A Scoutmaster's Blog

It is time for for the Boy Scouts of Troop 68 to add another skit, or is it a song, to the list of videos on the Melrose Scout Productions Podcast. The video comes from the troop’s Laughs for Lunch Show performed in January 2000. It features the members of the Hazardous Hawk Patrol doing their version of a troop original, Star Trekking: The Next Generation.

This is a skit that takes a bit of practice. The Hawks did an excellent job of claiming this skit as their own for a couple years. It is also an excellent example of performers really getting into their roles. By the end of the skit the boys (Josh, Alex, Mike, Nathan, Sergio, and Blake) are acting like they are excited, hyper, or something. It is all in good fun and really adds to the song.

Here are the words to the refrain:
Star Trekking, across the universe.
On a ship that splits in two, with Q who’s such a jerk.
Star Trekking, across the universe.
Only going forward ’cause Worf has broke reverse.

Another version of this song can be found at MSPP #54: Star Trekking: The Next Generation. Watch them both and let us know which one you enjoy the most.

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A scoutmaster took out his phone at the roundtable Tuesday night to show me something that was written many centuries ago about the younger generation, but seemed to be written about many of today’s youth. After reading it I had him email it to me so that I could share it with all of you.

Socrates wrote. . . “Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt fot authority; they show disrepsect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

But, Plato in the Republic argued that youth should learn the cardinal virtues of wisdom, bravery, temperance and justice through adversity and adventure, and that young people could learn lessons about virtue best by impelling them into adventurous situations that demanded that virtues be exercised.

Was Plato talking about Scouting before Scouting existed? Uncanny, isn’t it?

If you have been involved with the Cub Scout or Boy Scout program for a year or longer you have probably seen a group of Scouts perform the I Wish I Was A Boy Scout skit. Or maybe you have already participated in performing the skit already. Either way, you have discovered that it is a silly skit, easy to learn, and fun to do. It is the type of skit that is easy for newer Scouts to learn. I have discovered that even if the performers get the words or actions wrong it will still be a hilarious skit.

The video is an oldie but a goody. It is from Boy Scout Troop 68’s Laughs For Lunch Show held in January 2000 at the Melrose High School auditorium. These five older Scouts put a lot into the skit and had a lot of fun with it, as did the audience watching them. It is a short skit, only about three minutes long.

This video features Alex, Andy, Ben, Chris, and Jesse.

Click here to DOWNLOAD and watch this Podcast.
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I saw this picture online and it brought a huge smile to my face. I could not help but picture a Scout Leader standing up in front of a council or district training session and yelling this to all the attendants.

Just think of this for a moment. It has to be true, doesn’t it? Don’t you have to be a little crazy to sit there in a room full of teenage boys, trying to steer them into learning constructive life skills? Or a cubmaster trying to keep a few dozen elementary age boys’ attention long enough to conduct an award ceremony? Or a scoutmaster taking 15 boys who are not his own into the wilderness for a camping trip? Don’t you have to be a little crazy to do these things, and so much more?

Well, maybe a little bit. But you also have to believe in the program and be willing to back it up 100 percent or more. More importantly, you have to believe in the boys and imagine what they are capable of becoming as they grow into adult men and future leaders of our communities, and even our country.

Yes, we Scouters are a little crazy, and though it may not be a competition, it is a worthwhile program to belong to.

We all have our favorite campfire skits. Sometimes they are short ones and other times they are a bit on the long side. They usually make us chuckle or laugh out loud. If they are really a good one, it will be one we want to be a part of when it is performed in front of an audience. Today’s post to the Melrose Scout Productions Podcast is one of my favorite skits, and yes, it does include me as one of the performers.

I first saw the “I Want To Marry The Princess” skit while I attended summer camp as the troop’s scoutmaster during the 1980’s. The staff did such a good job performing it that the Scouts and adult leaders in attendance where laughing hard and very loudly. It was a skit I immediately learned to add to our troop’s repertoire. As we began to learn the skit we decided to try to make the first act nice and slow, pronounced well, and acted perfect. But when it came time for the second act we threw everything out the window and went for speed. The faster we did it, the better the audience liked it. If we made mistakes, and we often did, the audience laughed even harder.

This video to the podcast features Jay and myself performing the skit during our 2000 Laughs For Lunch Show. Usually, the Boy Scouts would have performed this skit but I wanted to be a part of it that year. Jay and I really got into it. In fact, I was so much into character the at one point a forgot where the chair was and landed on the floor. Well, when you watch it I am sure you will understand.

Click here to DOWNLOAD and watch this Podcast.
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Leave a comment below, or at the iTunes store.

I saw it many times during my 30 years as a scoutmaster. That first year at a week long summer camp causes some boys to grow up a bit, sometimes more than a bit. It is their first time away from home, parents, and family for that long of a period. Unfortunately, once in awhile a boy becomes home sick and leaves camp during the week, but that has been a rare occurrence. More often than not, the new boy completes the week and stands taller and prouder when he arrives home.

Saturday’s edition of the comic strip For Better Or For Worse touches on this subject of growing up, and it does it with a mention of camp. I enjoyed it. I bet you will also. The comic strip can be read at
http://www.gocomics.com/forbetterorforworse/2013/07/06

What do you think?

Many of today’s Boy Scouts have never heard of Victor Borge. Borge was a great entertainer. He was a superb pianist and a fantastic story teller, and somehow was able to put those talents together and create a humorous musical show. I have not seen many of his television programs but the couple I have seen I have enjoyed immensely.

One of Borge’s most famous stories was called Inflationary Language. It demonstrated what our language would become if it showed inflation like the prices in the grocery store. Just add one to everything in the language. Thus, wonderful becomes twoderful. Tonight becomes threenight. You get the idea. It is very funny when told correctly.

We have a gentleman in our council who has learned this story and occasionally tells it during a campfire program. It is a tough story to learn, and even tougher to recite, but he does it quite well and does not miss a beat. We have had Boy Scouts in our troop try to learn it or read it aloud and I can tell you, it was quite a challenge for them. So here is your challenge, learn this story and recite it at your next troop campfire.

Twice upon a time there lived in sunny Califivenia a young man named Bob. He was a third lieutelevenant in the U.S. Air Fiveces. Bob had been fond of Anna, his one and a half sister ever since she saw the light of day five the second time. And they were both proud of the fact that two of his fivefathers had been among the creninetors of the U.S. Constithreetion. They were dining on the terrace. “Anna,” he said as he threek a bite of marinnined herring, “You look twoderful threenight. You’ve never looked that lovely befive.”

Anna really looked twoderful in spite of the illness from which she had not quite recupernined.

“Yes,” repeated Bob, “You do look twoderful threenight, but you have three of the saddest eyes I have ever seen.
The table was tastefully decornined with Anna’s favorite flowers, threelips.

They were now talking about Anna’s husband from whom she was separnined while on the radio the Irish elevenor sang Tea five Three. It was midnight. The clock in the distance struck thirteen. And suddenly there in the moonlight stood her husband, Don Two, obviously intoxicnined. “Anna,” he brawled, “fivegive me! I’m only young twice! And you are my two and only!”

Bob jumped to his feet. “Get out of here, you threefaced triplecrosser!”

Anna warned, “Watch out, Bob, he’s an officer!”

“Yes, he is two, but I’m two three!”
Any two five elevennis? Ahahaaha!

“All right,” said Don Two as he wiped his fivehead.”

He then left, and when he was one and a half way through the revolving door, he said, “I’ll go back to Elevennessee and be double again.”

“Farewell, Anna! Threedeloo; Threedeloo!”

How about a short story for your next troop outing? – – –

A Grandmother, a Boy Scout, a Teacher, and the smartest man in the world were on a plane. After a while, it became known that plane was failing and was about to crash. There were only three parachutes, and four passengers. Being the smartest man in the world, he took a parachute and jumped out of the plane.

The teacher, also being smart, thought to herself, ‘Teachers are needed in the world to teach their knowledge to others.’ So with that, she took a parachute and jumped out the plane.

The Grandmother, being very wise, said to the boy scout, “I am old. I have lived my life. You are still a young boy. Go, take the last parachute.” But the Boy scout said, “No, it’s okay. There are two parachutes left. The smartest man in the world took my backpack.”