On My Honor I Will Do My Best

The boy scouts descended on DC this weekend. I was going to write a post about the sight of two hundred scouts circling the Library of Congress -- all in their short pants and little bow ties regardless of whether they are twelve or fifty. But now I feel kind of awful for giggling knowing that this happened yesterday. The horrible irony is the idea that scouts are supposed to know about this shit -- where to pitch a tent, and more specifically, where NOT to pitch a tent.

So, yeah, all irony aside, a moment of silence for the scouts.

Whenever scouting comes up I am always fascinated to hear which of my male friends becomes kind of quiet and looks down a little sheepishly, finally admitting, "Yeah, well, I was an Eagle Scout". There's one in every crowd. And while they are not always that eager to admit it, they are always damn proud of the fact when it comes right down to it. As well they should be.

My scouting days were limited. I started Brownies in the second grade, and was pretty much done with it by the end of the third. My experience was marked by two specific incidents. One was when I insisted on doing cartwheels around the Autumn Lane Elementary school cafetorium while on a snack break that first year. I was working up into a cartwheel frenzy when one of my brown loafers flew off my foot, made a wide arc through the room, floated for a moment on a cloud of lunchroom french fry fumes, and finally came crashing down into one of the cafetorium windows.

The window didn't break.

But I was banned from doing cartwheels ever again because I could have "Hurt someone!" and from then on had a very close eye kept on me by our scout leaders. I think I became the special project for Mrs. Sawako, who became one more adult in a long line of teachers and principals who were going to take it upon themselves to teach me how to be a nice young lady.

It never really worked.

I stayed in the troop despite my subsequent Brownie lockdown, but finally snapped the next year when we were learning how to macrame. We were weaving bracelets, it was a basic stich, a simple process, I had finished a bracelet and was moving on to designing a macrame suspension bridge -- while some of the girls were still trying to master the first step.

After that evening, I decided I was too smart for it all and refused to attend any more meetings. I was a little bit full of myself.

I don't think they were all that disappointed to see me go.