I was a boy scout in a fairly dysfunctional troop of little hell
raisers. There were only three scouts my age and so we usually got
lumped in with the older boys to make it easier on the long-suffering
leaders. I started scouts at age eight with the cubs and managed to
get in trouble all the time by exceeding the bounds of good sense and
reason pretty much continually. I lost several dad-help-boy car and
spaceship races because my dad was not into helping but I learned to
take defeat ungraciously. But when you turn twelve you are moved up
into the boy scouts which is where they take the leash off and let
you not have dad help very much at all so my anarchistic leadership
was allowed to flourish and we had some good dangerous times. My
first leader in scouts was actually the guy who's sandbox I burned
down with Justin and Ryan but he had forgiven me by then and was a
great leader who let us do what we wanted after he brought us to the
woods. I stood out as a leader of boys so the summer that I turned
twelve they signed me up for a boy scout leadership training camp
where we were going to learn how to help the leaders mold these
rebellious young punks into good citizens. This was also the summer
when we would leave our hometown elementary/ middle school for the
first time to go to Jr. High in the next town over so there was a lot
of new stuff going on which suited me fine because I had not been
even remotely successful socially at my old haunts so a change of
scenery was just what I needed.
