Scoutmaster Minute -- 22 February 2022

Theodore was a sickly boy.  His health conditions were to plague him throughout his childhood.  He suffered poor eyesight and asthma and other ailments including headaches, fevers, stomach pains, and intestinal groaning. By far his worst malady was asthma, with attacks so bad as to nearly suffocate him.  Some lasted for weeks.  Having been born in 1858, his asthma was not very well understood, and doctors possessed no medicine to aid in opening the air passages.  In an attempt to relieve the child, his parents tried many commonly used remedies of the day.  The stimulants nicotine and caffeine were believed to help open the air passages so his parents would have Theodore puff on a cigar or drink the strongest coffee one could get down.  The coffee often made Theodore vomit.  Usually his father, Theodore, Sr., would carry his young son around just trying to comfort the child and to force air into his lungs.  His lungs were so weak that Theodore had to have his parents blow out his candle at night.  His father recognized Theodore's strength of character and strongly encouraged him to develop his body through exercise, building an exercise room for him and his siblings on the family porch.  Theodore's father famously remarked, "Theodore, you have the mind but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should.  You must make your body.  It is hard drudgery to make one's body, but I know you will do it."  Theodore rose to the challenge of his father and from that point on began a regimen of strenuous exercise that he would follow for the rest of his life.  Theodore loved the outdoors and nature.  During one family outing in the Swiss and Austrian Alps, his father noted Theodore's remarked lung improvement after arduous mountain hikes.  Theodore would continue to take on exercise, adopting weight lifting, gymnastics, wrestling, horseback riding, hiking, climbing, swimming, and rowing.

 

This fitness would serve him well in later life when he served as New York City's Police Commissioner, and later leading the charge of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment up Kettle Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, action that earned Theodore the Medal of Honor.

 

Most know Teddy Roosevelt as our 26^th President.  What many do not know about is his involvement with the Boy Scout movement.  Brought to America a year after his presidency, Roosevelt was an ardent booster of the organization.  He served on the committee of Troop 39 in Oyster Bay, New York, and was the first council commissioner of Nassau County Council.  As a former president, he was elected honorary vice president of the Boy Scouts of America.  Roosevelt was the first and only man designated as Chief Scout Citizen. Roosevelt once remarked: 

"More and more I have grown to believe in the Boy Scout movement. I regard it as one of the movements most full of promise for the future here in America. The Boy Scout movement is distinctly an asset to our country for the development of efficiency, virility, and good citizenship. It is essential that its leaders be men of strong, wholesome character; of unmistakable devotion to our country, its customs and ideals, as well as in soul and by law citizens thereof, whose wholehearted loyalty is given to this nation, and to this nation alone." 

 

For many years after his death in 1919, several thousand Scouts and leaders in the New York area made annual pilgrimages to his grave in Oyster Bay. 

 

No human is without flaws.  Teddy Roosevelt's example shows us that we should not let our disabilities serve as stumbling blocks or excuses.

 

I will keep myself physically strong.

Scoutmaster Minute -- 15 February 2022

In the words of Baden-Powell, "We never fail when we try to do our duty, we always fail when we neglect to do it."  In Scouts, we swear an oath that we will do our duty to God and Country.  This means following the principles of our faith and being good citizens in our community and our Nation.  In our service projects and daily Good Turns, we search out ways to do our duty.

A Scout is Loyal.

A Scout is Helpful.

A Scout is Obedient.

and

A Scout is Reverent.

Scoutmaster Minute for 8 February 2022

Today is the 112th Birthday of the Boy Scouts of America.  As some may recall, in November of 1909, American businessman William D. Boyce was visiting London and a British Boy Scout helped him to his destination through fog.  When Mr. Boyce offered the Scout a tip, the Scout declined it, stating that he was doing a good deed.  Boyce was so impressed that he went to the England's Scout headquarters and got information on the program, that Lord Baden-Powell had formed only two years prior in 1907.  When Boyce returned to America, he incorporated the Boy Scouts of America on February 8, 1910, applying for a congressional charter.

Here in the foundation of the Boy Scouts of America, we see the power of a Good Turn.  Kindness shown to others can prove the catalyst for great things.  Not only does the Good Turn benefit the individual who receives it, but it makes the giver feel good and builds the reputation of the organization.  In the case of the unnamed British Boy Scout, his action has positively affected over 110 million American youth who have participated in some aspect of the Boy Scouts of America in its 112 years of existence.

We can also prosper from the example of William Boyce.  From the time he visited England and interacted with a British Boy Scout and the time he incorporated the Boy Scouts of America was four months.  Boyce did not procrastinate.  When one has great resolve, he or she can accomplish great things in a short amount of time.

As we celebrate BSA's birthday, let's redouble our resolve to live up to the Scout Slogan and Do a Good Turn Daily, not just today or tomorrow, but every day.

A Scout is Kind.  A Scout is Helpful.