Scouts, Scouters, and Parents:
I hope all of you are doing well. With the extra time, many Scouts are working to retake school tests to bring up grades, exercising, working on merit badges and rank requirements, and doing good turns daily in and around our neighborhoods. If this is you, keep doing what you are doing and continue to look for ways to serve your community as we weather through the pandemic.
This week's Scoutmaster Minute:
I would never suggest that a pandemic has a bright side, but in the gray cloud of social distancing, one does not have to look very hard to find a silver lining. For example, many families are spending more time around the dinner table, together, talking and sharing a home-cooked meal. When I am out running, I see families walking together taking in fresh air and the beauty of Spring. Some families have revisited board games and card decks. Recently, my family enjoyed watching some home movies of when the kids were younger and my hair was darker. The current absence of the hustle and bustle of normal every day-to-day life has taken away the distractions and the excuses of not spending time together as a family. The innate human desire for social interaction is driving us from our early social-isolation retreats of bedrooms, game rooms, dens, man caves, and she sheds and into the common areas of the dining rooms, back decks and family rooms. Social isolation is causing us to rediscover the concept of family time. It will be interesting to see what life is when we are past the fear of pandemic. No doubt, we will want to do those things we are currently denied and socialize with those who we are now unable. Yet, I hope we grasp onto some of this "renaissance of the family." This is the silver lining to our current dark cloud. A Scout is Cheerful.
Yours in Scouting,
Doug Henry
Scoutmaster, Troop 1396
Chartered to St. Matthew's Lutheran Church