I think I am a fairly keen observer of human behavior. If I weren't, I probably wouldn't write as much as I do, finding nothing of interest worth commenting. Sometimes I'm in alien observer mode, other times I'm in old boy bonhomie mode. Last night, as I attended the Court of Honor for my son's Scout troop, I was in a combination of both.
There is nothing quite as telling to me about someone's character as the way they walk. It's something I simply can't avoid scrutinizing. I think I can tell a huge amount about a woman by her walk, it's how I've judged them as worthy of romantic attention all my life. But watching Boy Scouts walk as an insight to their potential as men is a relatively new angle for me.
During a Court of Honor, scouts, parents and troop leaders assemble to recognize the achievements of the boys in a formal ceremony. Our troop has these quarterly, others might have them semi-annually or only once a year. We have over 100 boys, so a lot goes on. Last night was a fairly light affair with only about 100 awards handed out. After summer camps where a lot of merit badge activity goes on, Courts of Honor can stretch out into very lengthy ordeals. These generally involve calling boys to the front for rank promotions in which they pin medals on their parents and repeated calls to please hold your applause to the end. But it wasn't that boisterous last evening and not all of the scouts to be recognized showed up, and it made for a somewhat more leisurely pace than normal. It was during this slow ambles to the stage of the United Methodist Church that I observed various boys styles of self-presentation as they were recognized for their accomplishments.
In the chatting classes, we often remark with disdain about the character of many aspects of our nation. More often than not we indict institutions: the Government, the Mainstream Media, public education, big corporations. Just as often we blame ideas: liberalism, fundamentalism, capitalism, socialism, religion. But all of these isms are rather nothing but those things that fill the empty spaces in men's heads, the spaces left over between them and the pursuit of their desires. Nothing illustrates this quite like the faces of boys because boys are mostly oblivious to institutions and ideas but rather slaves to their passions, hopes and fears. Even as they march somewhat in step to the lofty ideals and principles, even as they recite and salute, we know that they are yet boys and lacking a full grasp of the importance of these ideas and institutions.
There were new scouts. Young kids in short pants with skinny legs and wide-eyed expressions who walked up fairly quickly and failed to assemble in anything resembling order. They stood on different steps faced at various angles and stood frozen as they were given their first red berets. None spoke or much grinned.
As they received their honors for such achievements as merit badges as 'Citizenship in the World', 'Family Life', 'Personal Fitness', 'First Aid', 'Fishing' and 'Communications', various boys ambled up to the stage. Many wore fat laced skateboard shoes and walked slowly. One thin kid in shorts with white calf length socks had a sash full of merit badges, but seemed to be the most shy and retiring type you'd ever meet. One kid in the older Venture group actually seemed to be wearing saggy pants, but it was actually the way he was built, in a bowed over shape he loped up with a smirk, receiving a fairly high honor. One of the kids I drove last summer to a fishing trip had a vacant sort of attention. I like that kid a lot, but this evening he seemed robotic - just the kind of drone reactionary lefties stereotype scouts as. One of the senior leaders of the troop had, as usual his affable casual style of leadership. Though he's a physically imposing young man, I've seen him quiet the troop by doing magic tricks with fire instead of shouting. It's the kind of thing you wouldn't even imagine when you talk about disciplining 3 dozen adolescents.
But these boys are all different. They seem curiously empty of the kind of swagger you might expect, at least during the ceremony there was very little hamming it up. There seems to be very little else in them during the ceremony except for a kind of bored and absent-minded humility and reverence. Their receipt of acknowledgment was routine. Their acceptance with the right hand of the envelope and the left-handshake was casually practiced. They looked nothing at all like the marines you see on the television commercials, and for all the time I had wondered if their dressing up in uniforms might be nothing else but a preliminary setup for military careers, there is nothing really like that here.
The BSA does not crank out robots. It creates community around simple yet meaningful values.
- On my honor I will do my best
- To do my duty to God and my country
- and to obey the Scout Law;
- To help other people at all times;
- To keep myself physically strong,
- mentally awake, and morally straight.
The military creed is there close at hand in defense of what a nation should bring about in its boys. But it is not explicit. It's what I see as a man in the community. It's what I know as a father. It comes down to creating this space and defending it. If the boys are empty and oblivious, they most certainly know that in this room, in this Court of Honor, it is about their works, their families, their friends and the states of being they approach as they rise in rank, age and stature.
A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent.
Think about the last time you could say that about anyone you know. It almost seem anachronistic in these times when we decry whatever it is that we decry in our society, that in the faces of boys, lost as they might be to the goings on of the world, that they are these very things. They have the voices of boys. They don't proclaim loudly. They don't act defensively against threats. They are just making their way through school, football practice, Sunday School, Scouting, and family life. They're trying not to be dorks. And as tall and straight as they can be when prompted, they still walk like boys.
Fifteen minutes later when the Court of Honor is adjourned and Taps has been played and it's time for ice cream, they run like boys. The noise comes and you begin to appreciate the awkward humility of the ceremony.
There remains something pure in American boyhood which has not been lost to the destructive nature of the evils of the world. It's not the mainstream media, or big corporations or socialism that have gotten us in trouble with ourselves and our neighbors. It has been our inability to focus on some simple values we possess, but let get drowned out by the contemptible noises in our society. Exemplified in Boy Scouts, these values don't appear very powerful, they seem wobbly, thin, corny and weak. They seem out of touch with a 'greater' reality. But we have the ability to focus on them for what they are and as we recognize them in our sons, we may come to find them in our men as well. We may not recognize such values marching with vigor but ambling in silence. It's a good thing to see.
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