my merit badge sash (with 5 on the back since the front was full). Ended up junior assistant scoutmaster before collage (and Uncle Sam) got in the way.
Scouting has changed a lot since I was a member (1955 - 1962). Do they still have silver palms?
Ben
Scouting has changed a lot since I was a member (1955 - 1962). Do they still have silver palms?
Ben
A look at the World Jamboree site shows July 27- August 7 2011.
Thank you Ben. Wow 54 merit badges! I cant remember how many I have at this exact moment... Wait it's 34 (I'm not at home so I had to look at my personal scout advancement report online.) Yes they still have silver palms. I will only have time left to recieve the bronze and gold palms before I age out. I do not understand the waiting three months period in between recieving each palm. Maybe you can explain it to me?
Didn't know there was a three month interval between them but that may be something new. After all its been 50 or so years since I got mine. Certainly weren't 3 months apart either. At least a year and probably closer to 2. Way back then (when dinosaurs still roamed the earth) you could remain active and earn badges until you were 21. Local council didn't like it that I was still active and earning them but hadda award them. Wouldn't give the to me at court of honor. Slipped them to my scout master instead. Kid after me in our troop ended up with 68 I think. I know it was more then I had. Most kids dropped out around 14 (discovered girls I guess). Wish they had a merit badge in that, lol.
Funniest thing about it all was I spent the summer working with a troop in Scottsdale, Arizona (visiting my uncle) and earned a badge out there. You would have thought I shot Lord Baden Powel at the uproar at the local council headquarters. My scout master finally wrote the head office (where ever it was back then - Texas now I think) and someone there made a very poignant and probably nasty phone call to the local council. I got my badge.
I'm sure some of the badges I have no longer exist and you have ones I've never heard of. I used to have my Dads handbook for boys (circa 1920s) and I remember it had Blacksmithing merit bagde in it. No - I don't have that one.
Ben
Funniest thing about it all was I spent the summer working with a troop in Scottsdale, Arizona (visiting my uncle) and earned a badge out there. You would have thought I shot Lord Baden Powel at the uproar at the local council headquarters. My scout master finally wrote the head office (where ever it was back then - Texas now I think) and someone there made a very poignant and probably nasty phone call to the local council. I got my badge.
I'm sure some of the badges I have no longer exist and you have ones I've never heard of. I used to have my Dads handbook for boys (circa 1920s) and I remember it had Blacksmithing merit bagde in it. No - I don't have that one.
Ben
21, huh? That's cool. I wish I could stay an active scout until I was 21. Times have changed I guess. I will join Venture crew soon so I can still be in that as well as the Order of the Arrow until I am 21.
And about this business about you almost not earning a merit badge from another state, as long as a scout has earned a merit badge anywhere from a registered merit badge couselor in the United States of America before his eighteeenth birthday it is to be excepted by his local council.
There seems as if each Coucil has it's own problems in one way or another. My council is too cheap. They try to save money everywhere and not in a good way either. At the Scout Expo(a council wide camp at Beale AFB) this year there was very terrible entertainment at the arena show. The flight line on the tarmac was also pretty bad. We (the youth and anyone who went) were promised this spectacular flightline and arena show and other cool stuff. When I talked to a USAF Colonel that I say out there, he said they didn't know anything about more planes being there. And all of the KC-135s (military Boeing 707s coverted to refuel planes in mid air) had been taken away from Beale. Then the council executives come out and say that was one of the greatest council type activites ever. My evaluation that I filled out was really long.
And yes Texas is the location of the National Headquaters for the BSA.
Blacksmithing, sounds like an interesting merit badge. I've looked at a website that has all merit badges, current and discontinued, some of them sound awesome to have. Not sure what it is called or what its URL is thought, it has been quite sometime since I visited it last.
simulatortrain
jointed freaking rails
Personal fitness, family life, and emergency preparedness.
21, huh? That's cool. I wish I could stay an active scout until I was 21. Times have changed I guess. I will join Venture crew soon so I can still be in that as well as the Order of the Arrow until I am 21.
And about this business about you almost not earning a merit badge from another state, as long as a scout has earned a merit badge anywhere from a registered merit badge couselor in the United States of America before his eighteeenth birthday it is to be excepted by his local council.
There seems as if each Coucil has it's own problems in one way or another. My council is too cheap. They try to save money everywhere and not in a good way either. At the Scout Expo(a council wide camp at Beale AFB) this year there was very terrible entertainment at the arena show. The flight line on the tarmac was also pretty bad. We (the youth and anyone who went) were promised this spectacular flightline and arena show and other cool stuff. When I talked to a USAF Colonel that I say out there, he said they didn't know anything about more planes being there. And all of the KC-135s (military Boeing 707s coverted to refuel planes in mid air) had been taken away from Beale. Then the council executives come out and say that was one of the greatest council type activites ever. My evaluation that I filled out was really long.
And yes Texas is the location of the National Headquaters for the BSA.
Blacksmithing, sounds like an interesting merit badge. I've looked at a website that has all merit badges, current and discontinued, some of them sound awesome to have. Not sure what it is called or what its URL is thought, it has been quite sometime since I visited it last.
I think you can just not as a normal scout. Have to switch to part of the troops cadre of adults. See - scouting has changed. Whats a venture crew? BTW I was Order of the Arrow too but the local bunch weren't very active back then. At 14 you could switch over to the Explorer Scouts. Pretty good. We had a camporee on the USCG Airstation in St. Petersburg, Fl and got to go for a short flight on a really old seaplane the USCG still used. Martin Marlin or something like that. Two radial engines. No jets back then, lol.
Yeah - I know what you mean about councils having thier problems. Ours ran the local scout camp into the ground. So many silly rules and regs kids refused to go. I never did but I guess I was lucky in the my troop was very large, well funded, and well staffed. We could pass every merit badge required for eagle except nature merit badge within the troop. Also had several great (and private) places for camping. Real back-in-the-boonies places. A typical campout was at least 50 kids and 10 adults. Had 4 doctors (3 dentists and 1 veternaria) - - - no people docs, lol) that went on the trips. My dad was a merit badge councelor for Bicycling and Indian Lore.
Twas fun times.
Ben
Yes I will join the adults when I turn 18. I have already told my scoutmaster I will sign up to be a assistant scoutmaster
. Now Venture crew is similar to like Explorer scouts, you must be at least 14 years of age. But the campouts and hikes you do in venture crew are challenging yet fun ie: Yosemite, Mt. Shasta, etc. Then they go on fun campouts too like two? years ago they went to the Bahamas to go sail boating. I wish I could have gone with them on that one. lol.
Yeah, are OA chapter is really active in community service and where ever we are needed we'll be there. We also have the best Ceremony team in our lodge and I'm part of it. Mainly because we are pretty much the only one and we are always ready to go because we have practiced and all memorized our lines. At the last camporee the OA ceremony team (not ours) was reading off the scripts on the back of their shields. I thought this was a disgrace as our ceremony team was going to do it, until we were told "no you can't do it because we already have a team that has been practicing for months." My OA advisor and Vice Chief of cermonies and the rest of us on the team were so upset. I mean we have been doing cermonies for two years now and we got it, all of us on the team are passionate about it and we love to do the cermonies. The Bridging and Arrow of light cermonies that we do for the cub scouts are our best ones. We love the feeling that we get from making their transition into Boy Scouts a special one. That's one of the main reason we all do this.
When I had my Bridging and Arrow of light ceremony, the local OA chapter did the ceremony for us. Then they went away to college and then there was no ceremony chapter for a while and then my friends and I in OA stepped up and said we'll do it. FYI: I usually play as Meteu, the Medicine Man.
About the Marlin. The Coast Guard used then briefly in the late 50s and/or early 60s. More can be found at http://www.aviastar.org/air/usa/martin_marlin.php .
I worked on them back in '63. Some of them were the actual ex CG planes after being returned to the Navy.
I worked on them back in '63. Some of them were the actual ex CG planes after being returned to the Navy.
FlyingScottmond
Rural Haul layout-1%
If anyone, here is going to world Jamboree id like to get some conttacts for when I visit
Hi Superfudd:
Think the camporee was in the late 50's as I was 14 or 15. I remember one other thing about the Marlin too - It was loud, lol. Little drop seats, etc. Natch we all had to wear life vests but we also got plugged into the intercom and could ask questions. It loaded us on land then taxied out into the water and took off. Reverse on the way back natch. Definately a great camporee.
Had another camporee out on the island at the mouth of Tampa Bay. Back then only the USCG and harbor pilots lived there. We spent the weekend and were supposed to sleep in some old WWII barracks but ended up sleeping on the (long) dock to get away from the skeeters. Eat ya alive, lol. Got a nice ride on a cutter out and back. Can't remember which one and size but I think it was a 95 footer. I was in the USCG for 10 years as an ETC. Spent 1 year on the USCGC Owasco (180 ft) out of new Londen, CT. I specialized in Loran A and C. Spent 2 years in Alaska on islands where there was a girl behind every tree (no trees).
Ben
Think the camporee was in the late 50's as I was 14 or 15. I remember one other thing about the Marlin too - It was loud, lol. Little drop seats, etc. Natch we all had to wear life vests but we also got plugged into the intercom and could ask questions. It loaded us on land then taxied out into the water and took off. Reverse on the way back natch. Definately a great camporee.
Had another camporee out on the island at the mouth of Tampa Bay. Back then only the USCG and harbor pilots lived there. We spent the weekend and were supposed to sleep in some old WWII barracks but ended up sleeping on the (long) dock to get away from the skeeters. Eat ya alive, lol. Got a nice ride on a cutter out and back. Can't remember which one and size but I think it was a 95 footer. I was in the USCG for 10 years as an ETC. Spent 1 year on the USCGC Owasco (180 ft) out of new Londen, CT. I specialized in Loran A and C. Spent 2 years in Alaska on islands where there was a girl behind every tree (no trees).
Ben
Hey sorry for the late response, but congrats. I only made it to Star, then I discovered Girls, train/Building/car photography, Model trains, Youth and Government, Guitars and basically everything that makes teenage years interesting (including the heartache). I did earn the railroading badge, the only one in my troop btw. I was a member of the OA also. We did have a camp out at the Pennsylvania trolley Museum in Washington PA, that was fun. We rode trolleys to get around, toured almost every type there, saw the interior of an old style signal light, and got to lay down some track, in the old fashioned way. Sadly I cannot go back to my troop, they have or are in the process of Folding, none of the kids want to do anything, no camping, no merit badges, or anythin like that. that's kinda the reason I left, lack of interest (then again, I lost interest to, lol)
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Well I just got back from my final summer camp as a youth, I earned four merit badges. Shotgun, Conoeing, and the other two are historical merit badges which they are only offering this year for the 100 years of scouting, they are Carpentry, and Tracking. It was a blast. Myself and the others on the leadership team had to deal with several problematic scouts, but in the end the entire troop had fun. We only delt with two major injuries (The first scout was mountain biking downhill fast when he crashed; he ate s**t. He got a concussion and sprained his wrist but was ok by the end of the day. The second scout landed on his back on some sharp rocks, he was in pain and our adults did all correct procedures, my mom is a nurse, we a had a dad who is a California Highway Patrol medical officer, and all the adults have first aid training. They both rode out their enjuries and stayed for the entire week. Today, before we left my friend and I signed up on the staff interest list for next year so hopefully we will be staff togther.
Are you saying that Carpentry is no longer a merit badge? I've been out of scouting over 40 years and haven't really kept up. I don't recall Tracking as having been a merit badge when I was in scouting, but it could have been. Tracking was just one of those things that we were all taught.
Mike
Mike
Really? Yeah not sure how long its been gone, but National Council brought back four merit badges this year. They are calling them Historical/Retro Merit Badges. The four are Tracking, Carpentry, Signaling, and Pathfinding.
EDIT:
Carpentry — First offered in 1911. Discontinued in 1952.
Pathfinding — First offered in 1911. Discontinued in 1952.
Signaling— First offered in 1910. Discontinued in 1992.
Tracking—First offered in 1911 as Stalker. Discontinued in 1952.
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