Formation-1965-Fremont_Scouts_Ship_Adventure_and_Door_Knock
Formation-1965-Fremont_Scouts_Ship_Adventure_and_Door_Knock
Two of the most formative memories I have from cub scouts and boy scouts was while I lived in Fremont CA in the early to mid-60s. Our 'den' went on a field trip to a USN ship in Alameda. I can vividly remember stepping inside the grey metallic beast with it's roaring blast of hot and diesel smelling breath. The passage doors had lots of handles, not just one. It was like sneaking into a vault of secret machinery that could kill in a heartbeat - and the main passage had a dozen doors down the arching hallway. On each side were more doorways - each with uniformed men, strange noises and insider talk with secret words. At the end of the passage was a miracle - fountains of colored liquids in plastic cubes, a lunch-line with metal trays - metal! not the school yard plastic stuff - real metal! And the vivid memory of the dessert. To this day I recall being asked if I wanted a SECOND ice cream. WHAT? I hadn't tasted such adventure in my lifetime. I left thinking if I could muster the opportunity to show them I'd be (what ever they required) to be a part of adventure that fed this well. This is an aside that in the mid-sixties America wasn't fed as well as the abundance we see today. I was sold. I wanted to upgrade my uniform and have the adventure with a metal sailing beast some day.
The second story and formation memory was the opposite. I was given a handbook of Scout-o-rama raffle tickets and directed out the door and into my neighborhood so I could earn the passage to the upcoming big event. No guide, no backup, no training, just... go knock on doors and people will give you money for a good cause. The first and final door I knocked on that hot summer morning was only because it was a screen door, with a TV on in the background. I knocked, stepped back off the first concrete porch step and straightened my cub scout neckerchief. I stood as proudly as I could until I was met with the man of the house, in dingy-white boxer short underwear and a tank-top that didn't cover his huge gorilla haired belly. WHAT DO YOU WANT? he bellered. I quivered and tried to make my pitch. Before I had even been heard-out he shouted "NOOO!", slammed his inner door on my terror, and left me in tears. In that moment my dreams of becoming a 'man' and a 'sailor' were crushed. I didn't have it in me to face this human gorilla - how could I ever qualify for 'REAL' ribbons and battle medallions. I think that was near the end of my scouting days. We moved into the Sierra Nevada foothills shortly after that and I carried both a vision, and a fear of being unqualified from my first battlefield - the Scout-o-rama which I didn't qualify to attend.
I spent decades with the Scouts honor both inspiring me and judging me; "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight".
Now I have a super-power - story-telling, self-mastery, and a navy of AI to make sense of the chaos. And yes, I have a vessel named Intelligent Netware.
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