A Scoutmaster's Blog

It’s Monday! The start of another workweek. The day of blogging about Scouting Memorabilia. This time I go back to the 1940′s and the Boy Scout of America handbook. I have been lucky enough to add two of these to my book collection. Both were used by boys when they were a Scout so they do show some wear. To tell the truth, these books are in better shape than some of the current handbooks that boys in my troop use.

Most of this handbook is black and white, but the first dozen pages were done in color. There are several pages of advertising in the back of the book, along with the front and back cover. There are large sections devoted to trees, birds, and weather. There is even a list of United States of America presidents, up to F. D. Roosevelt. The books contains quite a few black and white drawings. It also seems to contain a lot more information than today’s handbook. (Maybe boys read more back then?)

Have you been lucky enough to find a 1940′s Handbook for your collection?

100 Days of Scouting: Day 35.

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If you have been following me on this blog, you know I like to collect Scouting patches. On this Memorabilia Monday I would like to present my collection of Order of the Arrow lodge patches. Of course, I am not going to show the whole collection. I will highlight just a few of them.

I began collecting OA patches shortly after going through my Ordeal in the mid 1980′s. I belong to the Naguonabe Lodge of the Central Minnesota Council. Collecting patches is somewhat of a challenge for me because my lodge frowns upon trading our lodge patches. Of course, this makes them highly tradable since there are very few Scouts within the lodge that will trade them, including me. Luckily, the lodge does design special “tradable” lodge patches for special activities like National Jamborees and Conclaves.

My collection includes regular Order of the Arrow lodge patches from across the country and special National Jamboree patches from the 2001 National Jamboree. (I was the scoutmaster of one of the two council troops that attended that year.) The collection has been growing slowly. Usually, I only get to add a few patches a year. But grow it does. Someday, maybe I will have a large collection to fill a couple three ring binders. Time will tell.

100 Days of Scouting: Day 28 .

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On this Memorabilia Monday I would like to present four books of my collection that share a theme of Scouting History.

The first book is The Boy Scouts: An American Adventure, written by Robert W. Peterson, and published in 1984. It was a book printed for the 75th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. The book is broken down into four parts: 1900-1915, 1915-1935, 1935-1970, and 1970-present (1984). The book is full of black and white and color pictures covering the decades of Scouting. One of my favorite parts of the book shows how to build a tree house designed by Dan Beard.

Scouting With Baden-Powell, written by Russell Freedman in 1967, is a biography of Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting movement. The book does a good job of covering his life. You need to get through two thirds of the book before it starts talking about Scouting. I received this book for free. The librarian of the junior high school library gave it to me when they were discarding old books they did not feel they needed any longer.

The Boy’s Life Treasury, printed in 1958 by the Boy Scouts of America, is a great book to have in any collection. This 480 page book features  a selection of the best stories and articles from Boy’s Life magazine.My copy of this book is in excellent condition, even if the book jacket is beat up a bit. Amazingly, this book retailed for only $4.95 when it was released. I also own The Best Of Boy’s Life which was published in 2010 for the B.S.A.’s 100th anniversary.

The pride of my Scout history collection is The History of the Boy Scouts of America. It was written by William D. Murray in 1937. This 574 page volume is rich in Scouting history to that point in time, and contains a lot of photographs and sketches. The first photo in the book features William Murray presenting the 5,000,000th handbook to President F.D. Roosevelt. Four Eagle Scouts stand behind the President. I was lucky enough to find a copy of this book that is in excellent condition. If you really want to know the details about the first thirty years of the Boy Scouts of America, this is the book for you.

Do you have any books about Scouting history? Leave a comment and tell us about it.

100 Days of Scouting: Day 14.

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Once you have been a Boy Scout or Cub Scout leader for awhile you may notice something that starts to occur. Slowly and gradually, Scouting begins to take over your house. It may start with a few items in the corner of one room. Soon, that corner is filled, and a gear pile may be found in another room. Collections begin to grow and may need to be displayed. Your garage looses space because troop or pack stuff needs to be stored somewhere. Photographs and videos begin to fill your computer hard drive.

As I was trying to think of something to write about for this post of the 100 Days of Scouting, I just needed to look around the house for inspiration. In the city of Melrose, my house is the House of Scouting. There are pictures of the groups of Scouts who have gone to camp hanging on my stairway wall. Dozens of photo albums fill shelves of a bookcase. My basement rec room showcases my Scouting mugs, books, and awards earned over the years. I have a gallery of Eagle Scout photos hanging next to a 4′ x 4′ sheet of paneling that is full of activity patches. There is a large Norman Rockwell print hanging in the living, and a Scout Camp: The Movie poster, signed by the director Garrett Batty, hanging in my bedroom. The closet in the spare bedroom is full of camping gear. Twelve Norman Rockwell prints hang on my office wall. Dozens of dvd’s of troop outings, shows, and courts of honor fill a cabinet.

Then there is the computer. The file of Scouting pictures contains over 33 GB of photos, and it is still growing as I scan old photos. I have over 400 GB of Scouting related videos. These include promotion and training videos by the B.S.A. along with videos and slideshows of Troop 68 activities and Scout members. I am the webmaster for the troop’s website. That file contains over 10 GB of stuff.

It took thirty years for Scouting to take over my house to the extent that it has. I am glad that I have not been a Scout leader for 100 years for I would have to be living in a mansion to display everything collected over ten decades. The funny part is, when a new Boy Scout comes to the house for the first time, he is not all that interested in seeing the Scout stuff. He wants to see the Star Wars or the medieval weapons collections.

How has Scouting taken over your house or apartment?

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I collect Boy Scout handbooks. I started collecting them shortly after I became a scoutmaster. I would check out any used bookstores that I would come across to find any Scouting themed books; handbooks, history books about Scouting, fictional novels. I have a decent collection. I have noticed that books in the used bookstores have gone up in price, dramatically at times, so I would guess that more people have been collecting them also. The last few books I added to my shelves have come from eBay.

The oldest Boy Scout Handbooks in my collection are from 1932. I was lucky enough to find two of them over the years. Both are in pretty good condition. Both have writing in them from the boys who once used the books. It is fun to look through them and see how Scouting has changed over the years, especially the advancement program. It is also interesting to how the Scouting program has not changed. Outdoor program, character building, and values are still an important part of the program. The more things change, the more the stay the same.

Do you collect handbooks? What is the oldest one in your collection?

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Most Scouters enjoy their cup of coffee in the morning. I never started drinking coffee. Hot chocolate was more my thing. I do, like many Scout Leaders, have a collection of Scouting themed coffee mugs. It seems that every Scout Leader I know has a collection of Scouting mugs. I think there may be an unwritten rule about that.

For Memorabilia Monday, I thought I would share a portion of my mug collection with you. For many years, the Central Minnesota Council and the Camp Ripley National Guard Base have worked together to create a fun filled weekend for the Boy Scout troops of our council. Most years it is just our council, but every fourth year it becomes a state-wide event in which five (I think) councils participate. It seems that at every Ripley Rendezvous there is a new souvenir coffee mug to buy. I alway get one, of course. There are now thirteen Ripley themed coffee mugs in my collection. There would be a few more but our troop did not attend a few years.

Do you have any themed coffee mugs as part of your Scouting memorabilia collection?

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