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

O Lord, we thank you for all the blessings you have bestowed upon us and this nation.  Help us do our duty to you and our county.  Help us do our best to guide the youth so they can grow up to be good men for this great nation.  AMEN

Sam Houston Area Council

We are thankful to live in this country where we have the freedom to worship as we wish. May we always remember that all of us are Your children. Amen.

American ABC’s

Scouter Jim, Bountiful UT

One early morning, while waiting for the bus, after not working for a while, I realized I had missed road noise.  As Scout Leaders, we are all about nature and the outdoors.  When we think about Scouting, most think about quiet and solitude or the wilderness, the sound of a mountain stream, the call of wild birds.  We don’t often think about the places we live, in the cities and towns of America.  Roads as we know them are an invention of the last century.  Many if not all of us have heard the song about Route 66, the road that crossed the country from Chicago across the country to Los Angeles.  There is also the Lincoln Highway, the Dixie Highway and many other named roads.  There are Scenic Byways all across the country, place to visit, with a history to tell

The street where I catch the bus every workday morning has a number, but just down the street it changes to a named road.   Most people don’t remember why they call it “Orchard Drive.”  On the far south end many years ago there were orchards where people would come from miles around to purchase fruit.  On the far north end, there used to be a church owned farm with fruit trees and a small dairy, all of which, for the most part, were operated by volunteers with all the production of the orchard and dairy being processed and given to needy families.  I remember being taken there by my father with my older brothers to do volunteer work.  I did what little work a young lad could do, picking up branches and hauling them out of the fields after other had pruned trees.  The orchards and the farm are now gone, replaced by urban sprawl and a subdivision. 

There is a another road in my county that runs east to west named Antelope Drive.  Should you drive the road west from I-15to the edge of the Great Salt Lake, you would come to an entrance booth to the causeway to Antelope Island State Park.  After paying a Park entrance fee, you could drive the road across the Great Salt Lake to a wonderful State Park with clean sandy beaches and its own herd of Buffalo roaming the Island.

I am not trying to brag about where I live.  I am merely trying to raise the competitive spirit in the reader to say, Oh yea, well you aught to see what we have around here.  There is this great place right down the road.  We have some wonderful history right here in our city park.  That is the reaction that this month is all about.  Teaching boys about where they live and the reasons that things are the way they are.  Where did your town get its name.  I bet there is a story to tell there.  Beyond the boundaries of your community, to the wonders of you state, what stories are there to tell?  What places are there to visit near where you live?  Beyond the boundaries of your state, what places of history and beauty are there in you region?  Let us teach our Cub Scouts about the America, and the States and  the towns where they live.

Web Link:  http://www.byways.org  America’s Scenic Byways

Bless The Cub Scouts

Catalina Council

(Tune: Bless This House)

Bless the Cub Scouts, Lord, we pray.

Keep us healthy all the day.

Let us know our Cub Scout sign,

Have it always on our mind.

If you do, we promise then,

We'll become good future men.

Hear our prayers at night and day,

Guide us, O Lord along your way.

Bless the Cub Scouts, Lord, we pray,

Keep us healthy all the day.

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

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  St. Augustine

Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.  Anatole France

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. 
Lin Yutang

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.  Seneca

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience.  The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him.  He goes "sight-seeing."  Daniel J. Boorstin

It is not down in any map; true places never are. 
Herman Melville

The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.  G.K. Chesterton

To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.  Charles Horton Cooley

And that's the wonderful thing about family travel:  it provides you with experiences that will remain locked forever in the scar tissue of your mind.  Dave Barry

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.  Lillian Smith

I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.  Mark Twain

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.  Mark Twain

We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.  Hilaire Belloc

Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.  Benjamin Disraeli

Sam Houston Area Council

America’s future walks through the doors of our schools each day. Mary Jean Le Tendre

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. Lao Tzu

One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. Henry Miller

Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings. Hodding Carter

There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. Walt Streightiff

It was kind of solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs, looking up at stars, and we didn't even feel like talking aloud." Mark Twain (from Huckleberry Finn)

Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it. Not Your Average Dictionary