Mr. Dale Westman was a Saint.\u00a0 A Fireman by trade, his calling was to be our Scoutmaster. \u00a0He had two sons, Rick was a lot older than me, Denny was a couple of years younger.\u00a0 They were good guys, and scouts.\u00a0 Mr. Westman treated us all like his own. \u00a0His patience was infinite but he commanded respect. \u00a0He never gave up on a kid, ever. \u00a0Even if the kid gave up on scouts.\u00a0 We had some scouts that were rough around the edges.\u00a0 He made room for everyone.<\/p>\n
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He was a diplomat.\u00a0 The local Elks Lodge was our sponsor and we put a lot of wear and tear on the building.\u00a0 Fortunately for us, so did the Elks.\u00a0 After some of their parties, the place looked like there had been a scout meeting.\u00a0 The damage was often quite similar.\u00a0 The main difference was the Elks had booze at their meetings.<\/p>\n
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We had more than a few \u201ccleanup days\u201d at the Elks Lodge, that involved a bit of construction before we cleaned up.\u00a0 Seems that a couple of the scouts specialized in punching holes in sheetrock.\u00a0 We figured out who they were because they ended up breaking bones when they happened to hit the sheetrock over a stud.\u00a0 On cleanup days the scouts with casts on their arms learned how to repair sheetrock.<\/p>\n
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One year the Elks decided to evict the scouts after an incident. \u00a0The past Exalted Rulers, quickly quashed the rebellion. \u00a0They were the patriarchs of the community and had all been scouts. \u00a0They understood.<\/p>\n
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I didn\u2019t know until many years later, but Mr. Westman was often a character witness for scouts who got into trouble. \u00a0Mr. Westman and the local authorities plea-bargained more than one kid into the military. \u00a0I remember more than one former scout coming out to our camp to talk to Mr. Westman after they made it through basic training. Del G. the local Chief of Police had sons who were scouts.\u00a0 The Chief was on the committee too.\u00a0 It was a good thing that the firehouse and the police station shared the same building.<\/p>\n
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\u201cHey Mr. Westman!\u201d \u00a0 Was a greeting, a distress call, and sometimes an announcement.\u00a0 Occasionally it was a plea for mercy.\u00a0 It was usually shouted by a scout from a distance.\u00a0 Once and a while it was murmured through tears.\u00a0 He was always there.<\/p>\n
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Our troop did a 50 mile hike one year.\u00a0 It was a big deal.\u00a0 He hiked the whole way with us.\u00a0 To many of you who are hikers, 50 miles doesn\u2019t sound like much.\u00a0 It was a very long hike.\u00a0 Most of the participants were the younger scouts, their packs were too heavy, they didn\u2019t have much scouting experience, but they were determined.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t have training hikes or shakedowns, like modern scouts; we only had enough resources for the main event.\u00a0 We were not an affluent community, most of the hikers didn\u2019t have the right shoes, let alone the proper camping gear. \u00a0We had plenty of grit.\u00a0 We did fun stuff, like catch and cook rattlesnakes. \u00a0Fifty miles in five days was a lifetime.\u00a0 We had a few casualties but no regrets.<\/p>\n
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Every year we went to Camp Fleischmann, the main event of the scouting year.\u00a0 Mr. Westman usually didn\u2019t go.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think his wife wanted him using up his vacation time.\u00a0 It was a chance for some of the other adult leaders (parents) to take the helm.\u00a0 We did cool stuff like snipe hunts, raid other camps, rig snares and set booby traps.\u00a0 We also did the mundane stuff like hiking, merit badges, swim, canoe and row.\u00a0 There were always a couple of the adult leaders who developed nervous conditions after a couple of days and had to go home.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think we ever had a parent go to camp a second time.<\/p>\n
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Arts and crafts were fun.\u00a0 We did a lot of carving.\u00a0 We made neckerchief slides and carved faces on hiking sticks.\u00a0 We got to practice a lot of first aid. \u00a0Usually from carving on our fingers with dull pocket knives.<\/p>\n
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There were rites of passage for new scouts; and adult leaders.\u00a0 Trap them in sleeping bags.\u00a0 Get them lost at night. \u00a0Smoke up their tent while they were asleep, hold the edges down and shout fire.\u00a0 You learn a lot about adult leaders when there is a snake in their sleeping bag.\u00a0 Then there were the outhouses…<\/p>\n
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Canned prunes were in the rations, probably for the adults. \u00a0The scouts knew better than to eat them.\u00a0 They ended up hidden in fire pits, and stuffed in the back of our cook stoves.\u00a0 The hot cans would swell and burst. \u00a0The sugary syrup would catch fire and flare up nicely.\u00a0 Sometimes there was a respectable explosion; the fire would burp out of the stove onto the ground, or the cook, and molten sludge would erupt out of the chimney. \u00a0The cooking merit badge developed a new degree of respect.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We got to practice first aid for burns too.<\/p>\n
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In those days the camp had a sport that I have never seen anywhere else.\u00a0 We would take turns climbing to the top of a small fir tree.\u00a0 As many scouts as possible would grab the trunk whip it back and forth, trying to throw the rider off.\u00a0 It was great sport as long as you could hold on.\u00a0 If you lost your grip you could easily be thrown a mile or two.\u00a0 If you were lucky, you landed in another small fir tree, if not, you hit things like fences, rocks, or manzanita brush. \u00a0 After a while the tree got so limp it would no longer stand on it\u2019s own.\u00a0 I wonder if they ever recovered.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The adult leaders who went to camp with us returned with a hell of a lot more respect, and a lot less advice, for Mr. Westman.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mr. Dale Westman was a Saint.\u00a0 A Fireman by trade, his calling was to be our Scoutmaster. \u00a0He had two sons, Rick was a lot older than me, Denny was a couple of years younger.\u00a0 They were good guys, and scouts.\u00a0 Mr. Westman treated us all like his own. \u00a0His patience was infinite but he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":350,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tagesuppe.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}