Boy Scouts in the rearview mirror
3 dots, 4 dots, 2 dots,1 dash happens
Be Prepared
— Scout Motto
Boy Scouts of America Troop 41 in the old hometown didn’t boot me out. And I didn’t quit in a huff. Didn’t cuss or call anyone names. Just quietly stopped going.
Not for any serious reason, such as being sexually abused by an adult leader, which more than 82,000 scouts later would say happened to them.
In the 1950s, we knew nothing about this festering secret locked up tight in the popular organization’s national headquarters. The Boy Scouts was widely considered red, white and blue, apple pie and 4th of July Norman Rockwell America, as patriotic and wholesome-seeming an organization as any normal lad could hope to swear an oath to.
I quit anyway.
“Anyone who doesn’t memorize Morse Code for all the other 22 letters of the alphabet can’t go camping with us on Friday,” had been Uncle John’s edict at the regular Tuesday night meeting. “And the same rule applies to all future camping trips.”
We already all knew four letters of the code and he knew we knew them because of a little rhyme made up by one of the scouts and often shouted in unison like a ballgame cheer:
“Three dots, four dots, two dots, a dash. If you go in the grass it don’t make a splash.”
Uncle John never accused anyone of authorship but, based on our history, I’m sure he considered me a person of interest. From the way he looked at me when issuing his code requirement I figured it was payback time for that rhyme. And for my too frequent failure to abide by the letter of the Scout Law, especially when I won his last two contests.
Uncle John apparently had some kind of scoutmaster’s manual that suggested competitions to spice up troop meetings.
One was to pile several random items on a table before any scouts arrived. Then, after the meeting got underway, without saying anything about it, simply cover the items with a tarp. The scout who could recall and list the most would win.
“I saw a pair of shoes, an axe, a camp stove, and a canteen,” said the first scout to go.
Someone’s list included the belt and someone else’s the flashlight, which accounted for everything on the table. Most boys scored three or four. A couple of them listed things that hadn’t been there. And the scout who always excelled at everything no matter what managed to get all six.
I held back to go last, took a deep breath and read as fast as I could while holding up fingers to count. “There was a left shoe, a right shoe, a left shoelace, a right shoelace, a canvas canteen cover, a canteen cover strap, a canteen lid, a little chain attaching the lid to the canteen, a canteen…”
It would have been a lousy two if scored the way the others had counted. I was holding up nine fingers.
“He’s not doing it right. Cheat. Not fair.”
Shouts of dispute pelted me. No congratulations from any of them, or from Uncle John who, by the way, wasn’t really my uncle. He was father to one scout and actual uncle to only one other. The rest of us just called him uncle.
Then there was the compass competition for a new cast iron Dutch oven hidden somewhere in the park surrounding our scout hut. The big pot would belong to the troop but the one who found it got to be first to cook in it. Uncle John didn’t spring for big prizes.
We were given compass readings to follow for so many paces, to a spot where we would find more readings to follow, and so on until finally reaching the end, where whoever got there first would find the hidden treasure. I wasn’t too keen on joining the mob in what seemed a more complicated process than necessary.
Logic suggested an easier way. Weren’t many places in the park to hide a Dutch oven. Forget staring down at a compass and all the rushing about. Just pause and have a look around. Take in the big picture.
Hey, what? That trash barrel looks like it’s been moved.
I nonchalantly walked over and tipped it enough to see that it had been placed atop the lid to a hole containing a water valve. Lifted the lid and bingo.
“Cheating,” charged the lot of sore losers, with Uncle John, who had put quite a bit of time and effort in setting things up, complaining that the purpose of the exercise was supposed to have been compass practice.
Nary a word said he about resourcefulness, or applying logic, or being observant, or having confidence to go your own way.
As a kid who truly enjoyed taking shortcuts and finding loopholes and seeing how far rules might be bent, I was learning that adult authority figures generally view such behavior as rebellious, disrespectful, disobedient. Character flaws. They want team players who color inside the lines and follow unbent rules.
So by the time Uncle John issued his memorize-code-or-no-camping edict I believe we both, although coming at it from opposite directions, had reached the same unspoken conclusion: I was not Boy Scout material.
Camping trips were the organization’s main attraction, what with building fires, the respite from parental supervision, wearing knives on our belts, hitting wood with axes, sleeping in tents and all. Major events, like going to the national jamboree or Philmont Scout Ranch, were beyond my minor means. Instead of pricey official scout gear like backpack, cooking kit, canteen, and so forth, I had army surplus items that were available for a pittance in the short years after World War II.
The occasional overnight camping trips to nearby spots were a bonus with our regular monthly dues, which I covered from pay for bagging groceries, delivering circulars, mowing grass… So it didn’t seem fair to me when Uncle John added that code assignment to the camping trip. Memorizing required study — too much like school.
Why did we need the long dead Mr. Samuel F.B. Morse’s code to camp anyway? His dots and dashes were obsolete as far as I was concerned. Oh, ships still used them, and ham radio operators, and Western Union. But I had no plans to go to sea, no money to spend on radio equipment, and could see no future in becoming a telegrapher.
Everyone I knew had a telephone at home. When you wanted to communicate you just lifted the receiver and the operator said, “Number, please.” Plain English spoken words, neither dots nor dashes. Also, my dad recently surprised the family with our first black and white television set and “The Adventures of Robin Hood” came on the same time as Troop 41’s weekly meeting.
Easy decision: no Morse Code, no camping trip, TV instead of scouts. One of the others could cook first in the Dutch oven. It was time for the Boy Scouts and me to admit we were a big disappointment to each other and go our separate ways.
It was still some decades before Boy Scouts of America proved to be a colossal disappointment to a huge number of people. Turns out the men running the organization that made “trustworthy” the number one requirement of the Scout Law were not. For years and years they kept secret files on suspected sexual predators found among the ranks of adult leaders. But in 2012 a court ruling forced the scouts to make public the portion of files from the 1960s through 1985, and it set off a 3-dots, 4-dots, 2-dots, 1-dash storm that continues.
In September (2023), the fund established to compensate survivors of sexual abuse while in Boy Scouts of America began distributing payments to the first group of more than 82,000 claimants in a process that will require years and an estimated $2.5 billion to complete.
From Boy Scouts of America headquarters comes a pledge to improve safety programs that protect scouts from abusers and to reverse declining membership trends. Convincing people that the Boy Scouts of America really and truly now has become trustworthy seems daunting enough a task. But the organization also must sell the scouting outdoor agenda to boys and girls who may well prefer spending their limited time and money on computer games and gadgetry.
Seems like long odds to one old loner of a man who chose a simple black and white television set with poor reception over being a scout.
Documentaries about the Boy Scout sex abuse scandal: On Netflix, “Scouts Honor: The Secret Files of the Boy Scouts of America.” And on Hulu, “Leave No Trace.”
