Scouts' future is all in knots
Boy Scout uniforms displayed Tuesday in the retail store at the headquarters for the French Creek Council of the Boy Scouts of America in Summit Township, Erie County, Pa. The national Boy Scouts of America urged victims to come forward Tuesday as the historic, 110-year-old organization filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday, in the first step toward creating a huge compensation fund for potentially thousands of men who were sexually molested as youngsters decades ago by scoutmasters or other leaders. Credit: AP/Christopher Millette
I was trolling for memories when I pulled my old copy of the "Boy Scout Handbook" off the shelf last week. The Boy Scouts of America had just filed for bankruptcy protection.
That in itself was not surprising. The organization faces a barrage of lawsuits from some of the 12,000 boys sexually abused by 7,800 scoutmasters and other leaders since the 1920s, per the Boy Scouts' own records. If similar scandals in the Catholic Church and elsewhere are a guide, there probably are more victims and perpetrators. The financial compensation will be massive.
So is the sense of betrayal. I never experienced or saw anything amiss in my years as a Cub Scout and Boy Scout. But it's painful to think about the boys who were not so lucky.
In truth, the organization was in trouble long before the filing. Membership has plummeted since the 1970s when I wrapped up my scouting career, from 6.5 million to less than 2 million today. Girls were invited to join in 2018 to help stem the losses. Perhaps the uniform is a turnoff. Perhaps there are too many other distractions, for kids and also for parents not willing or able to volunteer as lives get more complicated. But BSA also has been fighting the perception that scouting has become an anachronism with increasingly less relevance — even as it has added merit badges in subjects like animation, game design and robotics.
My fraying handbook, printed in 1968, left me wincing at first at the watercolor paintings of scouts in action, the sameness of the boys, the lack of diversity. Then the memories flooded back — summer camp with archery and canoeing, winter hikes through huge drifts of snow, a weeklong backpack of The Long Trail in Vermont. Our troop, Troop 8 in Hamden, Connecticut, was all about the outdoors. The degree to which kids have lost that connection is a shame.
At its best, Boy Scouts was one of those organizations that helped pull together communities. As those forces fade away, we'll all suffer if we don't strengthen or replace them.
As a scout, I learned to tie knots, signal in semaphore, read animal tracks, decipher topographic maps, and use a compass. It all seems hopelessly quaint, I know, but it's not. Sometimes relevance is timeless, if you look at things the right way.
Because when you're figuring out how to intertwine rope in a sheet bend or a clove hitch, you're learning something about forming ties that bind.
When you master the art of reading maps and contour lines that indicate elevation, and use a compass to fix you on the map and in the woods, you're learning something about making your way through a complex world.
When you're working on an Eagle Scout project that involves cleaning up a local river, organizing a group to wade into the reedy marsh through which it flows to pull out all sorts of garbage that had been dumped there, from paper and plastic to tires and appliances, you're learning something about the importance of protecting the Earth and the power of people who band together.
And when you're taught how to right a swamped canoe, turn your flannel shirt into a life preserver, make tea from the bark of a sassafras tree, and read animal tracks, cairns and trail signs, you're gaining the confidence that you'll be able to adapt to whatever life throws at you. That's still relevant, not at all anachronistic.
Boy Scouts needs to confront its painful past. But it might also be true that in the past it finds its future.
Michael Dobie is a member of Newsday's editorial board.
Michael Dobie is a retired member of the Newsday editorial board.
