THOUGHTFUL ITEMS FOR SCOUTERS

Thanks to Scouter Jim from Bountiful, Utah, who prepares this section of Baloo for us each month.  You can reach him at bobwhitejonz@juno.com or through the link to write Baloo on www.usscouts.org.   CD

Roundtable Prayer

CS Roundtable Planning Guide

As we have fun in the summer, we give thanks for the wonderful world we live in and for the people who care for us.  As we explore outdoors, let us be safe from harm.  AMEN

Go Discover America

Scouter Jim, Bountiful UT

In thinking about “S’more Summer Fun” I had difficulty coming up with an appropriate subject for this month’s thought.  I started to look for important dates and holidays during August. I found that Hawaii became our fiftieth State on August 21, 1959, adding the fiftieth star to our American flag. 

After that, I started to look at birthdays for the month and found the following list, among many, many, others:

1 Aug 1770 – William Clark

18 Aug 1774 – Meriwether Lewis

1 Aug 1779 – Francis Scott Key

17 Aug 1786 – Davy Crockett

5 Aug 1930 – Neil Armstrong

As you look at the list, what pattern do you see?  The first thing I noticed was William Clark and Meriwether Lewis of the Corps of Discovery.  Then I noticed Davy Crockett and Neil Armstrong.  Finally I noticed the birthday of Francis Scott Key.  The common thread of the first four men mentioned above is the spirit of discovery.  Davy Crockett helped open up the western frontiers and Lewis and Clark extended it to the limits of the Pacific Ocean.  Neil Armstrong extended the frontier to the surface of the moon.  Each of these four men carried the American Flag to a new and then distant frontier.

Francis Scott Key’s was a contemporary of all the other men, except Neil Armstrong.  He is most famous for his authorship of “The Star Spangled Banner,” our national anthem.  With his words he has helped lead others to follow our nation’s flag to new, and in some cases, distant journeys of discovery.

In 1803 Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark helped form the “Corps of Discovery.”   The Corps of Discovery brought back invaluable geographic and scientific data, including 178 new species of plants and 122 previously unknown species of animals. Lewis and Clark succeeded in mapping a route beyond the Mississippi River to the West Coast.  For two years they served both as explorers and ambassadors for the rest of America.  Not only were they on a mission of discovery, but they were developing relationships with the native peoples who lived on the land they were exploring.

Davy Crockett explored the western frontier and served his nation as a member of Congress and a soldier, losing his life in battle at the Alamo in Texas.

Neil Armstrong was an aeronautical engineer and Navy Pilot (and an Eagle Scout).  He became a test pilot and astronaut and was the Commander of Apollo 11 and the first man to step foot on the moon, uttering the phrase, “That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

August is a great time for Cub Scouts to go on their own journey of discovery and proudly represent the nation and the Boy Scout of America.  It can be a time for them to learn new things, meet new people as did Lewis and Clark, and seek the sense of adventure that led Neil Armstrong to be a test pilot and walk on the moon.

Let’s lead our Cub Scouts outdoors, and have “S’more Summer Fun” as we explore America with a new sense of adventure.

Wow, I now feel honored to have my birthday in the same month as these great men.  Especially Davy Crockett who is my personal favorite hero.  I was just the right age when Walt Disney brought out Davy Crockett with Fess Parker and have loved Davy Crockett ever since.  

Thank you, Scouter Jim for another fine column.  And good Scouting as you guide those Owls this fall.  They knew it would take a great and majestic Bob White o get the job done right.  CD

Quotations

Quotations contain the wisdom of the ages, and are a great source of inspiration for Cubmaster’s minutes, material for an advancement ceremony or an insightful addition to a Pack Meeting program cover

A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.   Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (1893 - 1986)

One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Andre Gide (1869 - 1951)

The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.  Frank Herbert (1920 - 1986)

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit. Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.  
Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727),
From Brewster, Memoirs of Newton (1855)

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent. Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727)

Mistakes are the portals of discovery.
 James Joyce (1882 - 1941)

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. James Dent

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.  Russel Baker

August creates as she slumbers, replete and satisfied. 
Joseph Wood Krutch

Celebrate Summer - Sun drenched days and starlit nights... Gooseberry Patch

Heat, ma'am! It was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.  Sydney Smith

I know that if odour were visible, as colour is, I'd see the summer garden in rainbow clouds.  Robert Bridges

I question not if thrushes sing,
If roses load the air;
Beyond my heart I need not reach
When all is summer there.
John Vance Cheney

In summer, the song sings itself.  William Carlos Williams

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.  Hal Borland

Oh, bring again my heart's content,
Thou Spirit of the Summer-time!
William Allingham

Oh, the summer night
Has a smile of light
And she sits on a sapphire throne.
Barry Cornwall

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.  John Lubbock

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. Warren Buffett

Summer afternoon - summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.  Henry James

The dandelions and buttercups gild all the lawn: the drowsy bee stumbles among the clover tops, and summer sweetens all to me.  James Russell Lowell

The summer night is like a perfection of thought. 
Wallace Stevens

You can never appreciate the shade of a tree unless you sweat in the sun. Author Unknown

Sam Houston Area Council

“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” – Native American Proverb

“The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one's eyes.” – George Sand

“A weed is no more than a flower in disguise.” – James Russell Lowell

“Fire is the best of servants; but what a master!” – Thomas Carlyle

“How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?” – Author Unknown

“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.” – Dave Barry