Be Prepared

 

Be prepared. Boy Scout motto or not, I don’t think anything could have prepared me to pick up a sandwich from the stack on the camp picnic table, take a big bite, and find it featured peanut butter and American cheese between two slices of white bread. I looked at a kid named Brad, who had drawn lunch duty that day. I said, “Are you sure this was on the menu?” He waved the mimeographed lunch directions that accompanied our daily food allotment and pointed to the itemized list. Sure enough, it read, “Saturday Lunch: Apples, Peanut Butter and Cheese Sandwiches.” For want of an Oxford comma, things had turned ugly.

 

We were at a special training event for Boy Scout Senior Patrol Leaders from troops all over the Piedmont Council. I was only 14 and the appointed leader of a motley band that included boys as old as 16 and 17. I was tall for my age, so my crew didn’t know my secret.

 

I was supposed to help the boys learn to be effective in their posts. I don’t remember how I got the leadership gig. As I said, I was tall for my age and was the senior patrol leader of my home troop. At age 14, I had already achieved the top rank of Eagle Scout. Still, I felt like I was in over my head. I was flattered but overwhelmed. All I knew to do was to fake confidence and hope the weekend would fly by.

 

It was a reoccurring theme for me in scouting—trying to please my troop leaders, who kept putting me in positions I felt ill-prepared for. I wished I could just be one of the guys, have fun, and let someone else be in charge. I liked the approval I got from adults, but I sometimes felt isolated from my peers. Part of the trap of this experience was that I believed I couldn't ask for help. To ask for help would be to disappoint those who had chosen me for leadership. This set up a self-defeating pattern as I moved into adulthood of seeking out positions of responsibility without first ensuring I had the experience and knowledge to be effective in those positions. I also didn't realize I was allowed to admit I needed help.

 

I don’t regret my time in scouting. I smoked my first cigarette on a camping trip and found it so nasty I never tried another. I learned to identify and avoid poison ivy, lash together three poles into a tripod, and, theoretically, stop your bleeding with a tourniquet. The best thing scouting did for me was give me the confidence and skill to hike, camp, and enjoy nature while not leaving a trace. I’ve carried the “small footprint” ethic throughout my life (if a guy who wears size 13 can claim a small footprint).

 

“Be prepared” is the Boy Scout motto. I have a mixed record in that regard. And then there’s Brad. Brad could read, but he was inexperienced in making sandwiches. He wasn’t prepared to go beyond the written word and use common sense to decipher the instructions. I should have helped him, and, working together, we would have succeeded. The silver lining is that once Brad ate a cheese and peanut butter sandwich, he either never made that mistake again, or he found a new favorite sandwich he would have never tried otherwise.