Thing We Keep

I have a stack of these in a rubber band in my night stand drawer. It's almost 2 inches high now and I'm still adding to it. It's (when its completed) my record of one finished Merit Badge for one boy. There's probably 150 -200 of them that I've done. Bragging rights.

I recently showed up to play bluegrass with a handful of folks to play at a convalescent home in Long Beach. Before we went on, I was talking about how we had an empty nest now. The singer said, "An empty nest except for the Boy Scouts." He thinks its funny for me -this old dead head looking almost sixty dude still playing with the scouts. There still are there teenage boys traipsing through from time to time.

I've gone out of my way to recruit new guys to do the Cycling Badge. 150 miles per kid- a few Sunday bike rides yet to come. I can teach you how to take care of your body, make a movie, be a scholar, ride your bike, draw a picture, find your way in the world.

Mostly cause I didn't get to do any of this stuff when I was kid. My short lived career was over when they disbanded my troop because none of the parents wanted to volunteer.