About that time I also joined another group: Boy Scout Troop 188, specifically the Rattler Patrol. I initially regarded the Scouts as training for a life of adventure, but I was soon disabused of this notion by a more knowledgeable member who pointed out that with my interest in writing and his political clout, I could easily become troop scribe, thus achieving instant status without the tedium of earning merit badges. It was, he correctly pointed out, the troop council, and not the goody-goodies with all their badges, who actually ran the place.
I readily joined his political machine and never rose above second class. I was more than content to be a member of something and, for a few hours a week, to hang out with other boys engaged in normal boylike activities. My most notable outdoor achievement was to lead a three-hour hike that mystically and unintentionally brought us right back to where we started without ever having viewed our assigned destination. I also learned that the outdoors was more uninviting than I had envisioned -- the ground was hard, the food marginal, and even a spring night could be cold.
This view would be strengthened shortly after I graduated from Germantown Friends School when our ex-Marine assistant scoutmaster helped lead a group of boys, aged 13 to 16, to Canada's Banff National Park in order to climb the 11,656 foot Mt. Temple. The hikers were ill-trained and ill-equipped (some made the climb in sneakers) and the mountain was one of the toughest in the region.
Only a year earlier, four Mexican climbers had died in an avalanche four and half miles from where my scout leader and his squad was hiking.
The group made it to within 2000 feet of the summit before deciding to turn back. Then, according to an AP story:
As they started down, a mass of snow and rock roared upon them, tossing them 300 feet down the slope. One died instantly, rescuers said. Thee others succumbed to multiple injuries and exposure to the bitter weather last night before search parties could reach them.Seven students died; two others, along with the two leaders, were injured. Our assistant scoutmaster responded to press criticism saying, "How do you equip for an avalanche?"
There was little danger that I would have signed up for such a trip. On the other hand, at the troop council meetings I felt right at home. And the job of scribe led inevitably to my becoming co-editor of the Campfire, the mimeographed troop newspaper which I put out with Roman Hromnysky, my first friend with a name that was hard to spell. The paper inspired members to increase their peanut crunch sales, bemoaned the fact that "certain patrol leaders are taking very small interest in their respective patrols," and was the outlet for my first published verse, "In Honor of a Not Forgotten Can of Peanut Crunch."
Tell 'em it's fresh, tell 'em it's new
Tell 'em anything you darn well want to.
Go out an sell it in hot or cold
And don't come back until it's sold.
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