My Days as a Cub Scout

[kybearfuzz]

Some time back, someone on my friends list posted that they had passed by the boy scouts selling their popcorn and stuff and had refused to buy any of their stuff because of their anti-gay stance. I personally applaud that idea.

Tonight, I was chatting with cincycub tonight, where I found out Brian was a cub scout for a year. I told him that I had lasted all of two weeks myself. I'll recount the reason why in this PWE (pre-journal worthy entry).

I'll set the wayback machine for 1980 or so. I was probably seven or eight. It was either my second or third grade year that I wanted to hop into the boy scouts. It seems like I remember someone coming to talk to the kids at school about scouting, and of course they made it sound fun and adventurous. My sister was already a Brownie scout, so selling my mom on the idea was relatively easy. I got my uniform, complete with dazzling yellow neckerchief. If that wasn't a gay selling point, I don't know what was.

I went to my first scout meeting around Halloween. I went in full uniform to my den mother's house with my Scooby-Doo mask on for a party with the guys (yeah, for some reason our leader was a lady, or maybe she was the den leader's wife). One of the guys in my troop was my next door neighbor Jeff, who coincidentally was sort of an in-law. His sister was married to my older brother Ronnie. Jeff and I and the rest of the boys had fun at the party, though I admit I don't recall much of it. I do remember my scout leader telling my mom that we had a joint clean-up of the Trademart shopping center in two weeks with the girl scouts. Mom had already heard about this through my sister's troop.

Two weeks passed and the Saturday clean-up day arrived. My sister Rhonda donned her get up and I put on my uniform. Mom drove both of us to Trademart and we stood there while whoever was in charge shouted orders. I remember looking around for my troop, but I didn't see them or anyone else male. Amidst a sea of green and brown girl scout uniforms, mine was the only blue uniform present. Not a single boy scout, other than myself, had shown up for this trash pick-up shindig.

I turned to Mom and begged her to take me home. I was both angry and afraid. Girls were icky and I didn't want to stay there with them. Mom must have been looking forward to having a quiet house for an afternoon, because she wouldn't do it.

"They've already seen that you're here," she said, "you can't just leave."

Like hell I can't, I thought. Mom was adamant that I stay though, saying it woudn't look right. She tried to tell me that it wouldn't be so bad, especially since I had Rhonda there with me. Mom hopped in her car and left. Though I know it's not in her character, I can almost swear I heard her giggling with glee at the idea of having a child-free afternoon.

So the head girl scout leader (think Anne Ramsey from "Throw Momma From the Train"), split every troop up and assigned them to a specific area of the shopping center. I went up to Ms. Ramsey and asked her where she wanted me to go. She asked where my troop was. I shrugged my shoulders and said I had no idea. So, life dealt me yet another cruel blow and she assigned me to the troop where all the girls had hit puberty, which was not the troop my sister was in. So Rhonda detached me from her arm with a crowbar and I went off with my assigned group.

We were assigned the eastern end of the shopping center, the Belk's through Curtis Mathes area. Though it was November, it was the middle of our Indian summer because the temperatures were very warm. I started sweating after an hour of picking up trash. The bitches of Troop PMS of course didn't bother to learn my name. They just referred to me as "Cubby," a name that I don't mind coming from a nice burly bear these days, but to hear these acne-ladden witches use it at the time just made me feel terrible. It was this time that I learned that sometimes I had to just bear it as it would eventually end.

I'm sure it was a couple of hours, but felt longer before the day was done. Mom arrived to pick up Rhonda and me and we went home. Mom asked me how it went and I remember being very sullen. I had hated it and more importantly I hated my troop for deserting me. When we got home, I went to my room and changed clothes, taking off my cub scout uniform and never putting it on again.

Days later I ran into Jeff and asked him what happened to him and the rest of the troop on Saturday. Jeff just shrugged and said he had no idea why they didn't show. Despite the money Mom spent on the uniform, she never said anything about scouts to me since that Saturday. I think she realizes that I got shafted by them and would never want to go back.

Strangely, the twin never wanted to join scouts. I guess Mom figured that my bad experience was enough. Rhonda on the other hand stayed in the Girl Scouts for several more years, allowing all of us to enjoy the experience of having huge cases of cookies in the house every year. So, support your local Girl Scouts, buy cookies....

Comments

[cincy-dave.livejournal.com]

And that's the story of how Mark tuned gay.

:)


I was a cub scout for a long time. They learned I could sing and perform. I had to don a clowns costume and be the host for the variety show.