Memories (Continued) - I really enjoyed Boy Scouts as a boy. I didn’t really get into the merit badge stuff much but enjoyed the meetings, camping and games. I don’t recall the leadership really encouraging us or helping us much with the merit badges. I think if they had I might have put more energy into it. We were Troop 1, which was the 1st troop in the Atlanta Area Council and it continued on into the 80’s although a mere shadow of its former self.


(Lynn is front row, 2nd from the left – skinny, right?)

But the games were great! The first night of Scouts I’ll always remember. The troop had about an acre corner lot with a shot-gun building with wood floors, a gravel parking lot and lots of woods. Our first game was inside and was just for the younger boys. We stood inside on the wood floor in a circle with our hands clasped to each others forearms for added strength. There were 2 boys in the middle of the circle, one had a belt and the other didn’t. The object was for the boy with the belt to beat the other until he either jumped over the arms of the circle or burst through. I thought I had died and went to heaven! This was the coolest game I had ever played and knew that I was going to enjoy scouts.

Another belt game was called drop the belt. It was played outside with all the boys in the troop (young and old). Everyone stood facing the inside of the circle with their hands held behind their back. Someone would walk around the circle with a belt and leave it in another boy’s hands. That boy would then chase the one to his immediate right twice around the circle, whipping him as they ran. Then, the boy who was doing the chasing was the one to drop the belt. Everyone loved this game except for the slower guys.

I’m sure the game BuckBuck has faded into oblivion because of its rough nature. I hope I can explain how it was played. A boy would hold onto a tree with his legs spread. Another boy would bend at the waist, hold onto the other boy’s legs and place his head between the 1st boy’s legs. A 3rd would then bend at the waist, holding onto the 2nd boys legs and putting his head between that boy’s legs. This would continue until you had about 5 or 6 boys in the chain. The other team would then get a running start, spring off the last boy’s butt and jump as far forward as he could, landing on the backs of the boys bending over. Their feet could not touch the ground. The team would continue to pile on hoping to cause the 1st team to break under the weight without them touching the ground. It was fun and challenging and I’m pretty sure was the cause of at least one broken leg.

I’m pretty sure Kick-the-can is stilled played and you’re probably familiar with it. There are 2 teams, and a can placed in the middle of a circle. One team hides while the 2nd team waits for a determined amount of time. After that time all but 2 of the 2nd team hunts for the hidden team, capturing them by grabbing them long enough to say a lengthy catch phrase. If anyone is captured they are placed in jail and must remain there unless someone from his team kicks the can without getting captured themselves. It involves stealth (which I loved), some amount of strategy (to kick the can) and a certain amount of roughness when attempting to kick the can or in guarding it. I loved it. The part I liked was sneaking up on the can and kicking it without getting seen or caught. And if I did get caught, someone was going to feel it when they tried to stop me.

We also played a game inside called ‘Spud’. We used a tennis ball and everyone who played was numbered. Someone would take the ball and throw it in the room (all walls and floors were hardwood) and call a number. Whoever ‘owned’ the number had to find the ball and holler ‘SPUD’ which caused everyone to freeze in place. Then the owner of the ball would throw it at someone in the room. If they were hit without a bounce their number was recorded. And for every time your number was recorded you had to endure the Spud line, which meant you had to bend over a desk and become a target for everyone throwing the ball at your backside from about 10 feet away. Needless to say, you really tried to avoid getting hit during the game because that tennis ball would really sting.

We also had a demerit system during the meetings, and for every 3 demerits (if I recall correctly) you had to go through the belt line. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Boys were lined up in 2 lines facing each other and the one to be disciplined had to run through, getting whacked on the way by both sides of the line. Richard Groover once got something like 30 demerits one night. He was going to have to run through the line 10 times and lined up like he was going to run, then turned around and did run, all the way home. He lived about a mile and a half from the scout hut and just took off home instead of enduring the line. We just stood there and watched him in unbelief.

I know a lot of these ‘games’ sound primitive now and would probably result in charges being brought against the scout leader, but to us it was normal and fun. This was during the 60’s and we played rough, had a lot of freedom and never worried about being sued or about having someone from ‘the county’ investigating what we did at scouts. I had the time of my life and still recall moments of my life playing those games. I can remember the hits; the sneaking around trying to avoid being seen by the ‘enemy’; devising plans for a diversion so we could kick the can; getting chased and chasing others during drop the belt; and piling on during Buckbuck.

We liked the hiding and pursuing games the most because they involved Indian-like stealth and hiding, and they involved catching your opponent, which resulted in some rough behavior. One such game was called fox and hounds. Two boys would run out in the darkened woods by themselves and hide and the other boys would be sent out later to find them. My older brother always felt like he was good at the hiding and loved being the ‘fox’. On one night he did not run far at all, but climbed up really high in a tree just outside of the scout hut. He knew that everyone would probably run past him and on deeper into the woods and felt secure in his hiding place. Just as he planned, when released, all the boys ran excitedly right past his tree and into the woods, totally oblivious to him and his buddy in the tree next door. All the boys ran past except for one that is. A lazy, dorky kid came walking up, hands in pockets, looked right up in the tree and spotted them both! “I see you Mulkey” was all he said. My brother muttered an obscenity, said something about killing the kid, and then stepped onto the limb just under him to descend the tree. Only, the limb would not hold his weight and snapped loud enough for all of us to hear. Ricky came down the tree very quickly after that first step, breaking limbs all the way down. He landed on the ground on his back and refused to breathe for what seemed like an hour. I stood over him trying to get him to talk to me, but all he could do was try to grab a breath. Fortunately for the kid he did not feel like fighting after that.

Next – the camping trips