The enduring, unsentimental appeal of cub scouts
Spring 1970 (or maybe ’71): 10year-old Joel and his best friend “Toes” are huddled together, late at night, divvying up a bag of caramels on a cub scout camping trip.
While the rest of the pack snoozes peacefully in the tent, the felonious reprobates hatch a scheme to horde the tiny portion of chocolate flavoured treats and present the rest of the group with the less popular vanilla.
Things are proceeding according to plan until, the next morning at breakfast, an eagle-eared scout named Mandel announces he overheard the entire conversation and blows the whistle on their nefarious scheme.
Jump 48 years and as I sit under a tarp in the pouring rain with four other dads drafted by their spouses as cub leaders — “if you want Jimmy to join cubs, you damn well better be there to oversee things” — it occurs to me that you never know what, half a century later, is going to resonate.
On this drizzly September evening, for example, before cubs are herded into their tents as temperatures dip to 5 C, the conversations I overhear at the Dorchester International Cub Camporee aren’t about community service and doing your best and how to tie a reef knot (though I’m sure these things resonate on a subliminal level).
They’re about the trading cards handed out to celebrate its “Scooby-Doo” theme, the distribution of a $3 bag of candy procured at a campfire auction and the likelihood of a third cookie at bedtime “mug up.”
“Max, you and Alec left the campfire early because you told me you wanted to go to sleep!” grouses Scouter Chris when my son, 10, magically reappears at the sound of a rustling cookie bag. “Why are you not in your tent?”
Max, clad only in pyjamas, impervious to the cold, stares at the cookies.
“This is not where you’re supposed to be!” grumbles our imposing head scouter, a lovable grizzly whose bark is worse than his bite.
Big sigh. “But since you’re out here already you might as well have a cookie.”
Jump to two days later, after this rappelling, wall climbing, log sawing weekend has reached its rain-drenched conclusion and — returning home cold, wet and dirty — Max is asked about his favourite part of the trip.
“Getting that chocolate cookie at mug up,” he responds, giddy with excitement. “When I was supposed to be sleeping!”
Keep in mind this was an international event, with hundreds of activities to engage cubs on every level: obstacle courses, rock climbing, silk screening, tattoo booths, wood branding, zip-lining.
So what ranks No. 2 on Max’s list?
“Eating six grilled cheese sandwiches at lunch.”
At this point, I’m sensing an intergenerational link, confirmed when I ask my eight-yearold, who rappelled down the side of a building like Sylvester Stallone in “Cliffhanger,” for his own camping highlights. “When I yelled at C.K., ‘Watch
out for the plate!’” confides Sam, exploding into peals of laughter. “And he stepped on it and salsa and chips fell all over him!”
He pauses. “Also the vegetarian soup was really good.”
As a leader-in-training who watches these kids deal with situations outside their comfort zones and valiantly make the necessary adjustments, I’m smart enough to know that — like 10-year-old Joel at the height of the Space Age — there’s more to the scouting experience than cookies, caramels and C.K. wiping out on a pile of nachos (though it was pretty funny).
Getting along in a group setting. Developing independence and critical thinking. Rolling up a sleeping bag. Putting up a tent.
What I didn’t know was how Max — who has autism and struggles with social communication, flexibility and sensory issues — would take to this teetering-into-perpetual-chaos alternate universe.
Would he become agitated by his puddle-strewn tent after an unexpected rainfall? The dump truck snorer in the sleeping bag next to him? The primitive outhouses with no locks? The wet, muddy clothes? The fact his preferred diet — cheese, cheese, cheese — was not the focus of every meal?
As it turns out — this was unexpected — there are things more important to Max than the controlled sensory environment and scheduled predictability of his life on the home front: fitting in, being accepted, feeling like an equal.
Does anyone, other than leaders, even know he has autism?
In this setting, he seems barely distinguishable from the other 12 boys (and two girls) who — viewed through a broader lens — are all pretty much the same.
They’re curious. They’re whimsical. They have big personalities, all of which occasionally run out of control.
Reminders to calm down, respectfully rendered, help,
as do strategically deployed timeouts.
It’s not rocket science: Keep your hands to yourself. Listen to your leaders. If you’re going to melt down — this applies to everyone — do what you need to calm yourself down.
Those are the rules. If you can’t follow them, you will be going home.
I know, it sounds like the army.
But do you know what the attendance rate is at our weekly meetings and camping trips? 100 per cent.
There have been weeks where we’ve been scheduled for a night hike in the midst of a virtual tsunami, and I’ll think “there’s no way anyone will show up!” only to find 14 eager faces in raincoats and tuques ready to let it rip.
It’s not what I envisioned when I tentatively re-engaged with scouts after a 45 year absence.
I considered it an archaic throwback, filled with old-fashioned notions of propriety quaintly outdated in the hyper-programmed, looking-out-forNo. 1 culture of multi-screen millennial helicopter parenting.
The main appeal for me was childhood nostalgia, an emotional attachment that went out the window the first time a rambunctious nine-yearold ignored my request to stop whacking a fence and swung his stick wildly in every direction.
The real surprise, though, was my fellow leaders, less the bumbling interlopers I feared than sensitive survivalists who lay down the law, but monitor the progress of their youthful charges like a gaggle of proud mother hens.
“J.B. really rose to the challenge today,” notes one of these tough love emissaries as we methodically run through the challenges and successes of each kid in our care.
“I thought he was gonna lose it on the zip-line, but he came through with flying colours.”
Imagine the best teacher you ever had — someone who accepted you unconditionally but challenged you and didn’t take any crap.
That’s these guys.
I’m not saying scouting is a cure for autism (or anything else).
There is no cure — nor, in my humble opinion, is one required.
And it’s not that traditional supports don’t matter.
In places like school, where the focus is academic and distractions rampant, they’re critically important.
But Max — like every kid — also needs to learn to survive in the real world, away from a helping culture that sometimes confuses “empowerment” with “isolation” and “special status.”
In this sense, scouting has been a revelation, the stern look from a respected leader more effective motivation to make those huge existential leaps than all the government sanctioned therapies in the world.
The chocolate cookies and C.K. falling on his nachos?
Icing on the cake.