A Scoutmaster's Blog

If you have been following me for awhile you are aware the I have a Flickr account to which I have posted thousands of pictures featuring over thirty years of Scouting in Melrose. I also belong to several Flickr Scouting themed groups, and I am the administrator for the Flickr Wood Badge Photos group.

I wanted to recently find a group to share photos from Eagle Scout ceremonies and celebrations. I did a search and to my surprise I did not find a public group. So I decided to start one. I decided to name it simply “Eagle Scouts”. It can be found HERE.

I invite you to share your photos of your troop’s Eagle Scout courts of honor and celebrations. Be sure to join the group. Let’s make this a great group to showcase those special Boy Scouts who have attained the rank of Eagle.

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?

Cub Scouts like BB guns. Boy Scouts like rifles and shotguns. Check out the shooting ranges at Scout camps if you do not believe me. They are usually very busy places. Boys enjoy shooting at targets.

If you are a registered Cub Scout or Boy Scout leader you receive Scouting Magazine, an official magazine of the BSA. It is loaded with articles to help adult leaders and stories of interest. Recently, some advertisements have caught my attention. A few gun manufacturers have been busy creating Boy Scouts of America commemorative rifles. Here are a few of them.

Henry Repeating Arms has created a 22 rifle to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the B.S.A. This special rifle features the Scouts Oath, Scouts Law, scrollwork and traditional Boy Scouts of America logo embellishing the receiver, as well as a 100 Years of Scouting logo and Centennial Edition gold filled etchings in the buttstock and forearm. It can be seen at their website.

Henry Repeating Arms has also created a special edition Philmont Scout Ranch Rifle. The website states “This Henry Frontier Lever .22 is offered with the Philmont® Black Bull logo embellished with 18 kt. gold plate on the right side of the dark receiver cover. Into the right side of the American walnut stock is laser etched and hand painted in multiple colors a rendering of Philmont’s iconic Tooth of Time, a 9,003 foot molar in the sky with the words TOOTH OF TIME blazoned underneath the mountain’s slope. On the forearm is the Philmont® scripted emblem bracketed by the Slash backwards S horse brand and the Bar P backwards S cattle brand burned into the wood.”

The final rifle I would like to highlight is the Ruger Boy Scout 10/22 Rifle. The website states “Saluting the Boy Scouts of America in a manner befitting their heritage and spirit of adventure.The officially licensed Ruger model number 1255 features precision laser embellishment on a classically rich walnut stock and a special factory serial number.”

I do not own a rifle. I thought it would be great to add one or two of these guns to my Scouting collection. Until I saw the price. I did not realize that rifles could be so pricey. These guns have a MSRP of $480 to $600. That is a little pricey for me. But it sure would be fun to bring one to camp (if allowed) and show it off to the boys and the staff.

Have any of you bought a special Scouting commemorative rifle? Have you shot it? Leave a comment, along with a picture.

Bryan Wendell, the writer of the Bryan On Scouting blog (formally known as the Cracker Barrel) wrote an article today that I found to be quite interesting. He wrote about Memorabilia Monday. He encouraged readers to send in a picture of something from their Scouting collection along with a short description. I thought it was a great idea. I left him a comment to tell him I was going to steal his idea for my blog.

I have been collecting Scouting memorabilia for over 30 years. The collection includes Boy Scout and Cub Scout handbooks, patches, coffee mugs, novels, and plenty of other things. I thought I had enough stuff to write a Memorabilia Monday article for several weeks, so I sat down to make an outline. I came up with enough “themes” for 45 posts. That would take me through November of this year. Today will be the first post.

One of the highlights of my Scouting career was attending the 2001 National Jamboree as the scoutmaster of Troop 1417. While at the jambo, I began trading jamboree council shoulder patches, also known as csp’s. I came home with a few dozen of them and have been adding to the collection during the last nine years.

The patches are kept in a three ring binder, organized in clear pages that contain from a two to six patches each. Even the larger patches and patch sets are protected by plastic sheet protectors.

Most of the collection is made up of single patch sets, or only one or two patches from a set. I have been lucky enough over the years to add a few complete sets of csp’s from a few council contingents. It would be fun to post a picture of each patch along with this article but there are too many of them. I settled on showing a small portion of the collection. The pictures are thumbnails. Click on any one to see the larger view.

By the way, if you have any patches from the 2001 National Jamboree that you do not want any longer be sure to write me a note. I may be able to help you find a good home for them.

Do not forget to check out “Bryan On Scouting” located at http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/

I have been doing a lot of thinking about patch blankets since the last blog post. In fact, I took out my two Scouting blankets over the weekend to see if they would work. I received both blankets as gifts, one from my sister for Christmas, the other from a couple of Eagle Scouts at their court of honor.

As I looked at them I thought that if I did start sewing patches on them I would not want to cover up the center logo or the writing on the edge of the design. However, I could put quite a few patches between the logo and border. That could look pretty cool.

The next thought was that I would not want to turn both of them into a patch blanket. The one with the white frills on the edge would have to stay as a throw blanket. So, I would need another one or two if I was to put all my patches onto blankets. I began looking online and found several Scouting themed patterns that could be used as a blanket. However, I did not find the fleece pattern for these blankets any longer. I could just use a red or green surplus army blanket. But this would look much cooler.

The next thought was how would I display it when it was done. I thought a loop sewn into the top of the blanket would allow me to hang the blanket by sliding a closet rod or dowel into it, like I saw in a picture recently. Or maybe just a few small loops instead of one full length one.

My last thought was why am I making this such a tough decision? I still do not know what I should do.

I have collected a lot of patches during thirty years as a Boy Scout leader. The council shoulder patches are alphabetically arranged in a three ring binder. So are the Order of the Arrow lodge patches and the patches from the 2001 National Jamboree.

The patches I have collected from attending Scouts camporees and other functions have found a place stapled to a four foot by four foot sheet of paneling that is hanging on a wall in my basement family room. (This can be seen in one of Buttons’ videos.) I have used this colorful patch filled sheet in displays set up around town for Scout Anniversary Week.

I few years ago I ran out of space on the sheet so the patches have been accumulating in a couple places around the house. I was thinking about starting a few more binders but they do not display as nicely as the paneling. I would like to be able to display them well but yet store them away easily.

It may be time to start a patch blanket, or two, or three. The reason I have not started one in the past is because I do not sew. I have tried sewing a few patches onto my uniform and discovered I am lousy at it, and I do not like doing it. Thus, I am a fan of Badge Magic.

There is a lady in Melrose who lives about three blocks from em who has a small sewing shop in her house. She has sown several patches to my uniform and was very reasonably priced for her service. I do not know what she would charge to sew a hundred patches unto a blanket. It might be a little costly, but I have to do something.

I have a few questions for those of you who read this blog. Where is a good place to find a reasonably priced blanket for this purpose? What kind of blanket should it be? Fleece or wool? What is the best size? I appreciate your suggestions and comments.

Every so often I get a note from someone asking me about the Peanuts comic strip in which Snoopy appears as a Beagle Scout or as the scoutmaster of a troop of Woodstock’s friends. I never had a collection of all the comic strips, but today I found a couple of sources that will help you to find them all.

The first is http://peanuts.wikia.com, a site that answers all your questions about Charlie Brown and his gang. It is where I started looking for the comics featuring Snoopy, the Beagle Scout. (Who, by the way, started his Scouting as a Tenderpaw.)

The second site you will need is comics.com.

Between these two sites I was able to find over 35 strips dealing with the Beagle Scout and his troop. In one of the last strips he attends a wedding of a couple of the troop members and becomes the groom’s First Beagle. Have fun reading through them all.

A couple weeks ago I went onto eBay and had a bidding binge on various sets of 2001 National Jamboree council shoulder patches. It had been awhile since I worked on my collection and I thought it was time to add a few more patches to the collection. There was a nice selection for sale that evening. I think I must have bid on several auctions, most of them sets of patches but also a few individuals. Most of the auctions went for more than I was willing to pay, but I did win a couple.

I received the 2001 Jamboree Orange County Council CSP seven patch set in the mail today. I am impressed. I had seen one or two of these patches when I was at the Jamboree, but I was not able to even think about getting the set of patches. I was able to buy the patches through the auction at a very reasonable price: $14.00 plus $2.50 for shipping. The patches are in mint condition and have not been worn. This is a great addition to my collection.

I also won an auction for a patch I did not even know existed. It is labeled as the 2001 National Jamboree Scouting Collectors of Minnesota. There seems to be a patch for each of the 50 states. According to the auction site only ten patches were made for each state, each with the same design but a different color scheme. I find that to be a little hard to believe because that very same night I found another of the same patch up for sale. If that is true, I now own 20% of these patches. The value of the patches seem to be directly based on the state. Minnesota was very reasonably priced. New York patches are quite a bit higher priced.

I do collect council shoulder patches from all times and all councils, but the 2001 National Jamboree holds a special place in my collection since I attended as a scoutmaster for Central Minnesota Council 1417. Our patch featured Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue ox.